Bike Brands Start To Adopt C-V2X To Warn Cyclists About Cars (arstechnica.com) 157
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a fundamental flaw in current car safety tech: It's limited to line of sight. Or, perhaps, line of "sensing" is more accurate, because the way cameras and lidar work is to inspect the perimeter of a vehicle and use predictive algorithms to understand the motion of an object in relation to the motion of the vehicle itself. Which is good, because as carmakers have added elements such as pedestrian and cyclist detection, they're trying to prevent drivers from hurting the most vulnerable road users. And unfortunately this is necessary, because even though 2023 saw a slight reduction in drivers striking cyclists and pedestrians, according to the most recent data from the Governor's Highway Safety Association, since 2019 pedestrian fatalities are still up 14 percent -- and cyclist deaths are up 50 percent since 2010. That doesn't mean lidar and cameras have "failed," but because they rely on what the sensors can pick up, they cannot necessarily ID hazards (and alert drivers) as quickly as we need them to, particularly if that's a cyclist in your lane 300 feet down the road, just over the next rise. Yes, current sensing works well now with figuring out the pace of a traffic jam, and automatic emergency braking can step in to stop your car if you fail to. But for non-automotive obstacles, they're still limited.
For that, we need better tech, which is emerging and is called Connected Vehicle to Everything (C-V2X). The idea isn't that complicated. Boiled down, it's a chipset that operates on a portion of the cellular bandwidth, and vehicles with this tech embedded (say in an e-bike or car) monitor anything with a C-V2X chip as well as broadcast their own location at a pulse of 10 times a second. This precision location system would then warn a driver of a cyclist on the road ahead, even beyond line of sight, and in an emergency -- possibly because a cyclist was right in a car's path -- could prevent a collision. [W]ith C-V2X, you don't need Verizon or ATT or anything like that," explains Audi's Kamal Kapadia. Because it isn't using the cellular network -- it's using a portion of cellular bandwidth to allow direct object, or vehicle-to-vehicle, communication. Audi has been working on C-V2X for nearly a decade, and it's part of a group in the US called the Coalition for Cyclist Safety, which also includes suppliers like Bosch, a tech startup in the space called Spoke Safety, and bike brands such as massive Trek, parts supplier Shimano, more niche bikemakers like Switzerland's Stromer, as well as mega telco suppliers and networks such as Qualcomm, Deutsche Telekom, and TELUS. [...]
Mio Suzuki is Trek Bicycle's director of embedded systems, "and we are exploring all sorts of safety," she says. For instance, Trek recently introduced its own radar tail light, which warns riders of a car approaching rapidly -- Garmin has had similar systems for several years. But Suzuki is intrigued by C-V2X because it offers more advanced warning than rear-facing radar. "And unlike cars, we have a very vulnerable road user so we need to augment our senses and the rider's awareness of the riding environment, because we don't have a big metal shield around us." What Suzuki envisions this direct communication might enable is an e-bike where the rider has a display that would warn a rider "of an imminent danger that's approaching; a car might be coming from the side, but the view of the car is obstructed by a building, so the rider can't see." Franz Reindl is CTO of Stromer, a high-end Swiss brand that only makes e-bikes with very top tech, including ABS brakes. Reindl says they're also studying C-V2X. "Safety is one of our biggest promises, and we need to do everything we can with products and technologies to make it more safe for customers." Right now, only Audi and the VW Group have openly talked about using the tech. "Trek's Suzuki thinks that together, the Coalition and so many bike brands within it do have a strong voice," reports Ars. "She also envisions municipalities deploying the technology, especially around work crews and EMS, which should build broader momentum and pressure on automakers."
For that, we need better tech, which is emerging and is called Connected Vehicle to Everything (C-V2X). The idea isn't that complicated. Boiled down, it's a chipset that operates on a portion of the cellular bandwidth, and vehicles with this tech embedded (say in an e-bike or car) monitor anything with a C-V2X chip as well as broadcast their own location at a pulse of 10 times a second. This precision location system would then warn a driver of a cyclist on the road ahead, even beyond line of sight, and in an emergency -- possibly because a cyclist was right in a car's path -- could prevent a collision. [W]ith C-V2X, you don't need Verizon or ATT or anything like that," explains Audi's Kamal Kapadia. Because it isn't using the cellular network -- it's using a portion of cellular bandwidth to allow direct object, or vehicle-to-vehicle, communication. Audi has been working on C-V2X for nearly a decade, and it's part of a group in the US called the Coalition for Cyclist Safety, which also includes suppliers like Bosch, a tech startup in the space called Spoke Safety, and bike brands such as massive Trek, parts supplier Shimano, more niche bikemakers like Switzerland's Stromer, as well as mega telco suppliers and networks such as Qualcomm, Deutsche Telekom, and TELUS. [...]
Mio Suzuki is Trek Bicycle's director of embedded systems, "and we are exploring all sorts of safety," she says. For instance, Trek recently introduced its own radar tail light, which warns riders of a car approaching rapidly -- Garmin has had similar systems for several years. But Suzuki is intrigued by C-V2X because it offers more advanced warning than rear-facing radar. "And unlike cars, we have a very vulnerable road user so we need to augment our senses and the rider's awareness of the riding environment, because we don't have a big metal shield around us." What Suzuki envisions this direct communication might enable is an e-bike where the rider has a display that would warn a rider "of an imminent danger that's approaching; a car might be coming from the side, but the view of the car is obstructed by a building, so the rider can't see." Franz Reindl is CTO of Stromer, a high-end Swiss brand that only makes e-bikes with very top tech, including ABS brakes. Reindl says they're also studying C-V2X. "Safety is one of our biggest promises, and we need to do everything we can with products and technologies to make it more safe for customers." Right now, only Audi and the VW Group have openly talked about using the tech. "Trek's Suzuki thinks that together, the Coalition and so many bike brands within it do have a strong voice," reports Ars. "She also envisions municipalities deploying the technology, especially around work crews and EMS, which should build broader momentum and pressure on automakers."
