Patent ID: 7866680

Claim:
In a land vehicle including a wheeled axle with a self-steering ground wheel that is free to steer itself in response to rolling ground contact, said ground wheel operable to be selectively locked by an operator-actuated locking mechanism into a straight-ahead position so that self-steering of the wheel is restricted, the improvement comprising: a wheel lockout indicator system operable to sense when the ground wheel is locked into the straight-ahead position by the locking mechanism and in response thereto alert an operator to confirm that the ground wheel has been locked in the straight-ahead position, said locking mechanism including a locking element shiftable into and out of a locked position wherein the element substantially restricts the ground wheel from self-steering, said wheel lockout indicator system including a pair of sensors and an interface operably coupled with said sensors, one of said sensors being operable to sense when the ground wheel is disposed in the straight-ahead position and the other of said sensors being operable to sense when the locking element is in said locked position, said sensors being connected with the interface in such a manner that the ground wheel must be disposed in the straight-ahead position and said locking element must be disposed in said locked position before the interface can provide a signal to the operator that the ground wheel has been locked in the straight-ahead position.