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Blaze Lasersquirrels on Santander Cycles

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  • November 8, 2016 at 10:54 am #26473
    newtonk

    Re: http://road.cc/content/news/209063-video-blaze-laserlight-santander-cycles-spooky-launch-movie

    Is it just me or are these lights that project a bicycle onto the road pretty much useless (apart from the standard bike light function)?

    I was cycling along the other evening and thought a fucking squirrell had run under my wheel or something – turns out it was a Santander Cycle approaching from a side road but jesus christ it really threw me!

    When you’re pootling along slowly (eg approaching a junction/traffic lights) and one of these light-equipped bikes approaches from behind, the image on the ground really is unexpected and I honestly think someone could be surprised to the point of evasive action and a potential accident.

    Aside from that, I really can’t see how they are any safer than a standard light – is this just another unnecessary gimmick?  I think so.

    Nuts.

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  • November 12, 2016 at 3:22 pm #881525
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    matthewn5

    Yes I thought it might be

    Yes I thought it might be something to stop iPeds stepping out in front of a bike, because they’ll see that wiggling around before the bike is upon them.

    November 11, 2016 at 11:42 pm #881523
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    bluemoonday

    I thought that it was
    I thought that it was originally designed to warn motorists, or cars specifically, of a cyclist in the drivers blind spot. It was meant to stop cars turning left in front of cyclists. So quite a specific purpose.
    Their actual usefulness in practice is to prevent pedestrians stepping out into the road when they assume it’s safe because they cannot hear any cars. Or in places like the Embankment Cycle Super Highway, where pedestrians are distracted by the sight seeing or they’re not even aware of the cycle path because it’s no different to the footpath.
    They’re too dim and close to the car for drivers to notice with enough time to respond.

    November 9, 2016 at 2:10 pm #881521
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    fenix

    Was in London the other week

    Was in London the other week and walking along the Green lights did alert me to a bike coming before their crappy headlights had started to light the road. So they may be OK for those bikes – but I suspect most of us have brighter lights than you get on a boris bike anyway.

    November 9, 2016 at 1:55 pm #881519
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    newtonk

    Mungecrundle wrote:

    Mungecrundle wrote:
    And yet you felt the need to comment on the fact that it alerted you to the presence of a cyclist. How odd.

    Nope, it startled me, alerting me to the presence of something which turned out to be a bicycle behind me (in one instance, and waiting at a side road in the other).  Had I been driving a car, the light would have been projected not under my front wheel where it can startle, but underneath my car, where it’s completely useless. 

     

    November 9, 2016 at 1:15 pm #881517
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    Mungecrundle

    And yet you felt the need to
    And yet you felt the need to comment on the fact that it alerted you to the presence of a cyclist. How odd.

    November 9, 2016 at 12:59 pm #881515
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    Al__S

    They’re quite amazingly

    They’re quite amazingly pointless, I really don’t understand them.

    November 9, 2016 at 9:12 am #881513
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    Anonymous

    They’re utter crap.  Lest we

    They’re utter crap.  Lest we forget, the roads are not smooth.  So never mind what shape it’s projecting, it will look like a green fuzz when moving and you’ll only recognise it as a bike from right on top of it…

    November 9, 2016 at 8:02 am #881511
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    ClubSmed

    I hadn’t seen these before
    I hadn’t seen these before and I also don’t see the point. I had seen something similar though for the rear that projected a bike symbol. The rear one at least had the point of protecting a sort of temporary bike lane encouraging wider over taking. The front version can’t claim the same

    November 8, 2016 at 4:23 pm #881509
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    brooksby

    Squirrels / nuts – I see

    Squirrels / nuts – I see whatcha did there… yes

    And yes, I do think they’re an unnecessary frippery.

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