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Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

kickstarter.com

11–20 of 50 posts

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#11

This is stupid. The £50 that this light costs will buy you an extremely bright set of conventional lights, giving out several hundred lumens rather than 80. These lights will illuminate a large area of the ground ahead of you, allowing you to see, and provide dazzlingly bright points of light several feet off the ground, allowing you to be seen. These lights focus their beam where it is needed, projecting light direc…

[deleted]

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#12

This is stupid. The £50 that this light costs will buy you an extremely bright set of conventional lights, giving out several hundred lumens rather than 80. These lights will illuminate a large area of the ground ahead of you, allowing you to see, and provide dazzlingly bright points of light several feet off the ground, allowing you to be seen. These lights focus their beam where it is needed, projecting light direc…

I found the part in the video about cyclists being in the blind spot of a turning bus very worrying. That's not the way to cycle!

I cycle around London all the time and the one thing you have to do is be aware of the situation as a driver sees it. I've seen too many accidents or close shaves where I think to myself "You could have anticipated that situation". e.g. cyclist racing up the inside of a stationary line of traffic slams into the side of a car turning right through the line of traffic. Easy to anticipate that as you approach the junction there might be danger.

Equally, I drive through London as well and am very aware that cyclists are hard to see. But I have noticed that cyclists wearing fluorescent jackets are way more visible (day and night) than others. I can't see this particular invention being a big help to me. If I'm turning left I'm looking in the mirror and then doing the last check over the shoulder for anything. A cyclist in a fluorescent jacket is going to be visible to me in the mirror or through the window on the final check because of their height. And if I'm pulling out a fluorescent jacket also helps because I am looking at around body height (at cars and pedestrians).

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#13

Already launched similiar product.(this one goes backwards, instead of forward though) http://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/bike-lane-light Combine for red/green Christmas holiday theme goodness?

The product you linked looks much more functional than the one in this kickstarter. Do you own this?

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#14
post #5

Well.. It is a requirement in Germany that all bikes 11 kg or over, are fitted with dynamo powered lights.

This says nothing about any auxiliary lights you choose to mount, though. Still, I guess this thing would be illegal in Germany simply due to the fact that lighting on a vehicle is very rigorously specified and I guess the green colour won't fit well with the laws here.

I guess I'll opt for a very bright (hub) dynamo-powered light instead, but my main concern currently is not visibility but that I can still see the ground when there's a car coming at me with blinding lights.

(Side note, anecdotal evidence: No cyclist I know ever had problems with the police for using battery-powered lights instead of dynamo-powered ones. Most of the time they're happy when cyclists have light at all.)

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#15

This is stupid. The £50 that this light costs will buy you an extremely bright set of conventional lights, giving out several hundred lumens rather than 80. These lights will illuminate a large area of the ground ahead of you, allowing you to see, and provide dazzlingly bright points of light several feet off the ground, allowing you to be seen. These lights focus their beam where it is needed, projecting light direc…

I very much agree with your last statement; if you are undertaking a bus or other large vehicle you probably shouldn't be cycling at all. Of course there are exceptions to this.

Although lighting is a very important factor of being safe when cycling on the road, being aware of traffic and the law of the road is far more beneficial. I have cycled around London for years, usually with no lights at all and perhaps it is luck, but I have never had an accident.

You need a strong position in the road and decisive action that allows other road users to see your intentions - just act as if you were a car.

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#16
post #2

I live in Holland and the dedicated bike paths here make cycling really safe. So safe that I don't see the use for this bike light here in the Netherlands although it will probably have a marginal benefit. However, last summer I rented a bike in London and it was truly terrifying. Never before have I felt so unsafe in traffic before, anything to improve this situation would be great. Nonetheless, proper training of d…

In London we simply don't have space to put in dedicated cycle paths everywhere. IMHO, they're treating the symptom anyway, the problem is that a large number of road users in the UK (including quite a few cyclists) are aggressive, discourteous or just plain bad drivers/riders.

Cycle facilities (cycle lanes - dedicated or not, off road cycle paths, advanced stop line boxes, etc) all help encourage people to cycle; this is great as the more people on bikes on the road the safer it is for everyone (see TFL's "Safety In Numbers" campaigns). But a 2mm high strip of white paint on the road isn't going to save me from an idiot that is texting whilst driving and not looking where they're going. Ideally we wouldn't need any on-road cycling provisions at all.

