Radar Changing the Face of Cycling

First time accepted submitter Franz Struwig writes "MAKE Magazine has a great review of a bicycle radar product — showing off some of the early prototype innards: "The latest version features a 24 GHz radar antenna — high enough to resolve more targets and small enough to fit on a bike — an ARM processor, and Bluetooth LE to communicate with the front unit. The radar creates a doppler map, and recognizes not only the vehicle, but how far away it is and how quickly it’s approaching. It communicates this to the cyclist by a system of LEDs, and to the car by increasing the rate at which the tail light blinks as the car gets closer."

Comments

A heavy, complicated solution to a rare problem

[alphazulu0]

I commented elsewhere that this is heavy, complicated and no better than a tiny rear flasher. Plus, while getting rear-ended by a car sounds scary, it's one of the least common bike accidents. According to these stats (based on bike collisions in 3 cities in 1995), only 3.8% of crashes were car rear-ends bike:

http://www.bicyclinglife.com/L...

There's some cool tech in this product, but it won't help with the most common bike collisions (#1 car pulls out in front of bike, #2 parked car door opens into bike).

Re:What we need...

[AK Marc]

So to ride a bike, you must walk it across intersections? Note, that's not how the instructions for using bikes on the street work. The official instructions for Texas are for the rider to safely leave the bike lane, merging into regular traffic, then change lanes to the regular car left turn lane, turn left when safe and legal to do so, then return to the right side of the roadway.

Maybe the anti-bike nuts hate bikes because they don't even know the bike rules.

Re:What we need...

[rainmaestro]

Such a simple concept that you managed to get it wrong, apparently.

From my state's laws:
        s. 316.151 – Required Position and Method of Turning at Intersections
        (b) Left turn . A person riding a bicycle and intending to turn left in accordance with this section is entitled to the full use of the lane from which the turn may be legally made.

If you are making a left turn at an intersection on a bicycle, you get in the turn lane just like a car. Laws could of course vary by state, but in every state I've biked in, this was the case.

Re:Useless

[pipedwho]

It's not that the driver thinks it's a motorbike and gives extra consideration. It's that with multiple co-linear lights, a driver is far better able to judge how far away the cyclist is. As another poster noted, if a driver thinks you're a motorbike, they'll also assume you are travelling at or faster than the traffic flow.

On a bicycle, a single point source of super bright light will let a driver know that you're somewhere in that direction - while partially blinding them if you angle it up like I see done far too often.

Whereas, a wider (multi-element) lamp that isn't overly bright will let the driver's eye far better estimate and track how far away you are - while not blinding them to the other surrounds.

Re:What we need...

[Bert64]

The problem is that there are no license requirements for bikes, so many riders are totally unaware of the actual laws, and often highly inexperienced..
Drivers at least have to pass a test, and while there are plenty of bad drivers they should at least have some experience and understanding of the rules.

On a daily basis i see bikes ignoring red lights, while to see a car go through on red is pretty rare. Just yesterday i saw a bike come off of a footpath, go directly across a 2 lane road without slowing or checking for vehicles (causing several cars to hit the brakes) and into the wrong end of a one way street.

And it's no better as a pedestrian, i was shouted at by a bike rider who took issue with the fact i was in her way by walking down the sidewalk causing her to hit the brakes. It's illegal to ride there, why should i be forced to get out of the way of a bike speeding down the hill ringing a bell and shouting?

Also when trying to cross a road, you get a group of vehicles which pass you, and then a long spaced out stream of bikes that fill in the gap before the next group of vehicles - giving you no time to cross.