Throw Tech at Every Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Watching Facebook and Youtube videos shows people walking out into the street while glued to the screen of their phone. Could we maybe start writing some tickets? People have to take responsibility for their own safety or we're going to have bicycles starting at $Ugly to pay for electronics, along with cars also increasing in price for the same reason.
If one crosses the street ONLY when there's no vehicle close enough or fast enough to collide, then problem solved. I've done since childhood in the 50's. If a car CAN, through inattention or mechanical failure run me down, I just don't step out there. Has worked 100% for about 65 years. Never hit, never almost hit, they just can't get close enough to me.
Stepping into the road, even at a crosswalk with a traffic light, while staring at a phone, should result in a fine. Would that work as well as electronics? I think so. We need to try cheaper methods than loading vehicles down to unaffordability via expensive solutions to problems that could be solved more cheaply by other means.
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Re:Throw Tech at Every Problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Car drivers routinely flout the law. They blow through stop signs, through red lights, through yellow lights (yes, that's a thing), double park, illegally park, crash into people, into other vehicles, go over the speed limit, fail emissions tests, have their lights off at night. Car drivers pose an actual threat to others on the streets & roads, because cars are both very heavy and very fast.
Re:Throw Tech at Every Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes...the finger pointing.
"They do it, too! You're picking on me!"
Yes, motorists run stop signs. And, if they're caught doing so, they get a ticket. Give a ticket to a cyclist? "I shouldn't have to stop! In Idaho, I don't have to! Stopping is hard! It's not fair!"
And, if the cyclist running the stop sign is hit? "The tragedy! The motorist killed the cyclist! They should have done something!"
What annoys me with cyclists is a phrase I hear from them over and over: "My safety is the most important thing."
Yes, your safety is the most important thing. It is more important than your momentum. It is more important than your convenience. It is more important than your Strava time. It is the most important thing.
Act like it.
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The American obsession with stop signs is utterly insane.
Anyway, have you tried giving it a go? A lot of American traffic engineering is not just bad, it's actively, mortally hostile to cyclists, so the only cyclists who preserver are the hyper dedicated nutcases. In other words your tiles have eliminated all but the most insane and desperate cyclists from the roads.
Anyway next time you're sick in a traffic jam, ruminating on just how awful cyclists are, remember that if you had a lot more of them you most
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Yes, in fact, I have given it a go. I'm a former MAMIL and would ride 50-100 miles a week.
And I agree that there are plenty of examples of dangerous-for-cyclists roads--too many, in my opinion. I used to get up very early to bike to work (45 miles) so that I could pass the freeway on/off-ramps before rush hour set in. And I would love to see improvements made. I'm a firm believer in protected bike lanes. I'm a firm believer road diets to make room for them. I mentioned in another post that one problem
Re: Throw Tech at Every Problem? (Score:2)
The finger pointing in this case is somewhat warranted, because of two things:
Many drivers use the cyclists' bad behavior as an excuse for their own bad behavior and as a justification for willingly endangering cyclists with"punishment passes" and other attempted murders.
The consequences of a cyclist breaking the road rules and a driver doing it are radically different. The cyclist puts only himself in mortal danger and may hurt some pedestrians. A driver doing the same exposes everyone to mortal danger.
I'l
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In the USA, cars pose more of a threat not because they are big and heavy, but because there are simply more of them on the road. In terms of obeying traffic laws, I second the complaint that bike riders are about the worst offenders -- bar none. That includes scooters and especially sport motorcycles. Every time a sport biker sees me driving by in my WRX, they can't resist doing something stupid to show off.
On the flip side, I really like people who ride choppers. Those guys are just out for a cruise a
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Cars do, and there are all manner of enforcement mechanisms including automated cameras, cops etc to try and punish car drivers for this. If caught, a car driver faces fines or even losing their license.
When cyclists do it, there is generally no enforcement whatsoever, and no legal consequences.
If they ignore a red light and end up being hit by a car as a result, it's often the car driver that will be blamed.
If a car hits pedestrians there's usually severe consequences for the driver, if a cyclist hits a pe
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Maybe e-bikes would cut down on this? i.e. I can see cyclists not wanting to come to a complete stop because, well, acceleration is work, continuing at speed is easy but unsafe/illegal.
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I can see cyclists not wanting to come to a complete stop because, well, acceleration is work
Around 100 years ago, they invented this neat thing for bicycles: Multiple Gears.
It's nice because you can use a "lower" gear to move your bike with less effort. So, before you stop, you downshift. That means less work to get it going.
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Stop & go on a bicycle is a very expensive operation energy wise. At around 12mph, every stop & go adds about 100m travel's worth of energy expenditure. Gears don't change that.
And its a lot more energy (16 - fold, I think) than resuming walking, and its still the rider's energy (as opposed to cars, where, excepting The Flinstones, it's usually stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels) .
Another note is that a cyclist is at his most vulnerable when transitioning between static stability and dynami
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Not only is there a lack of consequences, but also a lack of training.
To drive a car there is a licensing scheme in most countries, you have to pass a test to get a license. To ride a bike - nothing. There are bike riders out there who don't even know what the road signs mean, and many more who know perfectly well but actively choose to ignore them.
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Most of the egregious and dangerous behavior I see comes from car drivers. And I say this as someone who doesn't ride a bicycle on public roads because I'm sick of how stressful and dangerous it is.
