Back in 2006 a Mother’s Day flood caused the Merrimack River in Massachusetts to devour large sections of a road that the Town never repaired. Mr. Don C. the ultimate inventor of the DrivewaySpikes™ product had a nearby driveway that became the turn-around for all the passing vehicles. Don being a friendly sort, watched as the problem got worse and worse. Often, even with having 200-foot-long driveway cars traveled the extent of the driveway, just to turn around. Property damage soon followed and with many irate drivers, even personal safety was at risk. Something had to be done! Don tried the typical Traffic Cones and roping off the end of the driveway however, the cones didn’t stop the traffic unless they were placed in the driveway, then in that case, the cones or the rope had to be removed with every personal passing both in and out of the driveway. The idea of parking a vehicle at the end of the driveway was tried but, that was equally troublesome. What to do?
Don being somewhat of a Gentleman Farmer raised chickens for family and friends. Eggs were plentiful and the meat helped with the budget too. Having the idea to build a handmade chicken feather plucker Don’s wife Gayle happened to notice rubber chicken ‘fingers’ were actually a product a person could purchase. The idea for the DrivewaySpikes™ product was born!
The first prototype units for the ‘base’ were produced using a wooden ‘plank’ with the rubber chicken ‘fingers’. Don placed the sample product at the end of the driveway and Wow, the DrivewaySpikes™ stopped all the unwanted vehicle turn-arounds. Knowing that the wooden plank was only a temporary ‘fix’ the next step was to come up with a way to make the product out of rubber. Being that Gentleman Farmer Don took a thick rubber mat from the horse barn and shaped it into a useable base. The DrivewaySpikes™ product development moved to another plateau.
With interest quickly growing in the product, Don began searching for a rubber product manufacturing company, enter Tire Conversion Technologies. TCT being a design and manufacturing company of rubber products offered our expertise. With Don having somewhat limited exploratory capital, TCT designed and created a prototype wooden mold capable of producing several hundred samples. Normally production molds would be fabricated using steel molds at much higher price points. Before too long, sales had gobbled up the opening production run and Don was left with a big decision. Should he invest into an expensive tooling upgrade? Having recently retired from the Postal Service and cutting back on his farming activities making this type of an investment just was not in the cards.
Once again, enter Tire Conversion Technologies. TCT had the ability to design and fabricate the required tooling to manufacture the original Model DS-22 DriveSpikes, add another larger model the DS-47, while upgrading the black colored rubber chicken ‘fingers’ to a yellow colored flexible polymer ‘spike’ providing even more of a deterrent for unwanted traffic. Entering a joint venture with Don, TCT pays royalties for every DrivewaySpikes™ product sold.