Vehicular sun visor

An improved vehicle sun visor of double wall construction is open along its bottom and side edges, and frictionally engages a captive, slidable auxiliary sun shield. The shield can be pulled outwardly from the visor in varying degree at any point along the visor's open bottom and side edges to selectively and precisely block blinding sun glare which bypasses the visor. This enables a vehicle operator to maintain a clear, safer forward view, which will reduce the number of highway accidents caused by sun glare and will significantly increase driver comfort and peace of mind.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Since the days of the horseless carriage all vehicular sun visors have 
suffered from a major and dangerous deficiency. When the rising or setting 
sun is sufficiently low on the horizon a driver is not protected by the 
sun visor against sun blinding from direct rays of the sun and/or bright 
reflections off other vehicles. This causes highway accidents ranging in 
severity from minor to fatal, and every year many people are injured or 
killed in such accidents. 
Since vehicle manufacturers have failed to provide a better sun visor 
design, a number of aftermarket accessory firms have promoted add-on 
devices which claim to remedy the sun glare problem, but which provide 
little if any practical benefit. These devices employ transparent tinted 
filter screens which fold or slide down from the bottom edge of the visor. 
But instead of blocking the sun's rays, they merely attenuate the rays. 
The rays still strike the driver's eyes, albeit with less intensity, but 
nevertheless greatly reduce the driver's ability to see. A further 
disadvantage is that these screens are always so wide that they cover most 
of a driver's forward vision, thereby undesirably and unsafely dimming his 
view of the highway ahead. 
Recently one automaker has incorporated a horizontally-slidable opaque 
panel into its visors which offers the benefit of increased glare 
protection on the sides of a visor. But the problem of preventing the most 
dangerous and common form of sun blinding--i.e. from rays passing under 
the visor--has remained unsolved. 
It is clear therefore that an important need exists for a fundamentally 
improved design for sun visors used in land, sea and air vehicles. 
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION 
The primary object of my invention is to provide an improved vehicle sun 
visor which will significantly enhance safety during early morning and 
late afternoon hours, by reducing the number of injury and death-causing 
accidents that result from blinding sun glare. 
A further object of my invention is to free vehicle operators from the 
discomfort, frustration, fear and stress caused by blinding sun glare. 
Another object of my invention is to provide an improved sun visor which 
can be substituted for all current visors. 
A further object of my invention is to provide an improved sun visor, 
simple in design and construction and low in manufacturing cost to 
encourage vehicle manufacturers to adopt its use immediately. 
A final object of my invention is to provide an improved sun visor with 
such potential for enhancing highway traffic safety that government 
regulatory agencies in the field of transportation will be motivated to 
mandate its use in all future vehicles. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The sun visor of my invention is comprised of a double-wall structure 
formed from two flat, fairly rigid, spaced slightly apart parallel panel 
wall members, which are generally rectangular in shape. The panels are 
joined at one of their longer edges to a generally rigid bridging spacer 
section which preferably is formed integrally with the panels. The inner 
edges of the panels define a slot which extends upwardly from the bottom 
edge to the bridging section. Thus the visor body is open along three 
sides, and the structure's cross-section is an inverted elongated U. 
On the inner side of the edge of one panel a continuous lip is formed along 
the outer and side edges. The lip projects towards the opposite inner 
wall, and is separated from it by a small gap. 
A thin flat slidable opaque member, smaller than the visor, is held 
frictionally between the walls of the visor. The slidable member functions 
as an auxiliary sun shield which can be pulled outwardly from the visor at 
any point to block sun glare which is bypassing the visor. The shield is 
provided with a small transverse stud at its inner end which cooperates 
with the aforesaid inner wall lip to limit the free travel of the shield 
and to retain the inner end of the shield captive between the visor walls. 
The shield may be circular but a preferred shape is generally rectangular, 
one of whose short sides is formed as a semicircle, the latter being the 
externally projecting end of the shield. 
The coefficient of friction between the shield and visor body is such that 
the shield can be easily manipulated by a driver and, after being 
positioned, will remain in place despite the force of gravity, vehicle 
vibration, and vertical jarring forces arising from unevenness in the 
roadway. Although these two requirements are in conflict, a satisfactory 
compromise can be reached if the shield is made as light-weight as 
possible. In turn, this dictates that it should be as thin as possible, 
consistent with desired minimum requirements for strength and durability. 
When the shield is withdrawn downwardly along the visor's bottom edge the 
horizontal arc of forward vision which it subtends is governed by its 
width and by its distance from the driver's eyes. The former is a fixed 
quantity, while the latter is variable and under the driver's control. 
This makes it possible for a visor manufacturer to choose a shield width 
which will provide satisfactory glare blocking under all conditions and 
circumstances. 
The eyes-to-shield distance is determined by the fore-aft position of the 
driver's seat, the angle at which the seat back is adjusted, and the tilt 
angle of the visor. For any given driver the first two settings normally 
remain constant, but the third has a substantial range of movement, thanks 
to the visor being hinged. This enables a driver to "adjust" the effective 
width of the shield to match the width of the glare area, and in turn this 
allows him to maintain the best possible view of the road on either side 
of the glare area and to see considerably better than if the glare were 
not blocked. To the objection that the shield would prevent a driver from 
seeing an object directly in line with the sun, the answer is that such an 
object is invisible anyway without the shield. As to glare which bypasses 
the visor on either side or at its lower corners this too can be 
effectively blocked by suitably positioning the shield and adjusting the 
visor's tilt angle. 
A finger-grip element is formed at the end of the projecting portion of the 
shield, shaped and sized to facilitate grasping and movement. Being 
slightly thicker than the shield it can also serve as an external stop to 
prevent the shield from being accidentally swallowed by the visor, which 
could occur if the shield's width were less than the depth of the slot in 
the visor. 
