A close brush with a distracted driver is enough to intimidate any avid bicycler from riding at night. You’ve probably seen small blinkers and flashers tucked just below the seat but that isn’t enough. As a daily driver in a very bike friendly city, I can attest I usually don’t notice those blinkers until I’m within a few hundred yards of the bicycler. That leaves very little distance and time to react if I were to collide with them.
Only a small fraction of streets have dedicated bike lanes, and with an installation cost of $5,000 - $50,000 per mile, we shouldn’t expect to find them everywhere anytime soon. LightLane projects a crisply defined virtual bike lane onto pavement, using a laser, providing the driver with a familiar boundary to avoid. With a wider margin of safety, bikers will regain their confidence to ride at night, making the bike a more viable commuting alternative. I want one now. Evan and Alex, make it and call me!
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installation cost of 5,000 to 50,000 a mile? man they really got the cost figured out.
This is stupid, the government should just spend that money on a public rental bike system like the ones in europe.
I mean, if more people in a given city ride bikes instead of driving cars, which might actually happen if there are bikes freely available for all to enjoy, people might feel safe on a bike regardless of the bike lane situation, no?
Also, fuck government works. $50,000 for a mile of bike lanes? I swear to god, the way governments budget their money I wouldn’t trust them with the change in my pocket if I had a choice.
Some idiot passed me on my right today (in the bus lane) and rolled down his window to tell me “Hey buddy, this isn’t Japan” meanwhile nearly hitting some pedestrians.
It takes this dude more than 1/6 of a mile or 10 seconds at 60mph (highly unlikely that he’d be traveling at this rate) to avoid hitting a guy on a bike?
That’s pretty cool, but I agree with Jamey that it’s not any better than a flashing red light, in fact, it would probably be harder for motorists to see. A light at the base of a seat would at least be at eye level, that thing is projected on the ground, next to the sidewalk, which isn’t somewhere I’m generally looking while driving at night.
