7 ms·

Police use ultrasonic device to make sure drivers stay 3 feet from cyclists

34 points by caminante 11y ago

URSpider94 11y ago
California has the same law. This is a great way to get tools into the hands of police to help them enforce the law and educate drivers.
- wheaties 11y ago
  And if you decide to ride in the middle of a lane while on a bike, should the car drive in the other side of the road to pass you? This tool is arbitrary and will not change the problem, lack of dedicated bike lanes.
  - homunculus 11y ago
    They should. If you choose to pass a motor vehicle that is driving in front of you, and it's legal, you would cross the center line to do it. In Maryland, bicycles are considered vehicles so they should be accorded all the rights and responsibilities that go along with that designation. If the law says to give them three feet, you give them three feet even if you have to wait for the clearance to do it. I agree that bikes should have their own dedicated lanes but in the interim we have to deal with the law as it is. I used to drive a truck; I'm kind of a stickler for the rules. Edit: As an aside, I'd rather have a bicyclist ride in the center of the lane as opposed to the side. I've had too many close calls where cyclists swerved out of the way of an opening door and closed the gap quickly.
  - pokoleo 11y ago
    This tool is not arbitrary. > If you decide to ride in the middle of a lane while on a bike, should the car drive in the other side of the road to pass you? Where I live, bicycles are vehicles. They are vehicles, and vehicles have the right to use the entire lane; Especially when there are no bicycle lanes.
  - URSpider94 11y ago
    I agree that it would be great to have segregated bike lanes everywhere, but realistically that's not going to happen any time soon.
  - NoGravitas 11y ago
    They should. A bike is a slow-moving vehicle (like a tractor or horse-drawn carriage) and when you pass a slow-moving vehicle, you should not do it in their lane (exception -- bicycles and motorcycles may lane-split). You should do it just like passing a car (or a tractor, or a horse-drawn carriage) -- in the other lane. In some jurisdictions it is even legal to cross a double yellow line to pass a bicycle, so you don't have that excuse.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    You mean dedicated debris, door, and parking lanes? Bike lanes are a restriction on cyclists.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Why should they pass you? Or rather, why would it be any different than a slow driver?
mc32 11y ago
To me the best solution is to have dedicated lanes for two wheeled vehicles of up to 50cc or equiv on high traffic roads and then lane sharing on less congested and lower volume roads. Lane sharing in high volume roads is asking for accidents to happen, no matter the best intentions of drivers and cyclists alike. on roadways where the speed is over 25mph I think it'd be best to have dedicated lanes, if possible and lane sharing should be an interim solution during the transition (construction). It would also mean all involved be subject to all road rules, like speed, distance, red lights and stop signs
nsxwolf 11y ago
If the police are measuring with ultrasonic rangefinders, then cars need them too. How are human drivers supposed to judge that distance? The article makes the analogy of trying to enforce speed limits without a radar detector. Fine, but cars have speedometers that give the driver the same information. We don't demand drivers just get a feel for how fast they are going.
- minikites 11y ago
  We do ask people to guess whether or not they are committing DWI/DUI though, which is a huge problem in my opinion. Cockeyed.com sums it up better than I can: http://www.cockeyed.com/science/breathalyzer/breathalyser01.shtml http://www.cockeyed.com/science/breathalyzer/breathalyser01.... > Monitoring blood alcohol levels is difficult. Holding people accountable for crossing the .08 limit is like holding them accountable for trespassing once they walk past a particular longitude. The line is invisible. It is possible to determine your longitude, but it is awfully tricky if you don't own a sextant or GPS unit. > Imagine if cars did not have speedometers, but speeding laws were still enforced with $2,000 police radar guns. It would be really difficult to tell how fast you were going, particularly (as is the case with blood alcohol levels), you had never experienced having your speed tested, nor had any real experience with what a particular speed (for example 55 mph) feels like.
  - oostevo 11y ago
    There's two ways to ensure that you aren't inadvertently running afoul of drinking and driving laws: you can either not drink, or wait a large amount of time after drinking before you drive. Same with passing bicycles - you can give them so much more than three feet that there's no chance that you're within three feet of them, or not pass them until there is that much room. Three feet is the minimum. The expectation isn't that drivers should try to get as close to three feet without going over.
