Laser-made bike lane could save lives

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/cartech/lasermade-bike-lane-could-save-lives-20110615-1g2oi.html

by julian37 • 15 years ago

85 60 15 years ago

smh.com.au

pspeter3• 15 years ago

This could really save lives. I bike to work everyday and cars usually don't recognize bikes as something that belongs on the road.

Johngibb• 15 years ago

One of the biggest changes I've noticed since moving from NYC to California (Berkeley, and then Santa Cruz) is recognition on the road.

Goronmon2• 15 years ago

That's because bikers (even well behaved ones) are annoying to deal with. Even if you are following all the rules, I still can have a hard time getting around you if the street is busy. Pretty frustrating dealing with a bicyclist climbing a hill at 5mph on a busy main road when you don't have quite enough room to safely get around them.

That's not even counting the bicyclists who blow through stop lights, stop signs, don't stop for pedestrians at crosswalks, ride on busy sidewalks.

In my honest opinion, I don't think bicycles belong on roads (at least in city areas).

asynchronous13• 15 years ago

I'm a very data driven person. Here's an experiment I did that ended up changing some of my driving habits.

The important data to me is my total driving time from A to B. So, I measured my total driving time to and from work. I also noted the number of bicycles I had to pass on that journey. If the cyclists were slowing down my total commute time, then there should be a trend in average driving times with 0, 1, or 2 cyclists encountered. No such correlation exists in my data. On average, red-lights and other traffic have more impact on my commute time than do delays caused by cyclists.

My conclusion: my emotional response to a cyclist was not proportional to any measurable delay. Now I wait calmly for a safe place to pass, secure in the knowledge that, on average, it doesn't delay me at all.

(obviously your commute time could be affected differently than mine, but I encourage you to look at the actual delay, and see if your frustration is warranted)

skimbrel• 15 years ago

This is a great idea. If I biked more regularly I'd want one of these.

pedalpete• 15 years ago

A while ago I saw an image of a guy who had built a similar device which put a laser 'bike lane' behind the bike, kind of a joke giving you a bike lane wherever you go.

Putting it in front of the bike would seem like such a minor change, but puts it from being a gimmick to a lifesaver.

furyg3• 15 years ago

I think it wasn't real (just a mockup):

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/02/lightlanes-lase/

lloeki3• 15 years ago

Even this device is a lifesafer, as it builds a very patterny visual metric of the space occupied by the biker. And the human brain loves patterns. Therefore a driver will have a very easy task at lining up his car with the biker and safely overtaking him.

Combining both designs and tweaking the projected images and colors could be an incredible step forward for bike safety.

ondrae• 15 years ago

The mockup had the lane extending behind and in front of the cyclist. They were building prototypes last I heard, but nothing ever came of it. I want to make one too.

nkassis• 15 years ago

Wow this is a great idea, I often see drivers trying to make left turns in my city and not see bikers who are coming next to them in the bike lane (they have a 2 way protected bike lane.) It can be tricky sometimes for the driver but this would give them more information.

arethuza2• 15 years ago

There is a special place in hell awaiting the drivers who overtake cyclists then do a sharp left turn (I'm in the UK so this means they are cutting in front of you).

I used to do a fairly reasonable commute every day through the center of Edinburgh and the problem of car drivers overtaking and turning left was probably the single biggest danger I had.

minikomi3• 15 years ago

Here in Tokyo it's Taxi drivers, with automatic doors.

silvestrov• 15 years ago

I'd be afraid that the laser light could damage children's eyes if they happend to get in the way and look into the light.

Experience from Copenhagen shows that the best solution is to have the bike path on the inside of the parked cars so the parked cars function as a buffer against the moving cars.

Putting it on the inside makes it possible to make it a different level (like the footpath) so the cars cannot go into the bike lane.