In a preferred embodiment of my invention, the material from which the 
shield is made is completely opaque, since this is the only way to 
completely block glare. Despite this, the majority of people automatically 
assume that any auxiliary glare-reduction device should and must be made 
from a tinted transparent material. A vehicle manufacturer afraid of 
challenging this `conventional wisdom` could in fact use a darkly tinted 
transparent material for the shield, and providing that its level of light 
transmission was low enough the results could be satisfactory enough. 
To obtain the required coefficient of friction between the shield and the 
visor either of two methods can be used, or they can be used in 
combination. In the first method, the frictional effect is achieved by 
providing an interference fit between the shield and the visor. The visor 
body opening acts like jaws which lightly `bite` the shield. The 
coefficient will depend on how tightly the visor is gripping the shield 
and on the surface finishes of the respective shield and visor areas that 
are in rubbing contact with one another. 
The second method of producing controlled frictional engagement is to 
employ a small compression spring between the shield and the inner wall 
which has the lip. The preferred location for this spring is around the 
transverse stud. The coefficient will be determined by the spring strength 
and the aforesaid surface finishes. 
The rigid bridging section to which the two body panels are joined is 
fitted with a central longitudinal bore, adapted to receive the 
conventional elongated metal rod that is universally used to support 
existing visors, and which also serves as a hinge pin. Because of this, 
plus the fact that my visor can readily exactly duplicate in plan, shape 
and size any current visor, it can be directly substituted for an existing 
visor, which is an advantage for a vehicle manufacturer. The overall 
thickness of my visor will be controlled by the amount of cushioning 
material used, in the same manner as conventional visors. Another 
advantage of my visor, from a vehicle maker's viewpoint, is that its 
simple and uncomplicated design will permit a relatively low manufacturing 
cost in mass production.

ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENT 
In the accompanying drawing, the improved sun visor of the present 
invention is indicated generally 2 having a body 3 is mounted in the usual 
manner to the roof 4 of the automotive passenger vehicle indicated at 6 
just above and to the left of the windshield 8. The dashboard 10 and 
steering wheel 12 of the vehicle 6 are partially shown simply to 
illustrate the usual placement of a sun visor 2 in an automotive passenger 
vehicle. 
The sun visor 2 is pivotally mounted on the arm 16 which has a circular 
cross section as shown in FIG. 2. A first end 18 of the arm 16 extends 
from the first side edge 17 of the visor 2 adjacent to the upper edge 22 
of the visor. 
The end 18 of the arm 16 terminates in a right angle section 19 which is 
pivotally secured in a mounting bracket 14 on the roof 6 in a known 
manner. 
The arm 16 passes through a cylindrical channel 20 formed in the upper end 
or bridging section 26 of the visor 2 which extends from the left side 
edge 17 of the visor to the opposite right side edge 23 of the visor 2. 
The channel 20 and the arm 16 are dimensioned so that the visor pivots 
about the arm 16 when moved but will be frictionally held in place at a 
desired angle set by the user in the usual manner. 
The body 3 of the visor may be integrally formed of slightly flexible 
plastic such as polyethylene or other routinely used materials to form a 
first side wall 22 and the second side wall 24 which are spaced slightly 
apart as shown best in FIG. 2 and joined along the upper end section 26 as 
in which the cylindrical channel 20 is formed. 
The first side wall 22 on the inner-face thereof along the periphery 
thereof has a projecting lip 30 extending toward the opposed second side 
wall 24, but spaced therefrom a distance 28 just slightly less than the 
thickness of the shield 32 so that the shield 32 is moveable by the user 
and will be frictionally held in place when released by the user. 
The shield 32 is generally rectangular in form, however the outer end 33 is 
slightly rounded in the prefered embodiment shown since the usual pattern 
of sun rays is radial, but the specific shape of the outer end 33 is not 
particularly critical. A stud 34 located near the inside end 35 of the 
shield 32 extends perpendicularly therefrom towards the inside surface of 
the wall 22 and is dimensioned so as to frictionally engage the wall 22 to 
frictionally hold the shield 22 in a position desired by the user. 
In the embodiment shown, a small compression spring 36 is placed around the 
stud 34 to produce a slight pressure against the wall 22 and shield 32 to 
further insure sufficient frictional interference to hold the shield 32 in 
a position fixed by the user. 
The outer end 33 of the shield 32 is provided with a gripping handle 44 to 
facilitate movement by the user and is dimensioned to also act as a stop 
to assure that the outer end 33 of the shield 32 is always accessible and 
does not slip inwardly past the lip 30 of the wall 22. 
The walls 22 and 24 may be covered on the outer surfaces with the usual 
padding and decorative finish materials as well as such known accessories 
such as cosmetic mirrors and courtesy lights. 
The shield 32 is comprised of opaque plastic and the stud 34 and handle 44 
preferably are molded integrally therewith. 
In alternate embodiments, if desired, the shield may be darkly tinted 
transparent plastic with or without light polarizing characteristics. 
The visor body 3 is preferably integrally molded of plastic so that the 
walls 22 and 24 and the lip 30 are of one piece of semi-rigid plastic, but 
flexible enough that the shield 32 may be inserted between the walls 22 
and 24 by spreading them slightly along the lower edge. 
In FIG. 1, the shield 32 is shown at a first position 46 extending from one 
end of the visor and in phantom at other positions 48, 50 and 52. It is 
apparent any number of positions may be fixed by the user depending upon 
the location of objectionable glare. 
While the invention has been described by reference to an illustrative 
embodiment, it is not intended that the novel device be limited thereby, 
but that modifications thereof are intended to be included as falling 
within the broad spirit and scope of the foregoing disclosure, the 
following claims and the appended drawings.