In SF, cyclists will split traffic, sometimes in-between opposing lanes. While this poses no risk to me while I'm in my big metal cage. Where I have a problem is when someone in a Tesla tries to pass me on the shoulder while going up a blind hill. Any situation where one idiot is risking injury to many other peop
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Drivers ignore red lights because they are impatient. Cyclists ignore red lights to get ahead of cars for safety, because crappy drivers will run them over otherwise.
Re:Throw Tech at Every Problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Cyclists routinely ignore stop lights and stop signs
For some real stats you should see how many fines are dished out to drivers of cars.
But is it illegal? I mean really you should check the local rules before you blame cyclists. For example where I live cyclists do not need to stop at stop signs. And of course not, it makes no sense to have a slow moving easily stopped slow accelerating vehicle stop, that's something far more important for a 2 tonne gasoline tank. Additionally there's no rule against merging from the road to the footpath, so it's perfectly l
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If I am sharing a road with cars, I make sure to ride in the middle of my lane. You have to take command of the l
Innocent people should die because of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is about cyclists, not people walking in the street.
Cyclists routinely ignore stop lights and stop signs, or even ride the wrong way into traffic. I see it every single day. If I happen to see an accident where a car hits a cyclist because the cyclist ignore the red light, I am definitely waiting so I can tell the police who was at fault.
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
Kewl story, Karen. While running errands, in a major urban area today, I saw twice as many cars break the law as cyclists and I watch out for both. Cyclists are annoying...kool, we get it...we've all been trapped behind an idiot cyclist or some fat lesbian couple who are both 100lbs overweight and think they're doing the world a favor by wobbling their bikes at 10mph in the middle of the road, side by side, so everyone can see what good environmental citizens they are. However, I live in the city and commute via bike and if you lived in my city, I think you owe me some thanks.
I follow all laws and pedal as quickly as I can so if there is no cycling lane, you won't have to wait long behind, me, but why you really owe me thanks is because traffic SUCKS. I can afford a car. I can drive to work and I can be one more car you're trapped behind. I can take up one more parking space that makes it harder for you to find yours. So your commute is a small amount faster because an army of people like me bike where we need to....so keep that in mind when you bitch about cyclists.
When one of us doesn't look where we're going and fucks up, we usually kill ourselves...that's a problem solved by Darwinism. When one of you, fucks up and veers off the road because you're checking your texts, people in your path die, but you're typically much safer.
Let's not bitch about technology designed to make the roads safer.
Re: Throw Tech at Every Problem? (Score:2)
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Watching Facebook and Youtube videos shows people walking out into the street while glued to the screen of their phone. Could we maybe start writing some tickets? People have to take responsibility for their own safety or we're going to have bicycles starting at $Ugly to pay for electronics, along with cars also increasing in price for the same reason.
If one crosses the street ONLY when there's no vehicle close enough or fast enough to collide, then problem solved. I've done since childhood in the 50's. If a car CAN, through inattention or mechanical failure run me down, I just don't step out there. Has worked 100% for about 65 years. Never hit, never almost hit, they just can't get close enough to me.
Stepping into the road, even at a crosswalk with a traffic light, while staring at a phone, should result in a fine. Would that work as well as electronics? I think so. We need to try cheaper methods than loading vehicles down to unaffordability via expensive solutions to problems that could be solved more cheaply by other means.
I would suggest licensing bikes the same as cars. Then as you suggest, handing out tickets to bicyclists. If they don't break any traffic laws, then they get no ticket. As for pedestrians, In my town, the police regularly go to the local hospital to issue tickets to pedestrians who walk into traffic and get hurt. Because like you, I gauge what might happen to me by the mass of what might hit me. So I'm pretty careful crossing the streets on foot. Being dead to rights really isn't that great a thing. I've p
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handing out tickets to bicyclists.
That's already what the law says, everybody on the road is bound to the same traffic rules. If your local police issues tickets to pedestrians and not to cyclists, this is an enforcement problem which you could raise at the city council.
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Traffic laws generally do NOT say every mode of transport is held to the same set of rules. Cars must yield the right of way to cyclists and predestined in some situations; the reverse is seldom true. Bicycles are sometimes allowed to turn across traffic on a red light because the sensors do not detect them and would not trigger the turn signal. Bicyclists can use hand signals to indicate a turn, cars must have functioning blinkers. And so on.
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I say you get a fine if you don't follow the rules applying to your mode of transportation. I did not even use the word "vehicle" as my comment also includes pedestrians. One can easily check on the internet that cyclists do get fines for failing to follow traffic rules that apply to them. My point is that for the cyclists get fined, there is no need to change the driving licence model; one essentially needs the local police to enforce the current rules.
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I say you get a fine if you don't follow the rules applying to your mode of transportation. I did not even use the word "vehicle" as my comment also includes pedestrians. One can easily check on the internet that cyclists do get fines for failing to follow traffic rules that apply to them. My point is that for the cyclists get fined, there is no need to change the driving licence model; one essentially needs the local police to enforce the current rules.
Where I'm at bicyclists are regularly fined for blowing through stop signs and traffic lights, even for drunken driving. It's been a while, but I think I remember a guy getting cited for driving too fast for condidtions or somesuch for trying to bike during a snowstorm, and creating a traffic hazard. I dunno where the guy who believes they aren't constrained at all is posting from, but I'd like to know.
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The driving license model means that car drivers need to pass a test demonstrating their knowledge of the road rules, whereas cyclists don't.
It also means that bad drivers can have their license revoked, whereas cyclists cannot.
Cars are registered and have identification plates on them, which are used by automated cameras to issue fines when rules are broken. Cyclists do not have this, so even if caught on camera it's extremely difficult to identify them.
In most places i've seen it is very rare for cyclists
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Those exceptions are simple - Bikes are not allowed on freeways.
If wherever you are has no rules for bicycles, good luck.
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Sure, if you just fixed people, that would work better than any conceivable technical solution.
