Apparently the inventor was driving along a road one night in the fog, and saw a cat in front of him. The eyes reflected his headlamps, making it stand out - so he swerved his car. When he stopped and got out, he found that the cat was standing on the edge of the road; if he'd not seen it he would have continued (and presumably hit something). The cat saved his life; and got him thinking about why he'd seen its eyes so clearly cutting through the fog...
Edit: apparently this was
Percy Shaw, of
Halifax UK (probably why we know them more as Cats Eyes over here
). And the road in question was the road from
Queensbury.