About the  inventor:

In 1976, at the age of 17, when he was too young to sell the idea, he says he imagined a

third brake light center-mounted in the rear of a vehicle.(Centre high mount stop lamp CHMSL)

(Such lights became mandatory in the United States in 1986, according to  Wikipedia).                

His light would have been higher up so it could be seen by more than one trailing vehicle.                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                   L'Almanac