But you can't fix people, so there's no point in complaining that *some* people are *sometimes* stupid, careless, or irresponsible..That will never change. Sometimes, even, that careless person might be *you* on a bad day. We all rate ourselves based on our performance on our good days; which is why we all think we're better-than-average drivers, but really our risk to ourselves and others is dominated by the da
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My commute route intersects a bicycle path. The bike path has stop signs on it, facing the bicycle traffic, on both sides of the road. I almost *never* see a bicyclist stop; they generally cruise straight across without even looking. Until we fix this problem, all the tech in the world will be of little help.
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The American obsession with stop signs is just bizarre. No drivers really stop for them either. They are terrible for drivers, even worse for cyclists, awful for traffic and just on the whole a completely insane way of building traffic systems.
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Not really, I don't live in America anymore so I don't have to suffer stop signs.
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It's funny, I read the Subject of your comment and thought "I'm going to agree with this" and yet you're entirely focused on the behaviour of the most vulnerable road users, which I think is arse-over-tit.
Tech is not the main part of the answer. The answer is:
- Making cars, pickup trucks, and other trucks safer through redesigns and regulations, eg that improve driver road view, and reduce the hazards posed by enormous hoods striking vulnerable road users
- More rigorously enforcing safe driving behaviours t
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The trouble with the last one is that drivers and the right wing press become completely incensed by the idea that they cannot drive exactly where they want, when they want via any possible route. And then they will spend years misreading statistics or outright lying in order to create that impression that it had somehow failed.
Watching this happen in London. Fortunately my local council were not foolish and have not just kept the measures but continued to improve them. Other people have not been so lucky.
O
A hack and accident waiting to happen (Score:2)
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everything can be attacked but it would save more than it would hurt. even seat belts kill a few people by trapping people in their cars.
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And that's just the *immediate* thought that comes to mind seeing this. It's not a matter of "saving more than it hurts", it's a matter of creating something that can very easily get abused for cheap. And bad actors are a reality.
Agreed. All of these ideas that folks come up with where cars are supposed to trust external signals that they can't verify are fundamentally flawed by design. Cyclists should not be blindly riding across roads without looking to see if a car is coming. That's what stop signs and traffic lights are for. And although it would be nice to reduce the odds of cyclists dying when they make reckless mistakes, it isn't worth having the traffic grid constantly being brought to a halt by threat actors.
Cars should
Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:4, Informative)
First obvious one that comes to mind is that the way cyclists ride on city streets, a large fraction of collisions comes from cyclists moving erratically: weaving through slow or stopped traffic, failing to stop at red lights, going the wrong way in a bike lane and being hit by vehicles turning right into traffic, not giving large trucks some space (I don't linger alongside big trucks when I'm driving either) etc. And a real dent in injuries and fatalities would come from training and licensing cyclists in the way we do motorists. And yes that would mean bikes (or riders) need conspicuous standardized identifying tags and would get ticketted for violating traffic laws.
The second thought is that a technology like this would be spoofable, and a hazard in its own right. If there's nothing stopping me from ripping the transmitter out of a bike (or buying a replacement), then I could cause havoc on a busy highway or bridge by discretely placing one in the traffic lanes and causing false alarms and maybe even uncommanded braking events at high speed. Not good.
The third thought is that this creates a mental crutch for both cyclists and drivers. And since there would be a very long period of adoption, there will be cars on the road without receivers and bikes on the road without transmitters. That means if people are trained to rely on the technology, there will be copious instances of them not paying attention when there is no technology. Also not good.
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The third thought is that this creates a mental crutch for both cyclists and drivers.
My thoughts exactly, in many part of the US there is a straight up antagonistic relationship between drivers and cyclists. No tech can solve bad habits and bad attitudes.
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"No tech can solve bad habits and bad attitudes."
Like the ones of the OP? Or you? Like insisting you'll continue to antagonistic so that tech cannot solve a problem?
Re:Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:5, Interesting)
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But that still hasn't stopped some cyclists from rolling red lights and generally doing very selfish things. The best one was 10 or more cars stopped at a red light, this cyclist passes every one of us on the right, rolls through the red light and now when it's green we can't pass this cyclist for almost a mile due to oncoming tr
Re:Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:4, Informative)
The best one was 10 or more cars stopped at a red light, this cyclist passes every one of us on the right, [...]
Legal and expected, no surprise here.
[...] rolls through the red light [...]
Illegal yes (unless turning right in some countries), but the reason for this when going straight is that when starting at the same time than cars, some will want to turn right... into you (blind spot, not paying attention...). So at _some_ intersection (not all), I'd rather risk a fine than an accident.
[...] and now when it's green we can't pass this cyclist for almost a mile due to oncoming traffic.
How is that the cyclist's fault (particularly if he doesn't know the road) ? Unless he hogs the middle of the road.
Extreme case: I was recently in Mallorca and on some roads there were 20 bikes per car, and the roads were very narrow, making it mostly impossible to pass for 20 miles, yup it took patience and that's what's missing with some entitled drivers who don't understand that roads do not belong exclusively to cars.
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Car culture, the roads in most towns were not designed to be shared and in many part cyclists are an occasional encounter, not even an everyday occurence.
Re:Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:5, Insightful)
"...a large fraction of collisions comes from cyclists moving erratically..."
Citation please.
"And a real dent in injuries and fatalities would come from training and licensing cyclists in the way we do motorists."
Citation please.
"And yes that would mean bikes (or riders) need conspicuous standardized identifying tags ..."
But not gun owners. A bicycle as a legal class of vehicle specifically exists to define what an unlicensed vehicle is. It an ignorant idea.
"...a technology like this would be spoofable, and a hazard in its own right."
You mean like police radar set up to run continuously? Some consider that a feature.
