Advocacy & Safety - protection device against mean motorists

I hear from time to time about agressive drivers, who drive near a cyclist too close with the mean intent to frifghten or to push out of the road.

Cyclists wear visible clothing and have blinkers on the bike, but it does not protect against mean motorists. It only helps the responsible motorists to see the cyclist.

I am trying to invent a conception of a portable device, which could provide some degree of protection against mean motorists. Because, now a mean motorist can frighten a cyclist without any risk for himself/herself or his/her car. A cyclist is in the very weak position in such a situation.

We need a revolutionary concept, something similar to what pepper spray was against aggressive dogs.

So far I came to the following idea: a small tube, which can "spit" a lucid jelly substance to a distance about 100 - 150 feet.

This chemical jelly shall hit the surface of the car and dry almost instantly without leaving at first any visible sign. The jelly charge should be rather light to make the hit on the car inaudible.

However, in about 8 hours due to UV or air contact a bright spot of orange color should appear on the car paint. This spot shoud not damage the car paint permanently, but should be very hard to remove.

A mean motorist drives in a "glass castle", and he/she must not be able to start "throwing stones first" speaking figuratively. The car is often the vanity item for his owner, and the paint is extremely expensive.

As R. Reagan said once: " I never saw that anyone insults Jack Dempsy." (Jack Dempsy is the famous sportsman, boxer). My point is that a cyclist should not be in too weak position in such situations.

If industry produces such protection device a mean motorist will think twice before abusing a cyclist. Because a cyclist will be able to mark the car in return.

Please, assist me in the developing this concept or offer any other revolutionary ideas to make the cycling on roads more safe for all traffic participants.

Originally posted by Alexey
now a mean motorist can frighten a cyclist without any risk for himself/herself or his/her car.
Hardly.


Originally posted by Alexey
A cyclist is in the very weak position in such a situation.
Not entirely.


Originally posted by Alexey

So far I came to the following idea: a small tube, which can "spit" a lucid jelly substance to a distance about 100 - 150 feet.

If you think you can hit a moving vehicle at 150' from a moving bicycle, you're dreaming.

I don't see how this is any different from any number of options that are available already. eg. water pistol filled with brake fluid, a hefty u-lock, a gun, a swift kick in the door panel, fisticuffs or even just a good solid yelling at. The best revenge is up close and personal.

All these things are ways or cyclists to get back at 'mean motorists', so what you said about there being no risk to the driver or their car is untrue.

A squirt of orange dye that is difficult to remove poses a pretty minimal risk to the driver I should think, hardly an equitable response if that's what you're after.

Now, as to whether such vengeance is a) morally appropriate and b) likely to result in increased safety for cyclists is another matter entirely. Personally I have severe doubts about either. In terms of a) all it really does it put another little black spot on the Soul, and in terms of b) I suspect the opposite will occur and you will actually see an escalation in antagonism between cyclists and motorists.

The best way to achieve safety on the road is to act and think safely. The best way to find peace on the road is to be filled with peace. I have proven this with experience. True, it doesn't work perfectly, but I believe that's only because I don't practice it perfectly.

In closing, this isn't a 'protection device' you're talking about, it's a 'revenge device'.

In closing, this isn't a 'protection device' you're talking about, it's a 'revenge device'.

I agree with Allister, other than create unneceesary antagonisim between cyclists and motorists don't see what benefit it would have.

Richard

Maybe you are right. Even with the pepper spray; - I never used it against a dog, even though I carry it around usually. Internal peace and friendliness work better. But obviously not always.

I am just under impression of this tragic story:
http://www.vermontadaptive.org/us_ride/index.shtml

A kick in the door or a gun can just lead to escalation of the senseless violance on the spot. In my concept the orange spot should appear only hours after the inaudible hit. I am thinking not about a revenge, but about an effective tool against evil fun of some irresponsible motorists, who find it funny to frighten cyclists.

The problem with my idea is that the wide spread of this device may lead to congestion on roads, when a road is used by large group of cyclists, for example, on Sunday group ride. Motorists may be afraid to pass near such a group, in fear that the car may change the color to orange one.

