7 ms·

Bike-mounted sensor could boost the mapping of safe cycling routes

97 points by yunusabd 1y ago

yunusabd 1y ago
I was curious if the sensor would pick up other things like trees or other cyclist, but it seems like they accounted for that: > We then log a sensor events [sic] if the majority of cells in the sensor frame agree to the same value within a threshold parameter [...]. This ensures that sensor events are only logged when large objects like cars block the sensor’s field-of-view , i.e., one or more small objects like branches or distance pedestrians in the sensor’s field-of-view will not trigger this condition. While there is no guarantee that this approach strictly identifies cars, we empirically saw during testing that passing cyclists and pedestrians rarely satisfied this condition at the typical passing distance due to the wide field-of-view of the VL53L8. Also interesting that it's quite cheap to build: > The whole system can cost less than $25 [...] From the paper https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713325 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713325
- pj_mukh 1y ago
  So if I’m in a protected bike lane with a row of parked cars to my left wouldn’t it be flagging every parked car as a potential hazard?
  - davidhyde 1y ago
    From the photos, there appears to be more than one sensor on the device which may be used to tell which direction the large object is coming from. Unless you were cycling backwards or mounted the device the wrong way around you shouldn't have any stationary cars passing you. Just a guess though.
  - ben-schaaf 1y ago
    Unless there's enough distance to the bike lane every parked car in a row of parked cars is a potential hazard. It's even got it's own name: dooring.
    - fwipsy 1y ago
      I assumed it could tell whether the car was passing you or vice versa.
stevage 1y ago
In my area there has been a program for years where you can sign up to mount a device like this to your bike for pretty much this exact same purpose. From memory it goes behind your seatpost thougho which seems less annoying.
- jonesjohnson 1y ago
  Sounds like https://www.openbikesensor.org/ https://www.openbikesensor.org/ But I haven't heard of any "official" programs.
  - stevage 1y ago
    I don't seem to be able to find it now.
newsclues 1y ago
Needs Strava integration
pedalpete 1y ago
As a long-time cyclist and former bike courier, I think most of the proximity concerns are probably of my own doing. I wonder if the device somehow accounts for this. My initial reaction is that an accelerometer might be a better data-point, or combining this with accelerometer data. I'm working on the assumption that a smoother path means I am interacting less with traffic or other hazards.
- pimlottc 1y ago
  I’m not sure how much that matters. You won’t need to initiate close passes as often on a safer street.
  - gpm 1y ago
    Given a choice between a street where the cars are stuck in 2km/hr traffic and I'm passing them with a less than foot (0.3m) gap, or a street with 70km/hr traffic where they're passing me with a 1 meter (3 foot) gap... the former feels a lot safer. Admittedly these streets aren't usually close together (either in time or space), but I've certainly biked on both. Still, imperfect data can be better than no data.
    - analog31 1y ago
      I wonder if this can be predicted by a heat map of car crashes in your area. This is based on my private hunch that car crashes are a predictor of bike crashes. After all, if a car can crash into another car, or a stationary object such as a tree or a building, then it can crash into another bike. And the causes may be similar: Speed and inattention. On such a map for my locale, the most crash-prone roads are exactly the ones that I instinctively avoid.
      - gpm 1y ago
        One potential issue with counting is that crashes aren't created equal. To reference back to the extremes I discussed above, if I crash when I'm going 5km/h and it's going 2km/h... it's fine*. If I crash going 30km/h with a car going 70km/h I likely have life altering injuries (or am dead, though I believe the statistics say I'm actually pretty likely to survive a collision at that speed differential). I.e. fender benders between cars (and between cars and bikes, I assume) are common, but not really what we care about. Not to say it wouldn't be an interesting map to make. * I've never been involved in a collision, but I assume I'd be fine at these speeds and any damage minimal.
aerophilic 1y ago
Just to plug a friend… Velo.ai does similar things… but has other stuff going on: https://www.velo.ai/ https://www.velo.ai/ Interesting to see how these two would compare, but my first (light) glance points to velo.ai being further along…
jwagenet 1y ago
