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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."
As a long-time road cyclist I can say this is a completely useless product. Obviously if one is riding on the road one is going to be passed by cars. And so long as one is not an idiot listening to music while riding, one can *hear* vehicles approaching from the rear. This device can't discern how closely a vehicle is going to pass you, which would be the only useful information - warning you if the vehicle is going to pass, say, less than three feet away horizontally.
. . . do something about the assholes on bikes that think that little white line and bike lane are some sort of magic force field that protects them from massive hunks of steel inches to their left...
As you drive, do you also swerve into cars separated from you by the "magic force field" white line? Or are you concerned about your paint job in a car vs. car scenario? Perhaps bikes/bikers just need some extremely aggressive abrasive on their sides to protect them from motorists.
I am not a crackpot.
Yes, epileptics can drive. It varies by state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
I know an epileptic who had his license pulled after a single vehicle accident. He was able to get them back in about a years time but needed his doc to sign off on it. The doctor is the one who pulled his license too. The state didn't even cite him for the accident but his doctor filed the paper work, told him his license was no good and by the time he was released from the hospital, the revocation letter was sitting in the mail box. He ran up a telephone pole guide wire and flipped his car on it's roof then proceeded to bang his head and everything else not restrained by the seat belt off the steering wheel and whatever else was in the way while the seizure was happening- no damage to anything but the car and himself.
"Many of them ride in the lanes for cars even when there are marked bike lanes. "
They are allowed to do so.
"many of them refuse to use the bike lanes to keep from getting crushed by buses pulling over to the curb, but it's still annoying."
No, actually. They're doing it to avoid being doored by drivers, the top cause of injury in US cities. Being doored can kill them either from the impact with the door, or if they're thrown outward into traffic and then run over.
The problem is that you and your fellow drivers can't check your fucking mirrors before opening your doors. We're reacting to that. Either check your fucking mirrors, or stop complaining that what we're doing is "annoying" you.
To leave the bike lane, you still have to yield to vehicles that are not in the process of changing lanes. Since cars are typically moving faster than you, you generally wouldn't be able to do this safely unless there was absolutely no other traffic moving in the same direction (which isn't impossible, but is unlikely on a road that has high enough traffic volumes that it would warrant having a controlled intersection), and if you got rear-ended by a car while you were trying change lanes, you would be 100% at fault for the collision.The safest thing to do, in my experience, is just stay on the right hand side and manually walk the bike across to get onto the road you intended to turn onto.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Whether they are "entitled" to use it or not is irrelevant if they cannot safely enter the lane in the first place, because cars move much faster than bicycles, preventing a cyclist from being able to change lanes from the rightmost lane (designated bike lane) to the leftmost without causing an accident that they would actually be considered entirely at fault for.
Going slower than the traffic behind you wants to go is not "causing" an accident. What causes accidents is idiotic responses to a slow vehicle in the lane. Just slow down, be patient, and there won't be an accident.