Ièd rather not mess with anything physical. How about a laser level painting a no-cross line to the left of your travel line...

I wouldn't use anything that could be grabbed by a passing vehicle's passenger. It would need to be a breakaway type, but sturdy enough to withstand the usual wind and jolts while riding.

On the other hand, a proximity detector that launched Silly String or orange dye packs on brush-bys... maybe.

If anything bumps that rod, you're going down.

Looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

A flexible branch is a better solution. Willow branch. Tie a piece of red cloth at the end.

I've thought about letting fly a volley from a paint ball gun.

But, no doubt distracting a driver more than they are would be a bad idea. And, someone would respond with real bullets.

I don't worry much about cars overtaking from the rear. Most of them are travelling slow enough, it is only those that think they're on a closed Indy corse that bother me.

My dreaded pass is the 2 side-by-side cars coming towards me, and the tennis ball won't help a bit.

Tired of Close Calls

As a rearview mirror advocate, IMO wearing one takes a lot of surprise and anxiety out of close calls.

No, no, no. Get out there and make yourself visible. Get off the edge and out of the gutter. There's a video or three on YT of a guy who put something similar on his bike, riding at the far right edge, and some motorists STILL hit it! Something like that is not going to prevent close calls, and in fact could make the problem worse.

just needs a carbide scribe on the end to be perfect.

I occasionally tie frames to my rack. I find that helps a lot. I would definitely make that thing so it could rotate though. And space a few carbide scribes along the lenght of it.

I agree with all of you. I built it, put it on my bike for the pictures, then took it off. I feel much better. It came out just the way I imagined it. The "rod" is a heavy screen door spring plugged into a piece of copper pipe. The disk rotates so that you can point the thing backwards in town where you might choose to pass stalled traffic at close quarters.

I realized from the start that if someone did get close enough to wreck their paint job it would make the world a sadder place. They might get mad enough to run over the next innocent biker that came along, or, yeah, this is America, shoot me. The one who finally plows into me wouldn't be affected by it. But…it felt great to invent the thing I call the Stinger. I made a bullet catch out of a spring from a plumbing fixture and a 1/4" ball bearing from the bike shop. There is a satisfying "click" when the disk pops into position.

Yeah, I like how it's got a big ugly bolt on the end instead of a nice soft ball. Maybe it needs some Ben-Hur spikes?

Why is the orange ball bruised in the front? Or did it turn after the close call?

The ball has a dark logo on it, which I drilled through. I wanted to back the lag bolt out to get the ball on, but the spring is wound in a reverse thread and the lag doesn't want to back out, so I had to split the ball to get it on, which explains the out of roundness.

My issue is with red light runners on MUP crossings. I have been thinking of carrying steel ball to toss in front of me prior to leaving the curb area.

I've had very good results from adding a strobe to my left drop bar