I've ridden a bike quite a bit in France and have had no problem with the car drivers there, they give plenty of space when overtaking and have no problems being temporarily held up behind a cyclist until it is safe to overtake. No special facilities, just courteous drivers.

Segregation works both ways. This is anecdotal, but on one long distance ride in the UK there were sections where the riders were overtaken by the support vehicles of other riders (mainly the european riders). By far the worst (in terms of least distance given when passing) for overtaking were the cars with "NL" markings on their european number plates. My guess is that the years of segregation have put them out of practice with sharing the roads with cycles. Again, that's just my experience.

FWIW I cycle commute almost daily in London (I took the train today as I've got a horrible cold) and have grown used to London traffic. The closest times I've come to an accident were all my own fault. I've read "Roadcraft", I've had a full driving license (both car and motorcycle) for 15+ years, I did do cycling proficiency at school, yet I'll still take the opportunity for more training if it comes up (the local London boroughs to me often provide free cycle training every so often). I don't undertake vehicles approaching left turns, or overtake vehicles approaching right turns. I avoid cycling in the 'door zone' and I'm especially careful passing stopped cabs as the doors are invariably opened by passengers without looking. I'll be assertive but not aggressive. I smile at the lemming pedestrians that walk a step or two out into the road before looking. etc.

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#17
post #11

This is stupid. The £50 that this light costs will buy you an extremely bright set of conventional lights, giving out several hundred lumens rather than 80. These lights will illuminate a large area of the ground ahead of you, allowing you to see, and provide dazzlingly bright points of light several feet off the ground, allowing you to be seen. These lights focus their beam where it is needed, projecting light direc…

[deleted]

A cyclist's speed is hard to predict for a driver. I believe that mandatory bicycle headlights - day and night - would help alleviate this problem. The reason being that the cyclist then gets picked up by a driver's peripheral vision, which would help the brain process the change of position (a.k.a. velocity) continuously.

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#18
post #15

This is stupid. The £50 that this light costs will buy you an extremely bright set of conventional lights, giving out several hundred lumens rather than 80. These lights will illuminate a large area of the ground ahead of you, allowing you to see, and provide dazzlingly bright points of light several feet off the ground, allowing you to be seen. These lights focus their beam where it is needed, projecting light direc…

I very much agree with your last statement; if you are undertaking a bus or other large vehicle you probably shouldn't be cycling at all. Of course there are exceptions to this. Although lighting is a very important factor of being safe when cycling on the road, being aware of traffic and the law of the road is far more beneficial. I have cycled around London for years, usually with no lights at all and perhaps it is…

"just act as if you were a car"

This.

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#19
post #15

This is stupid. The £50 that this light costs will buy you an extremely bright set of conventional lights, giving out several hundred lumens rather than 80. These lights will illuminate a large area of the ground ahead of you, allowing you to see, and provide dazzlingly bright points of light several feet off the ground, allowing you to be seen. These lights focus their beam where it is needed, projecting light direc…

I very much agree with your last statement; if you are undertaking a bus or other large vehicle you probably shouldn't be cycling at all. Of course there are exceptions to this. Although lighting is a very important factor of being safe when cycling on the road, being aware of traffic and the law of the road is far more beneficial. I have cycled around London for years, usually with no lights at all and perhaps it is…

If you are cycling without lights, I would say you shouldn't be cycling at all.

Re: Bike light that projects the symbol of a bike down onto the road

#20
post #6
post #2

I live in Holland and the dedicated bike paths here make cycling really safe. So safe that I don't see the use for this bike light here in the Netherlands although it will probably have a marginal benefit. However, last summer I rented a bike in London and it was truly terrifying. Never before have I felt so unsafe in traffic before, anything to improve this situation would be great. Nonetheless, proper training of d…

In the UK we are constantly berated by government, medical boards etc etc for not keeping fit and healthy, also for costing the national health service a lot of money in terms of illness due to lack of exercise. No money is ever spent on cycle infrastructure and the roads are treacherous, many motorists are very antagonistic towards cyclists and as a result of this most people are scared away from it. I'm not sure wh…

It is a lot safer to cycle in London now than it was say 5 years ago; we don't have the same cycle infrastructure as say Holland, but we have made some good steps in that direction.
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