37% of people in Copenhagen bike to work, so they have a significant amount of experience with bike paths: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDs83Ud6Zss&t=1m24s

tomjen3• 15 years ago

It nearly never happens that cars get on the bike lane (except when they park there) -- this is to protect bicyclist in the event that a driver does a right turn.

ollysb• 15 years ago

In the UK there are very few cycle lanes, generally you're sharing the road with other traffic. The city roads are small here so there isn't space for parking let alone dedicated cycle paths. I can think of numerous "squeezes" that I've been in where this device would have been great.

nodata2• 15 years ago

I don't really see how a dim green picture of a bike will help. If a driver can't see the cyclist, would he see the flat picture on the tarmac?

Natsu2• 15 years ago

Lasers aren't really that dangerous, unless they're especially bright. They have a classification written on the side which should give you some indication of whether they're weak or strong.

The really weak laser pointers won't do any worse than make you see spots for a little while, as I can tell you from personal experience.

That said, there are lasers that you have to be very careful of. The laser-pointer level, though, is generally quite safe.

hugh33• 15 years ago

It's very hard to get blinded by a laser, but it's quite easy to get dazzled for a few seconds if one goes in your eye. Being dazzled for a few seconds usually isn't that dangerous unless you're, say, driving a car.

No sir, I don't like the idea that the inconsiderate laws-don't-apply-to-me cyclists I carefully avoid running over every day will suddenly be equipped with lasers which can shine into my eyes by accident.

gjm113• 15 years ago

Something capable of putting enough light to make a "this is a cycle lane" image that's visible in daylight is going to have to be much brighter than a laser pointer.

The illumination level on an overcast day is about 1000 lux, so to be visible in daylight the device will have to light up the bright bits of its image at least about that brightly.

The image in the picture looks to me like the illuminated area is at least about 0.1m^2, probably rather more. So that's a total output of at least about 100 lumens.

Light at the peak of the photopic curve (i.e., wavelength optimized to look as bright as possible per unit power) is 683 lumens per watt.

So the output from this thing is going to have to be at least about 150mW. That would be well into class 3B, meaning that you need a key switch and safety interlock on the device and protective goggles if you're anywhere where it could shine into your eye.

(Doing laser safety calculations properly is complicated. Don't take the above too seriously.)

gst2• 15 years ago

My personal experience shows that it's best to have no bike paths at all. I typically only use my bicycle as means of transportation here (in Vienna) and the only accidents that I had so far were at locations where the bike path crosses a street. This is also confirmed by statistics.

Compared to this, on streets I almost never have any risky situations - even on busy multilane streets. Cars see you earlier, because you ride on the same street as they do. You don't appear unexpected (for car drivers) because you overtake on the left side like everyone else. The right of way is clear, as there are no exceptions as in the case of bike paths.

In cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam bike paths have an advantage, because you are faster (no traffic jams) and because car drivers expect bicycles at crossings due to the high amount of bicycles. In cities such as Vienna where the amount of cyclists is relatively low most car drivers don't expect to encounter them - so even if you have the right of way on a bike path they just ignore it.

Silhouette2• 15 years ago

Here in Cambridge, UK we have a similar issue and an unusually high concentration of cyclists.

There is a significant effort to install so-called "continental-style" cycle lanes along some major routes. These really are lanes of a decent width in their own right, typically a couple of metres, modelled after the kinds of place you mentioned.

However, the opinion of local cyclists is fairly consistently that if you can't have proper facilities like that, you're better off with nothing at all than with a bit of paint on a normal width road that marks a "lane" barely wide enough to contain handlebars even if you're cycling in the gutter. It is now very clear that such lanes just encourage cars to pass far too close, and drivers to complain when cyclists do crazy things like riding in the main traffic lane because the gutter is full of water/broken glass/etc.

There is plenty of evidence now that having no lane at all actually results in drivers being more patient and giving more space when passing cyclists than having a lane too narrow to be sensible but marking it out clearly.

zwieback2• 15 years ago

That works well in dense inner cities, not so sure about less densely populated areas. I think bike lanes work ok when the blocks are long and straight but there's always a problem at intersections.

Also, although shrinking, cars are bigger in the US and drivers seem to be more distracted.