    - minikites 11y ago
      Should we treat speed limits the same way, so everyone drives around at a crawling pace?
steanne 11y ago
PA law is actually four feet, but given the width of bike lanes this is sometimes physically impossible.
- nedwin 11y ago
  It's not impossible. If there isn't a safe distance to pass a cyclist you have to wait until there is a safe distance.
  - steanne 11y ago
    well, yes. i'm mostly a pedestrian, not on either side here.
rubyfan 11y ago
What I find more interesting than the device is a quote from the officer, "Their attitude will determine whether I issue a citation. If they take it and just throw it on the seat, then I know I wasn’t effective. Then in that case I would issue a citation." Does this seem extremely subjective and arbitrary to anyone else?
- sehugg 11y ago
  Yeah, I don't see how pretending to read a pamphlet in front of the officer demonstrates understanding or future compliance.
- jen729w 11y ago
  Honestly that sounds like excellent policing to me. If we issue everyone with a ticket for the smallest infraction we end up alienating the public. I'm a law-abiding citizen; I want to help the police. If I'm pulled over for something fairly innocent - say, not quite leaving enough room for a cyclist - and I'm given a $150 fine, no questions asked, what that does not do is make me respect cyclists more. It makes me disrespect the police, the law, it angers me, it makes me far less likely to help the police in the (immediate) future. If the officer explains the law to me and I take what he says on board, that's a better outcome for everyone. It's better for me (no ticket), it's better for cyclists (I'll leave more room), and it's better for the police (excellent public relations). I speak as a daily cyclist, as someone who called my local police literally an hour ago to report a weirdly parked car, and as an ex-Englishman, now resident of Melbourne, Australia. We tend to get on with our police here; their street skills tend to be a bit "softer". I think that's fabulous.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    The grandparents wasn't questioning whether it makes sense to give warnings, he was questioning whether we really want officers on the street making gut-level decision about how sorry they think the driver was.
    - loco5niner 11y ago
brianstorms 11y ago
Now if they'd only come up with some device to make sure cyclists stop at stop signs and red lights.
- analog31 11y ago
  While I'm personally in favor of the Idaho Stop, the traffic laws are definitely enforced on cyclists in my locale. As I understand it, the police follow the same "logic" for bikes and cars, regarding where and when to direct actual enforcement efforts.
- dodders 11y ago
  Now if only they'd come up with a device to make sure drivers stop at stop signs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GneVKDI_bEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GneVKDI_bEc
  - sosuke 11y ago
    Well red light cameras can capture license plates, so all we need to achieve parity is legally require front and back license plates on bicycles. Seems reasonable, eventually inspection stickers too. Want to make sure brakes work, has working lights. More like motorcycle requirements perhaps? Edit: just to frame, I did not watch the youtube video you linked to, I was just brainstorming out loud and I don't think anyone should run red lights
    - mindslight 11y ago
      Because adding surveillance placards to one of the few remaining untracked modes of transportation is a fantastic idea. This "make cyclists stop" red herring persists because some drivers have developed stockholm syndrome with the large quantity of unnecessary traffic control devices that have been deployed by committee (most stop signs could be yields, most red arrows could not exist, and at least a third of stop lights could be simply eliminated). Cyclists are much more in touch with the life and death reality of public roads, because even when following all traffic laws they can easily be killed. Competent cyclists treat red lights and stop signs as yields because there is no downside for anyone - just like drivers who do rolling stops. And yes, incompetent cyclists exist just like incompetent drivers exist - if you want to defend yourself from being wrongly blamed for an accident with a self-endangering moron in any vehicle, get a dashcam.
analog31 11y ago
I realize this is quite an aside from the topic of the article, but... it's beautiful. It looks like something straight out of the "maker" movement: Appropriate use of off-the-shelf components, rugged enough for its use, "do things that don't scale" manufacturing, and probably appropriately designed for the anticipated number of units needed, numbering maybe a half dozen at most.
