The idea came to Otis Miller in 1996.

He could hear the sirens of an emergency vehicle wailing so he stopped. So did everyone else. Except for one driver who almost collided with it. He had an epiphany: What if drivers were also alerted with a light, not just the sound?

Wait, don’t fire trucks, police cars and ambulances already have those? Yes, but they can be difficult to see if coming from another direction and are still far enough away. But isn’t that what the siren is for? Yes, but some people have the car stereo up too loud or they’re chatting away on the phone and don’t  always hear the sirens.

Miller, though, saw something on TV around that time and thought that it would catch on. But he never saw his idea for a strobe light at traffic signals installed anywhere. Then a few years ago, he was at a traffic light and the same thing happened — a car flying through an intersection almost slammed into an emergency vehicle.

“I told my son who was with me, ‘There goes my idea right there,’ and he says, ‘Dad, you’ve got to go ahead and do it.’ ”

An advertisement he heard on one of the local news-radio stations finally gave him some direction. He called them up and paid the Advent Product Development company $9,200 to create a website, brochures and help him with other aspects of assembling the invention. He’s got a patent pending.

Miller, who works here at our Costa Mesa plant as a pressman, was OK with the slow pace of jumping through the bureaucratic hoops to get his invention on the market, but then two things happened: We got notice that many of the pressmen in our plant would be laid off in March and he saw in the paper that a 60-year-old driver got killed Wednesday in a collision with a Riverside County firetruck in Mira Loma.

“Now that I’m getting laid off I’m going to start going to fire stations, police stations, mayors’ offices, whatever I have to do to push it,” Miller said, adding he was really moved by the “tragedy” in Mira Loma.

He tried pitching a story about his invention to the L.A. Times, but he was directed to me. At first I thought he wandered into the wrong office so I started walking him to the Times side of the building and he said he’d already been there. Then it dawned on me that I was his last chance here.

I was reminded of a terribly tragic story I worked on back in the mid-’90s in suburban Chicago about a commuter train slamming into a school bus full of kids, killing seven teenagers. When then-Transportation Secretary Federico Pena held hearings on the crash one man pitched a device that he said could easily be installed on school buses warning them a train was coming.  I got the man’s card and called him later. None of the other reporters paid any attention to him. I think they just felt he was some businessman crassly trying to cash in on a tragedy. But, I thought, what if he’s got something that could help prevent something like this from happening again? So I wrote a story about it, excitedly thinking I had a big scoop. It was promptly ignored by my peers. Not long after it was published another man called saying he also had a device that could do much the same job and was also trying to market it. So I wrote a story about his company’s invention as well. And that was also ignored.

A year later, state lawmakers mandated the devices be installed on all Illinois school buses. Then it was a big story.

So when Otis pitched his idea I listened. Maybe he’s got an invention that can help people. And if it helps him in the process that’s just fine with me, too.

Consider this: On his weekends he lives in Palmdale with his wife Linda and son Olando, but it’s too far away to commute so during the work week he actually lives here — in his truck. We have a place where he can wash up near the gym and there’s a cafeteria so he’s set so long as he can stand sleeping in the truck. When he was first reassigned to work here last year after some pressmen were laid off at the downtown plant he tried staying at a Costa Mesa motel, but found it was too expensive and managed OK with his present accommodations.

Otis is just a hard-working-class guy trying to help his family make ends meet. He was due to mark 25 years with the Times this year. He thought he would retire here. After all, when he started a lot of the older guys in the press room made a career of it here. But things are different now. No one spends their life at one company anymore. What will he do now?

“I’m 48 so there’s not a lot of time left for me,” he said. “I have a friend talking about truck driving. Whatever comes up, I guess.”

Or, perhaps, he’ll start selling his invention. If you’re interested, give Otis a call at (661) 433-7411.

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