High-speed car chases can be dangerous, but they might finally come to a quick end thanks to a new device called the Grappler Police Bumper. The Grappler mounts to the front of police pursuit cars. It is deployed by the push of a button and ends a car chase right in its tracks, safely and securely. It shoots out a “Y” shaped heavy duty net, which is maneuvered under the rear tire of the fleeing vehicle. The net wraps around the rear wheel and axle of the suspect’s vehicle, and brings it to a stop while destroying the tire.
The traditional method of stopping a fleeing suspect is the PIT (Pursuit Intervention Technique) maneuver that involves nudging the fleeing car so it spins around. However, the higher the speed, the more unpredictable and dangerous the PIT maneuver becomes. The Grappler is specifically designed to disable the rear wheel of a vehicle in a police chase, bringing them to a quick and safe stop without the use of the PIT maneuver.
On a rear wheel drive vehicle, the Grappler is often enough to drag the vehicle to a stop by itself. With front wheel drive cars, once the net grabs the rear wheel, the police driver can maintain some distance between him and the suspect’s vehicle, and then drag it to a halt using a tether line and by applying his own brakes. This can effectively stop the fleeing car in a straight line, making it possible to use it in heavy traffic as well.
The Grappler looks like a pair of horns on the front of the car, and it can be disguised as a bicycle rack for unmarked vehicles or tactical operations.
Grappler’s maker, Stock Enterprises, touts it as the new standard in de-escalation of high-speed pursuits – that it brings cars to a much safer and more controlled stop than the PIT technique. On the other hand, the system is somewhat bulky, and it may not work on all police vehicles. It remains to be seen if it catches on with the police departments around the country. If it does take off, high-speed chases might become a thing of the past.
Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns; that is privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy.
Design principles
Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".
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