"...I could cause havoc on a busy highway or bridge by discretely placing one in the traffic lanes and causing false alarms and maybe even uncommanded braking events at high speed. Not good."
And you would be a sociopath abusing safety equipment to cause that havoc. Wonder if there could be laws against that?
"...this creates a mental crutch for both cyclists and drivers."
Citation please.
"...if people are trained to rely on the technology..."
Which would never be the case.
Your "many thoughts" are merely excuses to be against something that might help people.
Re: Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:2)
But not gun owners. A bicycle as a legal class of vehicle specifically exists to define what an unlicensed vehicle is.
Guns are a legal class of object that are unlicensed. We don't have gun licenses in this country. We have gun transfer reporting requirements. That's about as close as it gets.
Perhaps cyclists need their own Constitutional amendment. "Shall not be infringed." Until then, if your local juristiction says that vehicular use of a public right of way shall be licensed, you'd better figure out where to hang that plate on your Big Wheel.
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"...I could cause havoc on a busy highway or bridge by discretely placing one in the traffic lanes and causing false alarms and maybe even uncommanded braking events at high speed. Not good."
And you would be a sociopath abusing safety equipment to cause that havoc. Wonder if there could be laws against that?
It's also illegal to crack into someone's system even if the root password is "root". It's still a terrible idea to set your root password to "root" and enable remote root logins. If you design a system in a way that is fundamentally insecure, you should always assume that someone will come along and abuse it.
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it won't be done, nor does it mean that the police will have the technical capability to figure out who did it, particularly if its operation is delayed
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"And yes that would mean bikes (or riders) need conspicuous standardized identifying tags ..."
But not gun owners
Maybe cyclists should have guns and could just stand their ground when cars get too close and shoot the driver for the cyclists own safety. I think that would be the American way to solve the problem.
Re:Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:4, Informative)
Already happens. As a cyclist, I once had a collision with a car because it turned out of a side road in front of me too close for me to stop. My headlight was working fine, but the driver was looking for the double headlights of a car and didn't mentally register the single headlight of a bicycle.
Re: Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:2)
Around these parts, cyclists tend to wear flashing lights on their helmets. Annoying as fuck, but it does command attention.
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>"The second thought is that a technology like this would be spoofable"
Also a concern of mine. But even when used "correctly", how is a car going to know/react that the bike is on the lane and not in a bike line or sidewalk, or just stopped in a driveway while talking to a neighbor? I guess knowing a bike is there is better than nothing, but too much useless information is likely to be worse.
>" The third thought is that this creates a mental crutch for both cyclists and drivers."
Exactly. It is unli
Re:Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:5, Informative)
The collisions come from badly-designed cycling infrastructure, or as is often the case a complete lack of cycling infrastructure. Don't blame cyclists for this when it's completely out of their control.
The correct thing to push for here is... well-designed cycling infrastructure. That means separated bike lanes in high-traffic areas, good sight lines at crossings, low speed limits in low-traffic roads where cars and bikes share the road (which will form most of your cycle network by length), and presumably many other things that I can't enumerate off the top of my head.
This won't just give you fewer cyclist injuries and fatalities, it'll allow people who wouldn't currently dare to cycle to start doing so, which will take cars off the road and thus give you lower road congestion, fewer traffic jams, fewer vehicular accidents etc so it'll also benefit drivers. It would also improve air quality by reducing pollution from car engines and tires, meaning everyone lives longer, not just cyclists.
And a real dent in injuries and fatalities would come from training and licensing cyclists in the way we do motorists
That would just mean that almost nobody will ever cycle. That'll certainly put a dent in injuries and fatalities, but instead of all the rest of the benefits we'd get zero of them and instead get more road traffic, congestion and pollution, so it's a stupid way to do it.
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It's difficult to retrofit cities for cycling infrastructure and better road layouts. It would be good to flatten and rebuild a lot of places to improve them in all sorts of ways, but it's not going to happen.
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It's difficult to retrofit cities for cycling infrastructure and better road layouts.
The main difficulty is dealing with the gales of whining from drivers and the incessant hitjobs from the Daily Fail. And the Tory party.
London has in the space of a few short years drastically improved conditions for cyclists by putting in good infrastructure.
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Funny I was in London today and nearly got run over more than once by cyclists ignoring traffic lights.
There's plenty of blame to go around. I think some kind if licence for adults would be a good idea. No test, just a number you wear.
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Funny I was in London today and nearly got run over more than once by cyclists ignoring traffic lights.
I nearly got smooshed by a car on Wednesday. I smashed on his wing mirror with my hand to bend it out of the way so it didn't hit my handlebars. He then had the gall to get out of his car and start yelling at me for you know stopping myself getting hit by his giant SUV.
Drivers routinely break the law ALL the time. Every single day I see cars speeding, parked illegally blocking lines of sight, passing cycli
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It's a mix of selective attention and confirmation bias. The Mail and others are really really good at exploiting these cognitive biases to make trends appear to be real where they're not.
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What's bizarre to me is the left picks them up too.
Like the by election in Uxbridge and ULEZ. Labor have won that once in the last 50 years and the progressive, pro ULEZ vote was the majority but split between green and labor. Somehow the right wing talking point that labor lost because ULEZ and ULEZ is unpopular has been adopted as a fact even by the Guardian. It's surreal.
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I agree — totally maddening, especially given the Uxbridge by-election timing meant that many students didn’t vote, either.
I’m not surprised that the Guardian had some articles repeating this kind of rubbish right wing analysis: they put out a lot of lazy takes as well as some decent stuff. But I *was* surprised that Labour took the results seriously. It suggested to me that they are still over focused on their right flank, and think that’s where the election will be won or lost. Per
Re: (Score:2)
Paris and Amsterdam both demonstrate it's totally feasible. Hopefully Sadiq will take some heart from winning despite all the predictions that ULEZ implementation was going to bring him down, and will start to implement new cycling infrastructure more assertively a la Hidalgo.
