Originally Posted by
Daniel4
Many cyclists and pedestrians take safety precautions in their own way. Some dress and light themselves up like a christmas tree while others restrict themselves to trails.
However, regardless of what one does to minimize the risk of being struck by a driver, the ultimate determination does lie with what the driver does. Even if you get your bike off the road and wait on the sidewalk, drivers have been known to jump curbs and run over pedestrians.
A lot of people have been raving about the benefits of the Garmin bike radar, the Varia.
However, it seems to make just as much in not more sense for a car equivalent to alert drivers when there are cyclists and pedestrians ahead. Not only that, with gps technology, that device can and should alert drivers when they are exceeding the speed limit as well as approaching an object (like another car or cyclist) too quickly. We do not have the self-driving car yet but we certainly have the technology to alert drivers of dangerous situations.
What you are talking about is a transponder. And if you think about it, Drivers will become reliant on the "fact" that cyclists and pedestrians have these, and will stop thinking for themselves. So the first time you go out with a low battery in your transponder... you get hit.
Now on the other hand, every driver out there has a big windshield, and is required to at least see out of one eye... and by law is required to NOT HIT THE THINGS IN FRONT OF YOU. One might think that would be sufficient.
But, sure, let's complicate things by adding transponders to ordinary humans so the smart cars can do what the dumb drivers won't do.
BTW as an aside... I like those blinkers that have a system that increases the blink rate as a motorist approaches... is that a Garmin Radar thing?