Ed Peterson Invented Home-Security, Auto-Reverse Alarms

BOISE - Ed Peterson, inventor of the alarm that beeps to warn people when trucks and heavy machinery are backing up, has died at 78.

Mr. Peterson, who died Wednesday, also invented collapsible luggage carriers, home-security alarms and automotive-electrical devices.

In the mid-1960s, he invented the Bac-A-Larm, marketing it initially to international construction and engineering giant Morrison Knudsen, which, like Mr. Peterson's company, was based in Boise.

The system is now used worldwide.

The company he founded with his brother, Peterson Rebuild and Exchange, or Preco as it is known today, is the world's largest supplier of reverse-warning systems.