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It's difficult to retrofit cities for cycling infrastructure and better road layouts.
No it isn't, because other countries have already done it and we should learn from them. Watch this to learn about traffic calming [youtube.com]. There's also a good explanation of STROADS [youtube.com].
That YouTube channel [youtube.com] is fantastic!
Re:Many thoughts, most unfavorable (Score:4, Insightful)
You really think that an appreciable number of accidents are caused by "cyclists moving erratically: weaving through slow or stopped traffic"??
It seems extremely unlikely to me that cyclists often hit slow moving or stopped vehicles, because it's pretty easy to avoid slow moving or stopped vehicles. What's more, only a tiny fraction of such collisions would actually result in any physical harm to a person, and only a small fraction would lead to any damage, because cyclists weaving through slow moving or stopped traffic can't do that very fast, and a cyclist and bike don't weigh enough to do much damage at 5mph, unlike a 3 ton pickup truck.
What your scenario actually reflects is a sense of moral indignation shared by many drivers at the *concept* of a cyclist being able to move ahead of a car. Drivers tend to assume that they are more serious and more important than other road users, because they are in a car, and they also assume that because their car is capable in principle of being able to go faster than a cyclist or pedestrian, cyclists and pedestrians should not have the temerity to go faster than a car - for example, by weaving through slow moving or stopped traffic.
Well, one of the most important benefits of having a bicycle is that *you can weave through traffic jams*. Cyclists in cities can routinely do a 1 to 5 mile journey faster than a car can because bikes don't take up much road space and thus aren't slowed down by other bikes the way cars are slowed down by other cars.
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Of course, there are also the ones that happily sits in 2..3 lane wide chatting
In my country that is completely legal. Cyclists as road users has precisely as much right as any other road user to use and occupy the entire lane.
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Not only is it legal here in the UK, it's actually *better for drivers too*. A driver should be moving into the opposite lane to overtake, just as they would for a car. If cyclists are riding two abreast across the whole of a lane, then the driver can pull out and back more quickly than if the cyclists are in single file.
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I hadn't even thought of it like that, good point.
Trouble is there are so many drivers who are raging morons.
I got into it with a driver the over day. I bashed on his wing mirror to bend it out of the way so he didn't clip my handlebars. He was that close, no 1.5m gap. Naturally he got out of his car to yell at me because the important thing was his car of course.
Turns out he "had" to because there was a kid on a bike coming towards him. In other words he tried to overtake when there was incoming traffic an
Re: (Score:2)
It's not my idea, I hasten to add! Here's a really naff but clear video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re idiot drivers. I recently bought a new car, and it beeps at me if I'm 2mph or more over the speed limit. I have a black box fitted that measures how smoothly I'm driving to give me lower insurance rates, and the car has an eco feedback assistant that marks my driving out of 5 for smoothness too. And it's a nicer feeling car than my last one as well (EQA vs Zoe). The consequence is that I
Elephant in the Room (Score:5, Informative)
Anything that can help a biker avoid being hit is a good idea. Who's at fault doesn't matter. When a car and a bike come together, the bike is going to lose. There are three times I've come really close to being killed by an idiot driving a car. Once I was on foot. Once I was driving my car. Once I was riding my bicycle. ALL THREE idiots were texting instead of watching where they were going. Karma came for one of them, who took out a stoplight instead of me. The other two drove blissfully on their way, unaware that they'd almost killed somebody.
Re: (Score:2)
And the real solution is public transit. Public transit to the point where driving a car is no longer a mandatory activity, but an optional one.
Taxis, Uber, even self-driving cars are a band-aid over the problem where driving is a mandatory chore.
Texting and driving is much less of
More unnecessary technology (Score:2)
When I'm cycling I already have ample EM reflectors working in the sub-micrometer band to notify others of my presence. There are also available emitters in the same band, though I don't find them necessary. Both take advantage of sensors hopefully already present in all vehicles.
Modern cars already have enough "safety" noise going on -- "Oh no, you crossed the line without signaling (that's a tar strip, genius)" "Look out, there's a car on the cross street (really? no shit! It's a street)". Continuing
What about slowing down? (Score:2)
dedicated bike lanes (Score:3, Informative)
make the sidewalk larger and then set off part of it for bikes.
make the road bigger (no parking on one side) and section off lanes for bikes.
build dedicated bike, e-bike, scooter roads.
This has been on the agenda of most towns and cities for years and never gets done or at a glacial pace.
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>"make the road bigger (no parking on one side) and section off lanes for bikes."
This is a particular irritation for me. Residential roads with parking on BOTH SIDES which makes it tight for even a single car to get through. Especially when the neighborhood has driveways.
Bad enough when I am in my car, but when I am on a bike, with full lights, some cars STILL try to go through those narrow spaces while I am there! I have to stay at least 4 feet away from all car doors that can open spontaneously (and
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This is a particular irritation for me. Residential roads with parking on BOTH SIDES which makes it tight for even a single car to get through. Especially when the neighborhood has driveways.
This is a particular praise from me. Residential roads should be tight for cars to get through. It creates a natural restriction that prevents crazy fast speeds. It also protects pedestrians crossing the road.
You shouldn't be wanting wider roads, you should be wanting narrow roads. Cars shouldn't be trying to squeeze past you, they should be unable to. It's a residential road. If you're travelling faster than a cyclist you're unsafe and a risk to people living there.
American road design is dangerous.
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Agreed!
Consider a stereotypical road. On the side, you have a sidewalk for pedestrians. If I had to post a speed limit on a sidewalk, I would say 0-10 MPH (yes, you can stop on a sidewalk). Next to it is a space for cars and speed limits of 25-50 MPH.