I don’t know Seattle so I’d be curious to know if the proximity and accident hotspots are also high traffic zones in general, whether they have a bike like (and how it’s placed), and if the routes are even bike routes or just routes that riders comfortable jostling in traffic like me took. Comfortable riders may also skew the data by being willing to “lane split” at red lights to pass stopped cars rather than waiting at the back in lane. Having biked a lot in SF, my impression is the best protected bike lanes are on wide roads like Folsom/Howard, Fell/Oak, etc. where proximity isn’t generally an issue, but I’d expect intersections to be riskier due to higher car speeds. While cars passing on isn’t an issue on the Wiggle with a critical mass of riders, on neighborhood streets where sharing the road is obligated the drivers can be scariest, especially in the Sunset. In NYC, an abundance of one lane, one way streets make controlling an entire street easier. The reality of city design at the moment is almost any bike route will require the sharing the road with cars at some point, usually at the start and end of a ride, because bike lane and “bike route” coverage is often poor in residential areas and business districts.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  I am willing to give it a good try even if it's never perfect! I live in a major city and the increased traffic from scooters almost feels like it could support a separate lane even if bikes didn't exist
kjkjadksj 1y ago
Safe cycling routes are misunderstood. The best thing is taking the lane so you are actually visible. If you take the lane, most streets become very safe and mundane in my experience. Four lane roads are even better than two lane because people can easily merge around you, you can stay out of dooring range and be very visible to traffic. On two lane roads people tend to get a little angry if you take the lane, although that is what you absolutely must do because the alternative is riding in the door zone and people squeezing you passing in the same lane.
- doug_durham 1y ago
  In an area where motorists are used to bikes being on the roads this is an effective approach. I nearly got killed in Portland trying this. Apparently they aren't used to share the road with bike. Which was surprising to me given the city's reputation. I'm much more comfortable doing this in the Bay Area where there a hundreds of bikers on the roads at pretty much all times.
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    I manage in LA county
- david-gpu 1y ago
  Taking the lane (vehicular cycling) often works well in slow-moving traffic, but it breaks down in when there is a large speed differential between the cyclist and car traffic. Effectively, you are in the way and drivers won't expect you to be there. For these faster roads it is necessary to have dedicated cycling infrastructure, including Dutch-style safe intersections. Otherwise only risk-tolerant or desperate people will cycle.
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    It isn’t like I am invisible. Drivers routinely merge for a bus or ubereats vehicle or other obstruction. It is certainly safer than the alternative of not taking the lane and having these cars with the speed differential try and pass you in the same lane as you. This is what always happens unless you take up space and force the lane change to merge.
mhalle 1y ago
This device would also be useful in places with street-side bike lanes or no bike lanes at all, to see how closely bicyclists ride next to parked cars. Dooring remains one of the greatest threats to bicyclist safety in many locations. Even places with great bike infrastructure often have streets with parking where cyclists must ride.
s1mon 1y ago
There are a number of commercial solutions in this space. It's weird when there's a press release like this that acts like their solution is completely novel and unrelated to anything else. Roadio has front and rear facing cameras with AI driven object detection to help keep cyclists and motor scooter riders safer. https://www.roadio.com https://www.roadio.com Garmin (amongst others) has had a rear mounted radar (and bike light) system for a while. They also have one with a camera built in. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/698001/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/698001/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721258/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721258/
- froddd 1y ago
  Roadio is primarily a camera and costs around $265 USD. The Garmin is also a camera and also costs over $300 USD. Neither reports to a central service to map the results for other users.
  - Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    Strava has heat maps.
- jibal 1y ago
  Read beyond the title ... none of those have anything to do with this.
  - s1mon 1y ago
    It's a pair of handlebar mounted sensors which show how closely cars have passed by. The biggest difference is in the crowd sourced data about general safety of roads. That's really a feature which could be added to most of the existing systems. The hardware is all about tracking how close vehicles are to a bike. That's the same problem radar and camera systems are solving and have been solving for a while. The article acts like the sensors are novel - which they are not.
    - jibal 1y ago
andrewshadura 1y ago
A solution in search of a problem. Safe bicycle routes need to be created by building inherently safe infrastructure: protected intersections and separate bicycle tracks.
- doug_durham 1y ago