wpietri 11y ago
For the entrepreneurs here, I promise to order a $200 version of this. Ideally it'd just be a mount I'd drop my phone into so that I could, say, pair it with Bluetooth and have an app that simultaneously records video with overlaid range and GPS information. I would pretty much immediately start documenting the routes I ride.
- pmorici 11y ago
  Why not make your own... https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=ultrasonic https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=ultrasonic
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I like the thought of it, but I have a lot of fun hobby project ideas already. Realistically the amount of work it would take to make something good is a lot more than $200 of my time. But if one person makes 100 of these, maybe it's worth $20,000 of their time.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    If I make my own it's getting hooked up to a can of spraypaint, not to a camera. b^)
- ohazi 11y ago
  http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bosch-130-ft-Laser-Distance-Measurer-DLR130K/202504985 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bosch-130-ft-Laser-Distance-Measu...
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Thanks, but it doesn't really match what either I or the article described. I'm not trying to measure a distance. I'm trying to prove to my city planners and my elected representatives that many drivers on particular routes are unsafe.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Laser would end up hitting a driver in the eye and causing a wreck.
sosuke 11y ago
How do you tell the difference between cars breaking the 3 foot rule, and cyclists breaking the 3 foot rule?
- chockablock 11y ago
  You check to see which one was doing the passing.
- herbig 11y ago
  "Will this law prohibit a bicyclist from passing a car closely? No." https://bikeeastbay.org/GiveMeThree https://bikeeastbay.org/GiveMeThree
  - jonahx 11y ago
    This seems arbitrary and dangerous. A car being passed may not notice the passing cyclist in his mirrors, and attempt a lane change. Forcing the 3 foot buffer on the cyclist as well gives a chance for both cyclist and car to notice and avoid the collision.
    - herbig 11y ago
      Cars not noticing cyclists in their mirrors before they change lanes is the fault of the driver, not the cyclist. Motorists should always check their mirrors before changing lanes. There could also be other cars there. The onus is on the two ton shielded metal vehicle, not the bicycle.
      - jonahx 11y ago
        Obviously if the driver hits the cyclist, the driver is legally at fault. I am suggesting that the law anticipate the inevitable carelessness of drivers, and build in at least a small safeguard. I see no good reason not to make the cylists abide by a safe distance passing rule.
OrdaGarb 11y ago
The whole thing seems fragile, both in terms of the physical properties and legalities. Some thoughts: Cost: $1400 for $12 worth of parts obviously hacked together in a project box seems a bit much. While not for this specific application, it's a really common project for people starting out with Arduinos: Arduino+ultrasonic sensor+display and a beeper. Usually used as a parking distance alarm in a garage. In this case the police add their own GoPro for evidence purposes I assume. Hopefully it clearly shows the position of the bicycle as well, and that he was fully to the right of the lane at the time of the measurement. Safety: Could the possibility of a citation for uncertain margins with a bicycle cause the same nervous reactions that red light cameras cause possibly increasing the number of accidents? Prior art: My car has an ultrasonic backup alarm with display and beeper that serves this exact purpose (measuring distance before impact). That was done in 2002, so not at all a new idea. Value as evidence: Isn't a common defense to speeding tickets the lack of recent calibration of the RADAR gun? This thing is probably subject to all manner of interference and inaccuracies. Countermeasures: It could be easily jammed/confused by a transmitter designed for that purpose, and that should be legal since we're talking about audio frequencies, and inaudible ones at that. Ever see those ultrasonic deer transducers that go on the bumper? They don't work for deer, but they do emit sound in the ultrasonic range at certain speeds. I could see designing one specifically as a passive jammer mounted to the right-hand mirror. My own experiences: I've biked thousands of kilometers in the US and been hit a few dozen times, nothing very serious. Some were my fault, most the driver's fault. None were malicious, just poor observations/judgement/conditions. I ride defensively and don't really care about these laws and behave as though they don't exist since it's not wise to count on the driver, and the driver shouldn't count on me either.

