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

Useless

[jam42]

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.

Re:Useless

[TWX]

You know what apparently does work, based on a friend's experiences?

Putting a pair of amber lights out to the sides of your red center light, and having a sufficiently bright headlamp in front that illuminates a good chunk of road.

Those work because drivers assume that you're a motorcycle, and if you're a motorcycle then you're a lot heavier, and more likely to cause damage to their car.

With modern battery technology and modern, super-efficient lighting, it should be easy to fake a bicycle to light up like a motorcycle well enough to fool drivers at night.

Re:Useless

[mark-t]

If you're a motorcycle, you should be capable of going a lot faster.... and I wouldn't have any reason to suspect that you aren't going to be trying to keep up to the flow of traffic... If I know that you are a bicycle, I know roughly what to expect of your top speed, and will try to safely navigate past you... not try to hit you just because I know that you won't damage my car. Because even if you don't make a scratch in my car's paint job, I'll still have to face all of the other repercussions of being in an accident... which would include an insurance report at the very least... plus being on the hook financially for any damages to them or their bicycle -- unless I intended to do a hit-and-run (which is a jailable offense, so I better hope there are no witnesses who can take note of my license plate).

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:They avoid epileptic frequencies, right?

[AK Marc]

How often is that? I know an epileptic who was 20 years without a seizure, but still couldn't get her license back. Are they letting epileptics drive these days?

And what do you avoid? 8-70 Hz? More? Less? There isn't a single perfect flash to trigger it (the most reliable triggers are multi-color, which this is not, and the studies indicate that color of the monochromatic flashes matters, so red may not have the same "optimal" frequency as white, or other colors.

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.