Design concepts are a dime a dozen, but every once in a while you see one that seems too good not to be real. One example: The Light Lane, which allows any bike rider to project a traffic lane around them.
If you've never ridden a bike in a city, the idea's brilliance takes some explaining. Though many cities, including New York, have right-of-way laws for bike riders, drivers ignore them, treating bike riders like traffic cones. (That's one reason why urban bike riding remains so dangerous.) Bike lanes dramatically improve the situation, but they cost up to $50,000 a mile to install.
The light lane finally allows bike riders themselves to right the situation, using a cheap lasers to project a lane around the rider. Of course, it only works at night, but the idea goes a long way towards fixing a major obstacle in making bike riding more mainstream in cities, and it doesn't require any fancy tech.
[Via GOOD]
Related Stories: | Topics:Innovation, Technology, Design, Ethonomics, personal bike lane, laser bike lane, Light Lane, urban transport, Culture and Lifestyle, Outdoor Recreation, Travel and Tourism, Bicycling, United States |
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Recent Comments | 6 Total
January 23, 2009 at 3:24pm by david wayne osedach
It's a sound idea but what's to prevent it's overuse, and abuse?
January 23, 2009 at 4:00pm by Cliff Kuang
Hi David---Thanks for reading. But not sure I get you, in re: overuse/abuse. When would bikes getting demarcated space be a bad thing? Obviously, you wouldn't want bike riders riding five abreast on a road, but they don't do that now and a lane marker wouldn't exactly encourage that. And also, what's wrong with bike riders demanding legally given space to ride? It seems to me that cars are a far greater danger to bikes, than visa versa.
January 24, 2009 at 1:47pm by Dave Nathanson
If I were brainstorming about this great idea, I would try to improve it with an anti-shake feature so the projected "lane" appears very stable, even if the bike wanders slightly. This could be implemented sort of like image stabilization in a digital camera.
January 25, 2009 at 1:29pm by Cliff Kuang
That's a very smart idea---Thanks for reading Dave
January 25, 2009 at 1:29pm by Cliff Kuang
Thanks for reading Dave---That's a great idea. The only dilemma I'd anticipate is that it would probably double the price of such a product—taking it from simple laser pointer type tech to image stabilization stuff would up the costs quite a bit.
October 7, 2009 at 5:29am by Manfred Chester
That's a very smart idea. As a motorcyclist I know how difficult it is to be seen by cars on a rideout sw. Anything that helps vulnerable road users has got to be a good thing.