If aggressive drivers were punished by law as a matter of routine, they would think twice, but they know that cyclists are in a weak legal position as well. It is just the word of a cyclist against the word of a driver, and independant eyewitnesses invariabley mis-interpret what they see, ie the irate cyclist responding is seen as an aggressive cyclist attacking a driver.
When I shout at a driver for almos killing me, pedestrians tut tut at me for being loud and rude.

The solution it seems to me is video evidence. With modern digital cameras, it should be fairly cheap to construct a webcam quality device that can store 1-2 mins video loop in solid state.
When you have been harassed, you stop the record.
You may also need a tilt/accelerometer switch to stop the recording 10 secs after a crash.

If every commited cyclist mounted one or 2 devices on their bike (forward and rear facing), then the rate of convictions would soar, and drivers would be much more careful.

When a motorist in 7000 car pushes 50 pounds bicycle from the road, there is already antagonism with this particular motorist.

You shall not be afraid to create it. It is already there.

Michael,
Your idea is better than my. Digital video technology becomes fairly affordable.

Besides, it may protect not only against pranks, but against real road rage cases.

Do you suggest a rear-facing camera, Michael? If so, it could be coupled with a wireless transmitter/receiver and eyeglass-mounted prismatic LCD projector to make a superior rearview mirror.

A front-facing camera would be great for taking still photos of one of my pet peeves, cars parked in bike lanes.

There's a guy who's working real hard on wearable cameras. His model sends the image via radio signal directly to a web server, thus avoiding confiscation of the recorded images if someone objects to him using the camera.

See http://wearcam.org/ Scroll down to get the details.

I'm looking forward to the costs of cameras going down. How much disk space does 10 minutes of video require?

Kevin S.

Originally posted by Kevin S
How much disk space does 10 minutes of video require?


How much spatial and temporal resolution do you want, Kevin? A standard-definition (NTSC, PAL, or SECAM) D1 digital television image requires ALOT of storage (27MS/s * 1 byte/sample = 27MB/s), although this is easily compressed by MPEG technology to about 0.5MB/s. Of course, if we can settle for fewer than the standard 25 or 29.94 frames per second and a reduced picture size, we can reduce this figure proportionately, as is done routinely in security camera applications. Going monochrome instead of color drops the bandwidth and storage requirements in half. Thus, a quarter-size monochrome NTSC image, updated at, say, 5 frames per second, would fill 500kB/s / (4*2*6) = 10KB/s = 0.6MB/min, which is quite economical with today's memory technology.

A black and white good webcam quality image compresses down to 20K. At 10 frames /sec, 1min takes up 12M.
Many of the pen-sized USB memory sticks and digital camera smart media cards are 80-100M

So, you can store 10mins of adaquate video on a memory stick or smart-media camera card. The cams themselves are tiny and cheap, so a small system is quite do-oable with current technolgy.

The rear-view feature is not something I had considered. Of course it will have to be displayed in mirror image or riders will react in the wrong direction!! I didnt include a display at all because that adds cost and power consumtion, but a mobile phone download sounds a good idea, perhaps using the WAP phone screen to view.

There may be a problem with vibration on a bike-mounted unit. Anti vibration software (eg in binoculars) is pretty good but that adds to the expense.

I drop the idea of the orange goo "Cyclist avenger" device. The cause of cyclists is right. They do not have to hide what they do. I accept the critique. As famous poet wrote: "Do what's right with all your might..."

This discussion however led to the good idea of a kind of "black box" on a bike, which records 2 minutes of digital video in loop. I would suggest to use wide angle camera, which records not only what happens behind, but from sides too. I would also suggest to record the sound with a sensitive mike.

As saying goes: "If an idea is not crazy enough there is nothing to it." What else "crazy" ideas we can generate to make unfriendly motorists think twice?

Alexey's idea of squirting a sticky goo at automobiles which will ruin paint has been used by the local pigeons and other birds for years.

The problem is that they have "squirted" my car with their white paint solvent goo despite the fact that I have fed the birds and try to be friendly.

Originally posted by Alexey
"If an idea is not crazy enough there is nothing to it."
Alexey, I like the way you think. Cyclists are very vulnerable and often shamefully mistreated by motorists who don't care.