  As a cycling commuter I'm happy with margin. Give me roads and bike lanes that are wide enough to allow me to navigate with margin of safety. The problem with separate bike tracks is that they are rarely built because of the cost and politics involved. Bike trails are a nightmare because inevitably you need to share them with pedestrians. We just need spaces where cars and bikes can coexist. I think that cities in the Bay Area do a good job with this. Turning a 4 lane road into a two lane road with bike lanes, or eliminating parking on the side of the road are much easier to do, and very effective. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough.
  - cinntaile 1y ago
    > The problem with separate bike tracks is that they are rarely built because of the cost and politics involved. The cost of bike lanes isn't too bad. Unlike a car road it doesn't require a lot of maintenance. > Bike trails are a nightmare because inevitably you need to share them with pedestrians. This is a political issue, here you have plenty of bike trails just for bikes.
    - usrusr 1y ago
      > The cost of bike lanes isn't too bad. Unlike a car road it doesn't require a lot of maintenance. Tell that to cyclists used to navigating mandatory bike infrastructure full of terribly broken up surface. If car lanes were that quality, people would put the authorities under permanent siege with torches and pitchforks, for refusing to maintain roads. "Oh, but that road is fine, few spots where you have to step out of the car to push it". For some reason, people responsible for bike infrastructure (outside .nl or Copenhagen) tend to think that it's ok to slow down to walking speed or dismount, on main routes. Imagine similar things required from drivers.
microtonal 1y ago
Even though mapping out safe routes can help, it's by far more a cultural and political problem that does not have technological solutions. You need separate bike lanes or completely separate bike paths, you need separate traffic lights for bikes. You need to change laws so that car drivers are always legally responsible for damage, even if a cyclist/pedestrian caused the accident (because it makes car drivers more careful/aware). You need to train car drivers to be more aware of cyclists, starting with simple things like knowing how to open a door carefully. You need a police force that conducts a deep investigation when a cyclist gets hit and a municipality that changes the layout of the roads to decrease the probability of it happening again. Etc. I live in a country that is cycling walhalla, where there are more bikes than citizens, where a good chunk of the population go to work and do groceries by bike and we do all of the above.
- atoav 1y ago
  This is the correct answer. One big problem is that your "safe bicycle path" can be made unsafe by a motorist that forgot to check for bicycles at any second. That can be parked cars, cars that turn right or or motorists that narrowly overtake with a high speed or whatever. And the best solution for this is to create a separate space for bicycles that can't be accidentally violated without running into some sort of barrier. The next best thing is probably to include certain things in the the education for the drivers license that give people the empathy and perspective of what it feels like if you are on a bicycle and some asshole overtakes you with 70 km/h and half an arm of distance. The Dutch cycling embassy website provides some basic principles on this: https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-behaviour/ https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-behaviour/ and on infrastructure https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-infrastructure/ https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-infrastructure/
  - Neikius 1y ago
    In my opinion the biggest problem is people who design roads/infrastructure don't bike. When they bike they will know what to do and how to pay attention. So right now there is this huge push in EU to make more bike infrastructure. But people making it ... don't bike. At least not everywhere. And where they don't they will inevitably make bad bike infrastructure. This could just be corners that are too tight. Bad incline on a corner for example will not be obvious to someone who never bikes, could be just a few degrees. But on a bike it's deadly! Maybe not on dry asphalt, but bring some rain, sand, whatever and people will fall. And then we can start talking about culture.
nikau 1y ago
Next step is to connect the sensor to a can of pressured brake fluid that sprays onto the paintwork of vehicles passing too close.
- Lio 1y ago
  I know you’re joking but there’s a simpler way to get the same effect. There are people who attach a pool noodle to the back of their bike sticking out straight into the road less than proper passing distance. They are highly visible and the idea is that drivers avoid them because they don’t know if they will damage their car or not. In the case of a case of a close pass the pool noodle just bends out of the way. The was also a laser product that projected a line onto the ground around the cyclist. I don’t think it worked very well though.
jonesjohnson 1y ago
https://www.openbikesensor.org/ https://www.openbikesensor.org/ is pretty popular at least here in Germany. It's a bit bigger and works with ultrasonic distance measurement. Apart from that (and some other features) it's basically the same idea...
iosguyryan 1y ago
A bike/stroller FLARM and auto manufacturers supporting it would be fantastic

