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Bike Projector Makes Lane For Rider
hh4m writes "Whether it's San Francisco, New York, or any bicyclistic city in between, you're destined to witness biker after biker dancing with danger, especially at night when visibility is uncomfortably low. Alex Tee and Evan Gant's LightLane device was recently just a concept but is soon to enter reality as a much-needed visual declaration of personal biking space. With a dire shortage of dedicated lanes, LightLane provides urban cyclists with a solution that adapts to them and any route they make take. The compact projector mounts easily to the rear of a bike frame and projects a bike lane-inspired linear pattern that provides great visibility and a familiarity that helps catch a driver's attention."
Yes, it's just projecting a false lane on the ground behind your bike. Basically the bike rider is insisting there's a bike lane where there isn't one, and the hope is that cars will see it and think of it like a real bike lane. In the meantime, the bike is constantly moving... making this just a bunch of flashing red light on the street.
FTA: Originally presented as a losing design competition entry, LightLane has continued onto a path to production thanks to widespread public interest and encouragement.
It's a shit idea, and I SERIOUSLY doubt there's been "widespread public interest and encouragement".
Ultimately, I don't care if you're pissed off that you have to slow down to 35k in a 50k zone as long as you don't crash into me.
and that's the attitude that causes such ire amongst drivers. Lemme requote what the important bits are.
Ultimately, I don't care
And here's why you should revise the attitude
as long as you don't crash into me.
Cars drive away from a bike collision with nasty tickets (court dates, possible criminal charges), scratches, maybe some body damage. But the cars (and their occupants) drive away. Bikes don't drive away, bikers don't walk away, or possibly walk again, ever.
Cars always win, show some respect and don't be the jerk holding up 40 cars simply because you can't be arsed to pull over to the side and let people pass.
So, when the speed limit is 30km/h and I am traveling at 36km/h, is that not sufficient? I can burst up to about 50 km/h - the limit in most residential areas.
You should try biking to work every now and then. You sound tense.
Anyway, I agree - some cyclists are douches. So are some drivers.
I bike to work, and I have for years. It's faster for me to ride than to drive, and that includes a shower and change when I get there. (I'm an Engineer, and I wear slacks and a dress shirt.) My view is that any time a car has to pass me or slow down for me then I have failed. I'm also of the view that the lanes are just paint and they don't magically protect you against a driver who - statistically speaking - has a 20% chance of impairment. I stick to back roads and trails whenever it is physically possible. When I am on a major road, I will either go onto the sidewalk if it is possible (risking a $125 traffic ticket for doing so) or I will take the entire lane as I am permitted and required to do so by law.
From personal experience, I know that if I am close to the curb, the driver passing me (and again, I have failed) will try to stay inside the lane. If they think there's a chance that they can pass without going into the other lane, then they will. If I come out about 1 metre (3 feet), then they will pass safely. I have no illusions about how I would fare in an car-involved accident. Bikes represent 1% of all traffic, but 2% of all fatalities.
However, I simply can't ride on the sidewalk if it is populated. I generally sustain 30 km/h, and it's just not feasible for me to navigate around the pedestrians. You know those people who walk into the pedestrian crossings without looking? Where do you think they are when they aren't on the road? Yep, the sidewalk.
But these points are mostly trivial - a painted line won't protect you. Add some distance, say 100m. Throw in some trees, a nice berm, maybe a house or retail setting between you and the traffic, and now you're talking. I plan my routes so that I'm avoiding traffic. There's a trail by my house that takes me downtown. I take that to work.
If someone is riding without lights at night and/or without lights, I can't imagine that you'd face charges. One guy here killed a cyclist who was drunk, no lights, no helmet, and wearing dark clothes at night. He was only charged with "leaving the scene". (Justifiably so)
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
DUDE! you must look exactly like a lightcycle from Tron!
This gives me an idea! screw this new device, what I want is a thing that leaves a wall behind me. somebody pisses me off and I just swerve out in front of them and BOOM.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
I don't see why having fancy (but fake) laser-system-bike-lane would be any good. I have seen people driving around with a thin, flimsy reflector which sticks out 30 centimeters (about 1 ft) from the side of the bike. It won't damage cars if they get hit and also won't cause the biker to fall, because it will just fold backwards... but it does show cars to go around the biker. It's a 2 euro solution for the problem we're dealing with here. It does not require batteries. It can easily be built on any bike. It already exists.
In addition, real bike lanes are worth the money. Great experiments (Denmark, Netherlands) show that this really works. Perhaps there is no space in Manhattan, but on 99.9% of the surface of the earth, a 1 meter wide lane really isn't a big issue.