Most close calls I've had were either with seniors, cell phone talkers, distracted moms or young kids, probably roughly in that order.

lutorm2• 15 years ago

I think you are fortunate to live in a place where bicycling is already a mainstream means of transportation. However, in many places in the U.S. (Massachusetts and New Jersey come to mind for me) it's not that drivers are distracted, but rather that many do not believe that bicycles are a valid means of transportation. If you are in the lane you will encounter real hostility and agression. In these cases, I think something needs to be done to reinforce to people that bicycles have just as much right to the roadway as cars. I'm not sure bike lanes are the solution, but something needs to be done to get the number of bicyclists up to a critical mass.

alexsb92• 15 years ago

There aren't too many bike paths in Toronto, or Ontario as a whole. However the law dictates that cyclists have the right to use a full lane if they want to, which is quite great. If you don't feel to comfortable to have cars passing by you so close, then you can take up the whole lane, and they will be forced to overtake you as if you are a car.

hcho2• 15 years ago

I wonder how much of bicycle accidents are caused by frustration of drivers rather than not being able to notice the rider. This product might be trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Tichy2• 15 years ago

How does frustration of drivers cause accidents? They run over a cyclist to let off steam?

lloeki3• 15 years ago

They're frustrated by a (relatively to them) slow cyclist that they can't overtake right now, so as soon as an opportunity comes in, they take their chance in a dangerous way.

hcho2• 15 years ago

There are a huge number of cycle helmet videos over Youtube, in most of them you can see that the driver is out to get the cyclist, probably because of clogging up a fast flowing road.

It's not right but it's happening all the time.

gst2• 15 years ago

I've had it more than once that a driver tries to deliberately drive me of the road. In one case where I stopped and wanted to wait until the driver is gone, he stopped, got out of the car, and wanted to start a fight. The reason in that case was that he was angry, as I overtook the waiting cars at a red light.

That's one of the reasons why I typically have a heavy u-lock and a pepper spray with me when cycling.

Luyt• 15 years ago

This maybe works well when there's only one bicyclist, but what if there's a whole group, with half of them using these laser projectors? There would be a huge green mess on the road, not very practical.

Besides that, governments will never allow random citizens to make their own street marks. It interferes with traffic regulations and laws.

minikomi3• 15 years ago

A very noticeable green mess

delinka• 15 years ago

Exactly. It's not intended to be a "street mark" but an attention-getter. Bright green mess on the road? Where's that coming from? Yikes! A flock of bikes! (I did not intend to rhyme ... :-/ )

peteretep• 15 years ago

I feel like you've misunderstood the aim here. It's not /really/ to create a new cycle lane, it's to provide a visual indicator of the presence of a bike in a place where a motorist who has a cyclist in their blind spot will see...

Lots of them will provide a very noticeable indicator, and that's good.

sien• 15 years ago

Sure, sure, it's a great idea to shine a laser on the ground for safety.

Until all the cats in the neighbourhood start chasing you....

webmonkeyuk• 15 years ago

Looks great, until you ride up a hill and project the pattern into the sky!

This device will be particularly cool in foggy conditions or in smoke.

juiceandjuice• 15 years ago

What grade did you get in geometry?

jrockway• 15 years ago

"Eighty per cent of cycle accidents occur when bicycles travel straight ahead and a vehicle manoeuvres into them. The most common contributory factor is 'failed to look properly' on the part of a vehicle driver. The evidence shows the bike simply is not seen on city streets," she said.

This can't be true. The statistics in the US say that this is 7% of accidents:

http://www.johnforester.com/LAW/Bikeway%20Controversy.htm

The reality is that riding on the sidewalk and turning from the wrong lanes are the big cause of bicycle accidents. Being hit from behind is exceedingly rare. Being doored is probably the main worry that a cyclist riding correctly should have.

(Using the correct lane should be the secondary concern. Don't go straight through an intersection from the right side of the right turn lane. You're going to get hit by cars turning right.)

mhashim• 15 years ago

In downtown where cars are bumper to bumper, the location of the green laser would require a sharp downward angle to see it; which begs the question, does this just add another spot that drivers need to check now?

I can see it working in more open roads where this would be easy to see up ahead, but when space gets narrow, the visibility angle becomes tough.

Valiant effort though.

Laser-made bike lane could save lives

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