97 points by yunusabd 1y ago

I was curious if the sensor would pick up other things like trees or other cyclist, but it seems like they accounted for that: > We then log a sensor events [sic] if the majority of cells in the sensor frame agree to the same value within a threshold parameter [...]. This ensures that sensor events are only logged when large objects like cars block the sensor’s field-of-view , i.e., one or more small objects like branches or distance pedestrians in the sensor’s field-of-view will not trigger this condition. While there is no guarantee that this approach strictly identifies cars, we empirically saw during testing that passing cyclists and pedestrians rarely satisfied this condition at the typical passing distance due to the wide field-of-view of the VL53L8. Also interesting that it's quite cheap to build: > The whole system can cost less than $25 [...] From the paper https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713325 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713325

pj_mukh 1y ago
So if I’m in a protected bike lane with a row of parked cars to my left wouldn’t it be flagging every parked car as a potential hazard?
- davidhyde 1y ago
  From the photos, there appears to be more than one sensor on the device which may be used to tell which direction the large object is coming from. Unless you were cycling backwards or mounted the device the wrong way around you shouldn't have any stationary cars passing you. Just a guess though.
- ben-schaaf 1y ago
  Unless there's enough distance to the bike lane every parked car in a row of parked cars is a potential hazard. It's even got it's own name: dooring.
  - fwipsy 1y ago
    I assumed it could tell whether the car was passing you or vice versa.

stevage 1y ago

In my area there has been a program for years where you can sign up to mount a device like this to your bike for pretty much this exact same purpose. From memory it goes behind your seatpost thougho which seems less annoying.

jonesjohnson 1y ago
Sounds like https://www.openbikesensor.org/ https://www.openbikesensor.org/ But I haven't heard of any "official" programs.
- stevage 1y ago
  I don't seem to be able to find it now.

newsclues 1y ago

Needs Strava integration

pedalpete 1y ago

As a long-time cyclist and former bike courier, I think most of the proximity concerns are probably of my own doing. I wonder if the device somehow accounts for this. My initial reaction is that an accelerometer might be a better data-point, or combining this with accelerometer data. I'm working on the assumption that a smoother path means I am interacting less with traffic or other hazards.

pimlottc 1y ago
I’m not sure how much that matters. You won’t need to initiate close passes as often on a safer street.
- gpm 1y ago
  Given a choice between a street where the cars are stuck in 2km/hr traffic and I'm passing them with a less than foot (0.3m) gap, or a street with 70km/hr traffic where they're passing me with a 1 meter (3 foot) gap... the former feels a lot safer. Admittedly these streets aren't usually close together (either in time or space), but I've certainly biked on both. Still, imperfect data can be better than no data.
  - analog31 1y ago
    I wonder if this can be predicted by a heat map of car crashes in your area. This is based on my private hunch that car crashes are a predictor of bike crashes. After all, if a car can crash into another car, or a stationary object such as a tree or a building, then it can crash into another bike. And the causes may be similar: Speed and inattention. On such a map for my locale, the most crash-prone roads are exactly the ones that I instinctively avoid.
    - gpm 1y ago
      One potential issue with counting is that crashes aren't created equal. To reference back to the extremes I discussed above, if I crash when I'm going 5km/h and it's going 2km/h... it's fine*. If I crash going 30km/h with a car going 70km/h I likely have life altering injuries (or am dead, though I believe the statistics say I'm actually pretty likely to survive a collision at that speed differential). I.e. fender benders between cars (and between cars and bikes, I assume) are common, but not really what we care about. Not to say it wouldn't be an interesting map to make. * I've never been involved in a collision, but I assume I'd be fine at these speeds and any damage minimal.

aerophilic 1y ago

Just to plug a friend… Velo.ai does similar things… but has other stuff going on: https://www.velo.ai/ https://www.velo.ai/ Interesting to see how these two would compare, but my first (light) glance points to velo.ai being further along…

jwagenet 1y ago

I don’t know Seattle so I’d be curious to know if the proximity and accident hotspots are also high traffic zones in general, whether they have a bike like (and how it’s placed), and if the routes are even bike routes or just routes that riders comfortable jostling in traffic like me took. Comfortable riders may also skew the data by being willing to “lane split” at red lights to pass stopped cars rather than waiting at the back in lane. Having biked a lot in SF, my impression is the best protected bike lanes are on wide roads like Folsom/Howard, Fell/Oak, etc. where proximity isn’t generally an issue, but I’d expect intersections to be riskier due to higher car speeds. While cars passing on isn’t an issue on the Wiggle with a critical mass of riders, on neighborhood streets where sharing the road is obligated the drivers can be scariest, especially in the Sunset. In NYC, an abundance of one lane, one way streets make controlling an entire street easier. The reality of city design at the moment is almost any bike route will require the sharing the road with cars at some point, usually at the start and end of a ride, because bike lane and “bike route” coverage is often poor in residential areas and business districts.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
micromacrofoot 1y ago
I am willing to give it a good try even if it's never perfect! I live in a major city and the increased traffic from scooters almost feels like it could support a separate lane even if bikes didn't exist

kjkjadksj 1y ago

Safe cycling routes are misunderstood. The best thing is taking the lane so you are actually visible. If you take the lane, most streets become very safe and mundane in my experience. Four lane roads are even better than two lane because people can easily merge around you, you can stay out of dooring range and be very visible to traffic. On two lane roads people tend to get a little angry if you take the lane, although that is what you absolutely must do because the alternative is riding in the door zone and people squeezing you passing in the same lane.

doug_durham 1y ago
In an area where motorists are used to bikes being on the roads this is an effective approach. I nearly got killed in Portland trying this. Apparently they aren't used to share the road with bike. Which was surprising to me given the city's reputation. I'm much more comfortable doing this in the Bay Area where there a hundreds of bikers on the roads at pretty much all times.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  I manage in LA county
david-gpu 1y ago
Taking the lane (vehicular cycling) often works well in slow-moving traffic, but it breaks down in when there is a large speed differential between the cyclist and car traffic. Effectively, you are in the way and drivers won't expect you to be there. For these faster roads it is necessary to have dedicated cycling infrastructure, including Dutch-style safe intersections. Otherwise only risk-tolerant or desperate people will cycle.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  It isn’t like I am invisible. Drivers routinely merge for a bus or ubereats vehicle or other obstruction. It is certainly safer than the alternative of not taking the lane and having these cars with the speed differential try and pass you in the same lane as you. This is what always happens unless you take up space and force the lane change to merge.

mhalle 1y ago

This device would also be useful in places with street-side bike lanes or no bike lanes at all, to see how closely bicyclists ride next to parked cars. Dooring remains one of the greatest threats to bicyclist safety in many locations. Even places with great bike infrastructure often have streets with parking where cyclists must ride.

s1mon 1y ago

There are a number of commercial solutions in this space. It's weird when there's a press release like this that acts like their solution is completely novel and unrelated to anything else. Roadio has front and rear facing cameras with AI driven object detection to help keep cyclists and motor scooter riders safer. https://www.roadio.com https://www.roadio.com Garmin (amongst others) has had a rear mounted radar (and bike light) system for a while. They also have one with a camera built in. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/698001/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/698001/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721258/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721258/

froddd 1y ago
Roadio is primarily a camera and costs around $265 USD. The Garmin is also a camera and also costs over $300 USD. Neither reports to a central service to map the results for other users.
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago
  Strava has heat maps.
jibal 1y ago
Read beyond the title ... none of those have anything to do with this.
- s1mon 1y ago
  It's a pair of handlebar mounted sensors which show how closely cars have passed by. The biggest difference is in the crowd sourced data about general safety of roads. That's really a feature which could be added to most of the existing systems. The hardware is all about tracking how close vehicles are to a bike. That's the same problem radar and camera systems are solving and have been solving for a while. The article acts like the sensors are novel - which they are not.
  - jibal 1y ago

andrewshadura 1y ago

A solution in search of a problem. Safe bicycle routes need to be created by building inherently safe infrastructure: protected intersections and separate bicycle tracks.

doug_durham 1y ago
As a cycling commuter I'm happy with margin. Give me roads and bike lanes that are wide enough to allow me to navigate with margin of safety. The problem with separate bike tracks is that they are rarely built because of the cost and politics involved. Bike trails are a nightmare because inevitably you need to share them with pedestrians. We just need spaces where cars and bikes can coexist. I think that cities in the Bay Area do a good job with this. Turning a 4 lane road into a two lane road with bike lanes, or eliminating parking on the side of the road are much easier to do, and very effective. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough.
- cinntaile 1y ago
  > The problem with separate bike tracks is that they are rarely built because of the cost and politics involved. The cost of bike lanes isn't too bad. Unlike a car road it doesn't require a lot of maintenance. > Bike trails are a nightmare because inevitably you need to share them with pedestrians. This is a political issue, here you have plenty of bike trails just for bikes.
  - usrusr 1y ago
    > The cost of bike lanes isn't too bad. Unlike a car road it doesn't require a lot of maintenance. Tell that to cyclists used to navigating mandatory bike infrastructure full of terribly broken up surface. If car lanes were that quality, people would put the authorities under permanent siege with torches and pitchforks, for refusing to maintain roads. "Oh, but that road is fine, few spots where you have to step out of the car to push it". For some reason, people responsible for bike infrastructure (outside .nl or Copenhagen) tend to think that it's ok to slow down to walking speed or dismount, on main routes. Imagine similar things required from drivers.

microtonal 1y ago

Even though mapping out safe routes can help, it's by far more a cultural and political problem that does not have technological solutions. You need separate bike lanes or completely separate bike paths, you need separate traffic lights for bikes. You need to change laws so that car drivers are always legally responsible for damage, even if a cyclist/pedestrian caused the accident (because it makes car drivers more careful/aware). You need to train car drivers to be more aware of cyclists, starting with simple things like knowing how to open a door carefully. You need a police force that conducts a deep investigation when a cyclist gets hit and a municipality that changes the layout of the roads to decrease the probability of it happening again. Etc. I live in a country that is cycling walhalla, where there are more bikes than citizens, where a good chunk of the population go to work and do groceries by bike and we do all of the above.

atoav 1y ago
This is the correct answer. One big problem is that your "safe bicycle path" can be made unsafe by a motorist that forgot to check for bicycles at any second. That can be parked cars, cars that turn right or or motorists that narrowly overtake with a high speed or whatever. And the best solution for this is to create a separate space for bicycles that can't be accidentally violated without running into some sort of barrier. The next best thing is probably to include certain things in the the education for the drivers license that give people the empathy and perspective of what it feels like if you are on a bicycle and some asshole overtakes you with 70 km/h and half an arm of distance. The Dutch cycling embassy website provides some basic principles on this: https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-behaviour/ https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-behaviour/ and on infrastructure https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-infrastructure/ https://dutchcycling.nl/expertises/cycling-infrastructure/
- Neikius 1y ago
  In my opinion the biggest problem is people who design roads/infrastructure don't bike. When they bike they will know what to do and how to pay attention. So right now there is this huge push in EU to make more bike infrastructure. But people making it ... don't bike. At least not everywhere. And where they don't they will inevitably make bad bike infrastructure. This could just be corners that are too tight. Bad incline on a corner for example will not be obvious to someone who never bikes, could be just a few degrees. But on a bike it's deadly! Maybe not on dry asphalt, but bring some rain, sand, whatever and people will fall. And then we can start talking about culture.

nikau 1y ago

Next step is to connect the sensor to a can of pressured brake fluid that sprays onto the paintwork of vehicles passing too close.

Lio 1y ago
I know you’re joking but there’s a simpler way to get the same effect. There are people who attach a pool noodle to the back of their bike sticking out straight into the road less than proper passing distance. They are highly visible and the idea is that drivers avoid them because they don’t know if they will damage their car or not. In the case of a case of a close pass the pool noodle just bends out of the way. The was also a laser product that projected a line onto the ground around the cyclist. I don’t think it worked very well though.

jonesjohnson 1y ago

https://www.openbikesensor.org/ https://www.openbikesensor.org/ is pretty popular at least here in Germany. It's a bit bigger and works with ultrasonic distance measurement. Apart from that (and some other features) it's basically the same idea...

iosguyryan 1y ago

A bike/stroller FLARM and auto manufacturers supporting it would be fantastic