34 points by caminante 11y ago

California has the same law. This is a great way to get tools into the hands of police to help them enforce the law and educate drivers.

wheaties 11y ago
And if you decide to ride in the middle of a lane while on a bike, should the car drive in the other side of the road to pass you? This tool is arbitrary and will not change the problem, lack of dedicated bike lanes.
- homunculus 11y ago
  They should. If you choose to pass a motor vehicle that is driving in front of you, and it's legal, you would cross the center line to do it. In Maryland, bicycles are considered vehicles so they should be accorded all the rights and responsibilities that go along with that designation. If the law says to give them three feet, you give them three feet even if you have to wait for the clearance to do it. I agree that bikes should have their own dedicated lanes but in the interim we have to deal with the law as it is. I used to drive a truck; I'm kind of a stickler for the rules. Edit: As an aside, I'd rather have a bicyclist ride in the center of the lane as opposed to the side. I've had too many close calls where cyclists swerved out of the way of an opening door and closed the gap quickly.
- pokoleo 11y ago
  This tool is not arbitrary. > If you decide to ride in the middle of a lane while on a bike, should the car drive in the other side of the road to pass you? Where I live, bicycles are vehicles. They are vehicles, and vehicles have the right to use the entire lane; Especially when there are no bicycle lanes.
- URSpider94 11y ago
  I agree that it would be great to have segregated bike lanes everywhere, but realistically that's not going to happen any time soon.
- NoGravitas 11y ago
  They should. A bike is a slow-moving vehicle (like a tractor or horse-drawn carriage) and when you pass a slow-moving vehicle, you should not do it in their lane (exception -- bicycles and motorcycles may lane-split). You should do it just like passing a car (or a tractor, or a horse-drawn carriage) -- in the other lane. In some jurisdictions it is even legal to cross a double yellow line to pass a bicycle, so you don't have that excuse.
- mindslight 11y ago
  You mean dedicated debris, door, and parking lanes? Bike lanes are a restriction on cyclists.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Why should they pass you? Or rather, why would it be any different than a slow driver?

mc32 11y ago

To me the best solution is to have dedicated lanes for two wheeled vehicles of up to 50cc or equiv on high traffic roads and then lane sharing on less congested and lower volume roads. Lane sharing in high volume roads is asking for accidents to happen, no matter the best intentions of drivers and cyclists alike. on roadways where the speed is over 25mph I think it'd be best to have dedicated lanes, if possible and lane sharing should be an interim solution during the transition (construction). It would also mean all involved be subject to all road rules, like speed, distance, red lights and stop signs

nsxwolf 11y ago

If the police are measuring with ultrasonic rangefinders, then cars need them too. How are human drivers supposed to judge that distance? The article makes the analogy of trying to enforce speed limits without a radar detector. Fine, but cars have speedometers that give the driver the same information. We don't demand drivers just get a feel for how fast they are going.

minikites 11y ago
We do ask people to guess whether or not they are committing DWI/DUI though, which is a huge problem in my opinion. Cockeyed.com sums it up better than I can: http://www.cockeyed.com/science/breathalyzer/breathalyser01.shtml http://www.cockeyed.com/science/breathalyzer/breathalyser01.... > Monitoring blood alcohol levels is difficult. Holding people accountable for crossing the .08 limit is like holding them accountable for trespassing once they walk past a particular longitude. The line is invisible. It is possible to determine your longitude, but it is awfully tricky if you don't own a sextant or GPS unit. > Imagine if cars did not have speedometers, but speeding laws were still enforced with $2,000 police radar guns. It would be really difficult to tell how fast you were going, particularly (as is the case with blood alcohol levels), you had never experienced having your speed tested, nor had any real experience with what a particular speed (for example 55 mph) feels like.
- oostevo 11y ago
  There's two ways to ensure that you aren't inadvertently running afoul of drinking and driving laws: you can either not drink, or wait a large amount of time after drinking before you drive. Same with passing bicycles - you can give them so much more than three feet that there's no chance that you're within three feet of them, or not pass them until there is that much room. Three feet is the minimum. The expectation isn't that drivers should try to get as close to three feet without going over.
  - minikites 11y ago
    Should we treat speed limits the same way, so everyone drives around at a crawling pace?