And look what this discussion brought up! A revolutionary device:
a portable video camera!

It is well known that car-thieves are deterred by the presence of video cameras on the street. Police use them in their cars here in the USA.

:thumbup:

Originally posted by mike
Alexey's idea of squirting a sticky goo at automobiles which will ruin paint has been used by the local pigeons and other birds for years.

The problem is that they have "squirted" my car with their white paint solvent goo despite the fact that I have fed the birds and try to be friendly.
Ha! So we cyclists do have allies!

;)

I thought of a big mean dog as a device, but it's hardly portable. Oh well.

Also, I feel I must be snotty and point out that it's Jack DEMPSEY, not Dampsy. It's funny but I just saw one of the Dempsey fights on ESPN Classics. I love that station!

I would not like riding with a generic camcorder mounthed on the rear rack.

I think to be acceptable the "Bicycle black box" shoud be of the size of a blinker. 2 minutes of black&white wide-angle movie and sound before a crash and 2 minutes after will be enough.

2 minutes after could be also useful to see how people behaved after the crash.

I read of 2 tragic collisions already where in one case it was not possible to tell what exactly happened, because of the bike trailer, and in the second the car and the runaway motorist were never found at all.

By the way, I am starting to feed birds to help them to survive winter.

Originally posted by Alexey
When a motorist in 7000 car pushes 50 pounds bicycle from the road, there is already antagonism with this particular motorist.


So why make it worse?


Originally posted by Alexey
This chemical jelly shall hit the surface of the car and dry almost instantly without leaving at first any visible sign. The jelly charge should be rather light to make the hit on the car inaudible.

However, in about 8 hours due to UV or air contact a bright spot of orange color should appear on the car paint. This spot shoud not damage the car paint permanently, but should be very hard to remove.

If the first sign is 8 hours later, how will they know where it came from? With all the crap on roads these days, it could have been anything.

I have come to the conclusion that the only long term way to reduce antagonism toward cyclists is to get more people to ride. I rather think this idea would be like critical mass and have the opposite effect.

Originally posted by Alexey
By the way, I am starting to feed birds to help them to survive winter.
Alexy,

Just feed some Australian Magpies. Chris says they attack him on his bike sometimes.

It would be nice to have friends like that to attack the offensive motorists sometimes. :eek:

:D

Originally posted by Pete Clark

Alexy,

Just feed some Australian Magpies. Chris says they attack him on his bike sometimes.

It would be nice to have friends like that to attack the offensive motorists sometimes. :eek:


They don't like the hot weather tho. I can understand that. I'm yet to have my first hot shower in 2002. This has been purely by choice :eek:

When Chris takes a shower (with cold water,) he creates his own steam.

:eek:

Originally posted by Pete Clark

Just feed some Australian Magpies... :D

... to the crocodiles

I guess Chris rides so fast, that they take him for a motorcyclist. Sort of friendly fire.

By far the majority of drivers are courteous. Today hundreds of cars passed me on a country ride. And only one vehicle got unecessarily close, at high speed and honked. About two miles later he was on the side of the road fixing a flat. I was tempted to say something to him and his buddy, feeling bold since I was a couple of miles from my finish. But I just let it pass. What's the point of dealing with azzholes? And they got that flat fixed before I got to the finish, and the second time theypassed me they gave me my lane. If I had antagonized them they could have hit and run.

Originally posted by Pat O'Malley
By far the majority of drivers are courteous.
This is who we need to reach.

Tow a cute visable dog on a trailer. People will swerve for dogs over people, right?

Maybe on top of visable clothing, wear something totally eye-catching. Strap a ***** on your helmet, or attach to your hubs some kind of spear that jets outwardly about a foot and a half. They will think back to that horse and carraige racing movie and consider the possible financial losses and immediately swerve.

Or maybe we're just screwed.

Many times, I've thought about catching up to the offending car stopped at a light (tho these people probably don't stop for red lights, huh?) and using my metalic toe clip thingy to put some art on their shiney car.

Dave

Originally posted by Dwagenheim
Tow a cute visable dog on a trailer. People will swerve for dogs over people, right?
Or, at least you will hear the dog "yelp" as a warning before the motorist takes you out, too! :eek: