According to an old Finnish saying, a reflector is the cheapest life insurance.
There are many legends about how the reflector was invented, but this is the true story of how the reflector became a Finnish innovation.
Kalervo Suomela's very first Snowflake design. Photo courtesy: safetyreflector.fi
In 1955, farmer Arvi Lehti (1912–1972) from Pertteli bought an injection moulding machine for his barn, which he used to produce plastic homewares and reflectors which could be installed at the back of trailers. With his friends in the Traffic Police, Arvi pondered whether the methods used to make trailers more visible to traffic could also be used with pedestrians. He had the idea to glue together two reflective panels for trailers and to use a safety pin and a piece of string to hang from a jacket – the very first pedestrian reflector was born. This early version was fairly awkward and heavy, so it did not catch on.
Arvi Lehti died quite young, and his son, current managing director Taisto Lehti (born 1945) took over Talousmuovi Oy when he was only 25 years old. The business grew and turned into TALMU Oy, which at its peak employed 450 people. TALMU produced many kinds of plastic products, but Taisto always saw the reflector as his baby.
The popularity of the reflector soared after Taisto brought galvano prisms over from England in the 70s, allowing the company to make reflectors in different shapes. The snowflake reflector, a Finnish classic, was designed by product designer Kalervo Suomela in 1973.
Taisto Lehti is largely responsible for the fact that Finns naturally wear reflectors; today half of all Finns wear one. Now these same prismatic reflectors are exported to dozens of countries by Safety Reflector Finland Oy.
Taisto Lehti (son of the inventor Arvi Lehti) and Kalervo Suomela (designer) taken Dec. 13, 2017. Photo courtesy: safetyreflector.fi
Factory today. Photo courtesy: safetyreflector.fi