steanne 11y ago

PA law is actually four feet, but given the width of bike lanes this is sometimes physically impossible.

nedwin 11y ago
It's not impossible. If there isn't a safe distance to pass a cyclist you have to wait until there is a safe distance.
- steanne 11y ago
  well, yes. i'm mostly a pedestrian, not on either side here.

rubyfan 11y ago

What I find more interesting than the device is a quote from the officer, "Their attitude will determine whether I issue a citation. If they take it and just throw it on the seat, then I know I wasn’t effective. Then in that case I would issue a citation." Does this seem extremely subjective and arbitrary to anyone else?

sehugg 11y ago
Yeah, I don't see how pretending to read a pamphlet in front of the officer demonstrates understanding or future compliance.
jen729w 11y ago
Honestly that sounds like excellent policing to me. If we issue everyone with a ticket for the smallest infraction we end up alienating the public. I'm a law-abiding citizen; I want to help the police. If I'm pulled over for something fairly innocent - say, not quite leaving enough room for a cyclist - and I'm given a $150 fine, no questions asked, what that does not do is make me respect cyclists more. It makes me disrespect the police, the law, it angers me, it makes me far less likely to help the police in the (immediate) future. If the officer explains the law to me and I take what he says on board, that's a better outcome for everyone. It's better for me (no ticket), it's better for cyclists (I'll leave more room), and it's better for the police (excellent public relations). I speak as a daily cyclist, as someone who called my local police literally an hour ago to report a weirdly parked car, and as an ex-Englishman, now resident of Melbourne, Australia. We tend to get on with our police here; their street skills tend to be a bit "softer". I think that's fabulous.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  The grandparents wasn't questioning whether it makes sense to give warnings, he was questioning whether we really want officers on the street making gut-level decision about how sorry they think the driver was.
  - loco5niner 11y ago

brianstorms 11y ago

Now if they'd only come up with some device to make sure cyclists stop at stop signs and red lights.

analog31 11y ago
While I'm personally in favor of the Idaho Stop, the traffic laws are definitely enforced on cyclists in my locale. As I understand it, the police follow the same "logic" for bikes and cars, regarding where and when to direct actual enforcement efforts.
dodders 11y ago
Now if only they'd come up with a device to make sure drivers stop at stop signs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GneVKDI_bEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GneVKDI_bEc
- sosuke 11y ago
  Well red light cameras can capture license plates, so all we need to achieve parity is legally require front and back license plates on bicycles. Seems reasonable, eventually inspection stickers too. Want to make sure brakes work, has working lights. More like motorcycle requirements perhaps? Edit: just to frame, I did not watch the youtube video you linked to, I was just brainstorming out loud and I don't think anyone should run red lights
  - mindslight 11y ago
    Because adding surveillance placards to one of the few remaining untracked modes of transportation is a fantastic idea. This "make cyclists stop" red herring persists because some drivers have developed stockholm syndrome with the large quantity of unnecessary traffic control devices that have been deployed by committee (most stop signs could be yields, most red arrows could not exist, and at least a third of stop lights could be simply eliminated). Cyclists are much more in touch with the life and death reality of public roads, because even when following all traffic laws they can easily be killed. Competent cyclists treat red lights and stop signs as yields because there is no downside for anyone - just like drivers who do rolling stops. And yes, incompetent cyclists exist just like incompetent drivers exist - if you want to defend yourself from being wrongly blamed for an accident with a self-endangering moron in any vehicle, get a dashcam.

analog31 11y ago

I realize this is quite an aside from the topic of the article, but... it's beautiful. It looks like something straight out of the "maker" movement: Appropriate use of off-the-shelf components, rugged enough for its use, "do things that don't scale" manufacturing, and probably appropriately designed for the anticipated number of units needed, numbering maybe a half dozen at most.