Then perhaps you shouldn't cycle naked.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
... the cyclist in the picture doesn't actually have any lighting on his bike apart from the lane-thingy :D
Anyway, as a dutch person who has biked in the states (Knoxville, TN area) I was absolutely appaled by the risks bikers have to take on americans roads. I was trying to make my way from my parents house to knoxville, a minor 10 mile ride, and at one point found myself forced to take an interstate ... holding to the shoulder of course but it was rocky and all ... worthless and dangerous.
To paint the picture, in the Netherlands you could cycle the whole country without having to share a lane with a car once ... we have a pretty good infrastructure with bike lanes and even seperate bike paths with run parallel to the roads.
My point being, this 'solution' sucks, is overengineered and impratical. If you want to really encourage people riding bikes instead of taking the car, build the infrastructure for it.
It can be done, even in formerly very car-centric cities. Take, for example, Paris, where the last years biking has taken off hugely because of a city push for more biking, including cheap rental bikes and massive new bike lane building.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
The green line lasers used here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOU563OvpUY look like they are in the 1mW to 5mW range type devices. These are eye safe under all conditions as it isn't possible to get all that light focused onto the back of you eye even if you hold it within a few mm of your eyeball. At 1m distance, the power entering your eye will be approx 1/100 of this so there is absolutely zero chance of eye damage from this sort of thing.
Dazzle on the other hand is far more of an issue. It is quite possible that a reflected beam could distract or dazzle a driver for a few seconds. Not something you want to happen.
wot no sig
You are not forced to overtake in the opposite lane ON A BLIND CURVE. Neither are you forced to CLOSE YOUR EYES, or LET GO OFF THE STEERING WHEEL. Instead you are supposed to stay behind the bike until you can overtake safely. Doesn't matter if its a bike, another car, or a horse drawn buggy. The road belongs to all of us and remember it's a speed limit not a speed requirement. It's only a few types of roads that have speed requirements, like motorways. But, I never see bikes there.
Where I live we have a very sensible rule called objective responsibility. It basically disassociates the responsibility from the culpability. So even if the it was the bike riders fault, the car driver will be held responsible, because they are using a two ton murder machine of steel. Much in the same way that if I decided to run around the office with a chain saw and someone gets up and walks into it, I should be held responsible even if it was them that walked into it. Basically the further to the left on this list the more responsibility: train>truck>car>bicycle>pedestrian. That is the price you pay for being allowed the use of increasingly dangerous tools in public.
Now I am a very law abiding biker, and I always use the bike lanes, stop for red etc. Sometimes, however, there are no bike lanes and I confess I will drive in the middle of a car lane. This is because of a little something called experience. I have biked in many countries in Europe, and I have never been hit by a car if I drive in the middle, because I'm easy to spot. When I drive as far right as possible I've been run into plenty of times. I've learned how to not die and that is unfortunately to be a nuisance to the car drivers.
In the big scheme of things what is more important: a 2 minute delay or a life? Would you like to have the death penalty if you ever inadvertently delayed someone for two minutes? Do you think that is reasonable?
So the next time you see a bike in front of you remember he is not putting you in any danger. It is your choice of maneuver that is putting you in danger. He might be annoying and slowing you down, but he has probably learned in the school of incredibly hard knocks, that that's the way to survive.
Bicyclists are a scourge on the roads.
You're confused with cars. Bikes don't take up a lot of space, don't go very fast, don't kill people through carelessness. In general, bicycles are very undemanding. They just want to share the road. It's the car drivers who want the road all for themselves and andanger other traffic that dares to enter their domain.
For each single guy biking, the oil and gas used by other motorists to pass, evade, get stuck at stoplights, and make up for poor riders more than compensates for the people not using cars.
It's the cars that are using oil and gas, not the bicycles. Do you always blame all your problems on someone else?
This isn't to say bikes are OK, but cities spend millions for dedicated bike trails and bike lanes for them.
They should. They also spend many millions on roads, and if cars don't want to share those, you need dedicated bicycle paths. Where else do you expect cyclists to ride?
The intolerance of American car drivers amazes me (but Spain is rumoured to be even worse).
No it's flamebait that happened to stray near to valid points while insulting people.
I'm not a cyclist and I commute a considerable distance down country roads used by bikes, walkers, tractors etc and I find your self-centric view of who the road is for to be condemnable. Roads are for use by vehicles and any competent driver can share them with other forms of traffic without difficulty. More bike lanes would be great but spending a small fortune adding them where their isn't sufficient traffic to justify it is wasteful when so many other things could do with government expenditure.
Though on second thought, as a cyclist, I'm not sure a deathly laser assault on drivers is completely unwarranted.
As a driver, I often have the reverse thought. I work weekends, and what is a nice ride out of the suburbs for lots of cyclists is my commute. What is it with convoys of cyclists? Either two (or more) abreast, stretching the overtaking distance substantially or preventing it completely, or in indian file leaving no gaps for cars to pull into, meaning you either have to try and overtake anywhere from 2 to 6 bikes at once, or not at all.