What do you do if your vehicle is too fast for the sidewalk but too slow for the cars?
And here in the 21st Century, there are plenty of examples: Bicycles, E-Bikes, E-Scooters, Skateboards, One-Wheels [onewheel.com], Segways, Hoverboards [hoverboards.com], etc.
These are perfectly reasonabl
Good idea, for 2060 (Score:2)
Until then, adoption rate will be slow as vehicle prices are already sky high without all bells and whistles. And good luck with the minor fender bender that now carries the price tag of an entire used car these days, because it has to repair all electronics put behind the component that was supposed to avoid major repair costs.
Cycling (Score:2)
No need for new tech, only better programming (Score:2)
The law in every state in the USA says whenever your visibility is compromised, you must slow down [ca.gov] or pull over until conditions improve [weather.gov].
Autonomous vehicles don't need any fancy new tech, they only need to stop breaking the law. And they could stop breaking the law today at no cost with nothing but better programming.
Nerds really
Not very useful (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
this is especially true for SUVs, which really should be reserved to people with good driving skills
And somehow they seem to be universally reserved for people with the worst driving skills.
So, who is going to pay? (Score:3)
The law here is to give at least 1.5m of road space when overtaking any cyclist. My arms are not over 1.5m long, so your, dear driver, dented wing is your admission that you were driving illegally. And I hope your insurance company denies your claim - because you were driving illegally - and kills your no-claims bonus because of your actions. Even better if the court cancels your driving license until you're passed the current driving test.
I've had drivers pull over and start making threatening gestures. Oddly, a large wrench in the hand is worth a lot of loud arguments.
[b]*[/b] - well, I'm not going to pay for batteries for it. It's to protect car drivers from their own stupidity.
where to install (Score:3)
The proposed technology needs to be installed not in cars, but in pedestrians and bicyclists.
Here's the challenge with making biking safer. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's already extremely safe. Cycling has a lower death rate per participant than *tennis*. And while your risk per *mile* is signifiantly higher on a bike than as a passenger in a car, your risk per *hour* is signifiantly lower. Since most cyclists aren't putting nearly as many miles on their bike per week as their car, the bike represents a low risk to them; in fact if you take up cycling your chance of dying in the next year goes down by 1/3 once the fitness benefits kick in, even though you've just added a new way to die to your personal list.
So tech like this is unlikely to reduce *absolute* risk very much, because absolute risk is already very low. It so happens this particular tech could reduce the most fatal type of accident -- being struck by an overtaking motorists -- but these types of accidents are very rare, as are cycling fatalities. Since there's only about eight hundred cyclist mortalities / year in the US there's not a lot of room for improvement, especially as this tech is bound to be installed on only a tiny minority of bikes. It does nothing for the two most common types of accidents: (1) cars entering the street to make a turn and hitting a cyclist traveling along that street and (2) cars passing a cyclist and making a right turn at an intersection across the cyclist's path (the "right hook"), so it's unlikely to affect metrics like ER visits and hospitalizations very much.
We have to sharpen our thinking about what we're actually trying to accomplish when we talk about "making cyling safer". I'd suggest there's two things we can be reasonably trying to do: eliminate as many *preventable* deaths and injuries as possible and make people *feel* safer when riding a bike. There's a lot of injuries that can be taken off the table by designing and marking intersetions better [seattle.gov] and improving lines of sight. Many of these changes would also reduce car-pedestrian accidents and car-car accidents too.
Technologies like this can't make cycling statistically much safer than it aready is. But they can do a lot to make cyclists feel safer -- much the way some cyclists are spending hundreds of dollars *today* on rear-facing radar units. Those are good things, but they're no substitute for better design which would both make cyclists feel safer and make everyone statistically safer.
Hell, no. (Score:2)
The laws of nature (Score:2)
In nature all animals know their place simply by comparing their strength and size. Is this unit bigger than me? Could this end in my untimely death? These simple questions very quickly help animals develop a natural hierarchy where, most of the time, everyone gets along just fine. This worked for humans to a certain point in history, too. Parents would teach their children to look left and right when crossing, avoid risks, always be careful because, guess what, world is a dangerous place. And it just works
Older cars ... (Score:2)
Re: A start, but (Score:2)
I see a car go through most times when lights turn red. But you know, most cyclists drive too, and vice versa.
Re: (Score:2)
I see a car go through most times when lights turn red. But you know, most cyclists drive too, and vice versa.
Do stop signs change color in your country? 8^) Because that's what I was referring to - stop signs
The problem is that when a bike blows through a stop sign, and they get hit, at least in our city, the police get to go to the hospital to give them their citation.
Yes cars sometimes drift or not come to a full stop. If they simply blow through a sign without slowing down, that's bad. But I see nowhere near the number of bikes I've seen on a daily basis. Like most of them. And the mass differential tell
Re: (Score:2)
How is this relative to the article?
Go whine on your local FB group, sheesh.
I've dealt with motorists who explain their poor (and illegal) driving by saying 'well I see cyclists do x'.
Mentality of a 12yr old.
Almost none of the cyclists being hit are doing the things you're describing. The vast majority who are hit are riding along, following the rules of the road and minding their own business. And that's my own experience as well on close calls.
It's not the cyclists, dummy.
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How is this relative to the article?
Go whine on your local FB group, sheesh.
I've dealt with motorists who explain their poor (and illegal) driving by saying 'well I see cyclists do x'.
And somone posted back to me that bicyclists can do what they do. because motorists.
Hey rude person - people are supposed to obey the traffic laws because terrible things can happen if they don't. If that triggers you, that is a you problem.
And your non sequitur that since motorists do't always follow the laws, that it's okay for bikers to not is whataboutism of the lamest sort.
But wait - there's more!