wpietri 11y ago

For the entrepreneurs here, I promise to order a $200 version of this. Ideally it'd just be a mount I'd drop my phone into so that I could, say, pair it with Bluetooth and have an app that simultaneously records video with overlaid range and GPS information. I would pretty much immediately start documenting the routes I ride.

pmorici 11y ago
Why not make your own... https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=ultrasonic https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=ultrasonic
- wpietri 11y ago
  I like the thought of it, but I have a lot of fun hobby project ideas already. Realistically the amount of work it would take to make something good is a lot more than $200 of my time. But if one person makes 100 of these, maybe it's worth $20,000 of their time.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  If I make my own it's getting hooked up to a can of spraypaint, not to a camera. b^)
ohazi 11y ago
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bosch-130-ft-Laser-Distance-Measurer-DLR130K/202504985 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bosch-130-ft-Laser-Distance-Measu...
- wpietri 11y ago
  Thanks, but it doesn't really match what either I or the article described. I'm not trying to measure a distance. I'm trying to prove to my city planners and my elected representatives that many drivers on particular routes are unsafe.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Laser would end up hitting a driver in the eye and causing a wreck.

sosuke 11y ago

How do you tell the difference between cars breaking the 3 foot rule, and cyclists breaking the 3 foot rule?

chockablock 11y ago
You check to see which one was doing the passing.
herbig 11y ago
"Will this law prohibit a bicyclist from passing a car closely? No." https://bikeeastbay.org/GiveMeThree https://bikeeastbay.org/GiveMeThree
- jonahx 11y ago
  This seems arbitrary and dangerous. A car being passed may not notice the passing cyclist in his mirrors, and attempt a lane change. Forcing the 3 foot buffer on the cyclist as well gives a chance for both cyclist and car to notice and avoid the collision.
  - herbig 11y ago
    Cars not noticing cyclists in their mirrors before they change lanes is the fault of the driver, not the cyclist. Motorists should always check their mirrors before changing lanes. There could also be other cars there. The onus is on the two ton shielded metal vehicle, not the bicycle.
    - jonahx 11y ago
      Obviously if the driver hits the cyclist, the driver is legally at fault. I am suggesting that the law anticipate the inevitable carelessness of drivers, and build in at least a small safeguard. I see no good reason not to make the cylists abide by a safe distance passing rule.

OrdaGarb 11y ago

The whole thing seems fragile, both in terms of the physical properties and legalities. Some thoughts: Cost: $1400 for $12 worth of parts obviously hacked together in a project box seems a bit much. While not for this specific application, it's a really common project for people starting out with Arduinos: Arduino+ultrasonic sensor+display and a beeper. Usually used as a parking distance alarm in a garage. In this case the police add their own GoPro for evidence purposes I assume. Hopefully it clearly shows the position of the bicycle as well, and that he was fully to the right of the lane at the time of the measurement. Safety: Could the possibility of a citation for uncertain margins with a bicycle cause the same nervous reactions that red light cameras cause possibly increasing the number of accidents? Prior art: My car has an ultrasonic backup alarm with display and beeper that serves this exact purpose (measuring distance before impact). That was done in 2002, so not at all a new idea. Value as evidence: Isn't a common defense to speeding tickets the lack of recent calibration of the RADAR gun? This thing is probably subject to all manner of interference and inaccuracies. Countermeasures: It could be easily jammed/confused by a transmitter designed for that purpose, and that should be legal since we're talking about audio frequencies, and inaudible ones at that. Ever see those ultrasonic deer transducers that go on the bumper? They don't work for deer, but they do emit sound in the ultrasonic range at certain speeds. I could see designing one specifically as a passive jammer mounted to the right-hand mirror. My own experiences: I've biked thousands of kilometers in the US and been hit a few dozen times, nothing very serious. Some were my fault, most the driver's fault. None were malicious, just poor observations/judgement/conditions. I ride defensively and don't really care about these laws and behave as though they don't exist since it's not wise to count on the driver, and the driver shouldn't count on me either.