I'm a realist. I know we're going to have to throttle back on car use a lot in the future. I'm quite happy to pay more road tax to fund better public transport, and if it was better I would use it. Perhaps we can build more off-road cycle lanes too? Bikes and cars just don't mix - the size, vulnerability, and speed differentials are just too great.
In the meantime I wish cyclists would realise that some people still have to drive to make a living. We're not arseholes, most of us have good spatial awareness and don't really fancy the idea of killing anyone. Any chance of some consideration going in the other direction?
Rant over.
The LAW states that the bike has a right to the whole lane from the INSIDE of the white line to the yellow line.
Many states have laws that compel cyclists to keep as far right WITHIN THE LANE as safely practicable, but they are explicitly NOT compelled to ride on the shoulder (although it is permitted) AND they have a right to move leftward for safety purposes.
The law compels YOU, as a driver of a faster and heavier vehicle, to be aware of slower traffic and conduct yourself accordingly. YOU are the jackass, not the cyclists.
Do you honk and swear at tractors, funerals, and Amish buggies too?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
First of all, let me just say that it's a good fucking thing that your wife is the lawyer and not you; perhaps SHE understands that federal law is just one layer, and there are others on top of it. If you tried to apply these laws in California, you would fail. My responses are California-centric:
cyclists can ride as 'close as practicable from the side of the road', meaning they do NOT have to ride within the boundary of the shoulder, especially if there is debris on the far side.
-motorists MUST obey all road laws when dealing with cyclists, including passing laws. It is against the law to pass cyclists with a solid yellow 'no pass' line on their side, just as it is when passing a car. Furthermore, motorists must use the same discretion when passing cyclists, say on a hill or around a curve, as they would when passing another automobile.
And yet, it is still illegal for a bicyclist to ride in a fashion such that they create a road hazard, and they must pull over to permit passing if five or more vehicles stack up behind them, regardless of the speed at which they travel. (Same for cars and bicycles)
-cyclists have the right to ride 2x2 in the road, but must let traffic pass when appropriate
Just like motorcycles, except that you need to get out of my fucking way when it's possible.
cyclists MAY take up an entire lane if they deem the situation to be potentially hazardous to them, eg when going over a hill. If the cyclists suspects that their well being will be endangered by a driver wanting to pass them from behind while going over a hill or around a curve, they can effectively stop this from happening by taking up the lane. This is a tricky predicament because the aggressive driver behind you may want to pass anyway
It's also a tricky predicament because if you're going too slow up the middle of the lane, you're creating an unsafe situation, which is illegal even when your action is otherwise permitted by law.
cyclists DO NOT have to come to a complete stop at stop signs, and they CAN travel through red lights.
Not in California.
at night, bikes MUST have both front and rear lights, clearly visible to the driver, as well as side reflectors, and preferably reflective clothing.
In California, you need a front light and rear reflector, that's it.
in general, a bicycle is just another vehicle on the roadway.
Which is why most of what you said is nonsense.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ya... did you stop to consider the impact of your choice to drive a car? Don't inconvenience others and then expect them to like you.
Where I live, car drivers seem to be their own worst enemy; there are laws about what they may and may not do, and yet they seem to feel that it's ok to drive faster than the speed limit (it's not), ignore stop signs (they can't), turn without signalling (nope), harass other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians (assault and sometime battery), talk on the cell phone (illegal here), text message or work on computers (I'm not kidding about this), read books, put on make up, and ignore red lights. Ever see someone stop right in the middle of road just to talk to their passenger oblivious to the traffic they are stopping? Every year, car drivers kill thousands of people and do millions of dollars of property damage.
So, I really have no sympathy for them, and they're such a nuisance that I'm in favor of making it illegal for them to drive ANYWHERE except on the freeways.
XML causes global warming.
OK. I'll take your angry post as sincere. As a driver and a regular cyclist who has had the experience of being rear-ended by a car (clear day, perfect straight road, inattentive driver, saw it coming and had nowhere to go), I have a couple of observations to share. First, there are idiots everywhere, some behind the wheel and some on bikes. Second, the edge of the road had many hazards that are hard for drivers to see, such as glass, sand, rocks, beer bottles, potholes, and sewer grates perfectly aligned to swallow a bike tire. Even if most of the roadway lacks these obstacles, when they do occur a cyclist may have to swerve to avoid them. Riding a bit away from the edge of the road puts the bike further from many of these obstacles and gives the option of swerving away from traffic rather than into it. A third observation I have made is that the farther I ride from the curb, the more room cars give me. It makes no sense at all, but when I try scoot over as far as I can, thats when I see mirrors whizzing by inches away from me. Finally, in situations where there are parked cars, cyclists have to ride a few feet out or risk getting "doored" and perhaps damaging the underside of passing vehicles.
Honestly, most of us cyclists are not trying to inconvenience you, but just trying to get home safely.