Go whine on your local FB group, sheesh. Mentality of a 12yr old.
Saturday curb stomping time. Haven't done that for a while, consider yourself gifted with one.
O
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Almost none of the cyclists being hit are doing the things you're describing.
The statistics don't support you. 40% is not "almost none", it is a very significant amount.
You are absolutely right. Be nice to him though, I don't think he knows what words mean..
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Not the original poster, but this NPR story [npr.org] mentions a 2009 study in Arizona that showed cyclists were the at-fault party for 44% of crashes. A study in Minnesota showed cyclists were at fault for 49% of cycling crashes. A 2004 study in D.C. showed cyclists were more likely to be at fault. A 1991 study in Hawaii showed cyclists were at fault just 16.5% of the time.
So different studies come to drastically different conclusions, but most of the studies seem to point towards cyclists and drivers being almo
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It's not all cyclist, but every sane cyclist I know will be happy to tell you of the idiots they've rode with doing stupid illegal stuff.
I see them riding in illegal fashion every day. Several abreast. Wrong side of the road. Stop sigh and traffic light violations, passing on the right just because there is a little space. And a surprising number of DUI's. I was just curious so I DDG'd arrested for riding bike on a freeway. Definitely illegal and dangerous. And here he is! He thought it was a good idea to ride his bike on an expressway. https://6abc.com/philadelphia-... [6abc.com]
And your attitude makes me think your more likely part of problem cyclist group than someone that cycles safely.
Yeah, anger management chap or chapette sounds exactly like the guy w
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Indeed, this isn't just a technical problem, there are huge and many social problems.
The over-simplified solution would be - whenever a cyclist is in the road, then they are also bound by traffic laws just like everyone else.
If bicyclists on the roadway followed the same traffic laws made for motorcycles, 80% of these accidents would vanish. If other vehicle drivers followed their own traffic laws pertaining to motorcyclists, but also applied to bicyclists, the remaining 20% would vanish.
Many bicyclists are strongly against this however, they don't want rules applying to them. They want it to be everyone elses fault when riding head on into traffic mid-lane in the dark, not because it is just, but because they are entitled.
It's this group of cyclists causing the problems for not just themselves but everyone else.
Indeed, here in PA, cyclists are bound by the same rules as other vehicles. You are correct that many riders do not like that. When roads get repaved, we almost always put in bike lanes, sometimes having to do eminent domain on everyone living along the road - which doesn't please hundreds of people. We have a law that we must give bicyclists a minimum of 4 feet (or about 1.3 meters) space between them and a driver. But when they ride abreast (illegal) You have to do off the road to the side to avoid br
Re: (Score:2)
1. You might like to tell yourself that 80% of accidents involving bikes are caused by cyclists not obeying traffic laws, but that doesn't remotely pass the sniff test.
2. Why would it make sense for a bike to be bound by the same rules as a motorbike, when they are vastly different machines? The latter can go much much faster, is much heavier, can accelerate much faster, (typically) has an explosive gas tank, etc etc. It's a much greater hazard than a bicycle. Treating vulnerable users as being bound by the
Re: (Score:2)
Well at least in my part of the US the "obliged" bike lanes consist of a 30" unprotected strip of road that can be terrifying while SUV's whip by you at 20-40mph and you pray they respect the thin white line, bike lanes are really on only on some of the roads, not anywhere close to a majority and rarely the major thoroughfares and very rarely connected to each other, often have cars parked in them and many times also have drivers making blind right hand turns because if people have to reminded to check for motorcycles you think they're looking for non-loud manual bikes?
I'm being a little cheeky but this is a two way thing here. Let me tell from both driving and cycling that there is no lack of jerks and terrible vehicle operators on both sides.
That the drivers that you don't like can be a pain - I take it from your post that you excuse the bikers habits? I'm sure you don't. Personally, I am for everyone obeying traffic rules. I obey them, I give all bicycles at least 4 feet which is the law. I even drive off the opposite side when they decide to ride four abreast. I see many legal infractions every day of my life.
The thing that interests me is the difference between off road biking and road biking. I help at race events giving communications an
Re:Good idea but a pipe dream (Score:4, Informative)
"This is great for the enthusiast crowd who are already spending multiple thousands on a bike so adding a brand new piece of tech is no problem. ("I already have Shimano electric shifters so I have to charge a battery, what's one more?" but in reality the sport biking crowd is the minority and honestly totally overrepresented in any discussions around bikes."
What are the power requirements? Have you looked? Why do you assume battery "charging" is a requirement at all? Could it be because you're looking for reasons to smear it?
"Most bikes on the roads by the numbers I have to imagine are actually used by people are utility focused, secondhand or children's sized."
Sounds like a good cross section we should be concerned about, unless you mean that we shouldn't care about children's safety. And oh yeah, that "secondhand" bike really throws a wrench in the works! Can't add anything to a bike!
"Now no reason this tech won't make it onto those but many do not come from major brands..."
That's right, NO REASON, and not coming from major brands doesn't mean the device cannot.
"Unless I hear a plan to make these sensors so cheap and abundant that every no-name children's bike a parent might get is equipped with one this sounds like just VC hype talk."
Unless you hear specific plans, you will make up some lies to argue against it. Why wouldn't "these sensors" be cheap and abundant? Isn't that the entire point?
""The US has like over double the number of bicycle ride deaths per year when adjusted for population. In the US we build everything around cars so the roads are generally not conducive to sharing and that has also created very bad habits and attitudes between both sets of riders."
Sounds like you support keeping it that way. It's only children, after all.
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This is great for the enthusiast crowd who are already spending multiple thousands on a bike so adding a brand new piece of tech is no problem.
As long as it's really light and aerodynamic...
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I can already see a $400 carbon fiber version as it shaves 1.5g off the weight.