A new bike light that illuminates the road has been launched on crowd funding site Kickstarter, by a UK car lighting designer after he was knocked off his bike in South Australia.
Using LED lights shining both ahead and downwards, the Ding bike light illuminates the road in front, and a space 3m wide by 1.5m deep, around the rider.
The light bulb moment struck when its designer, Des Burns, who has designed lights for Jaguar and Landrover, was knocked off his bike on the way to the pub one night by a turning car. Although he had front and back lights the driver apparently didn't see him crossing the road, leaving him with a hole in his jeans, a gashed knee and a damaged bike.
Burns drew the initial designs on a beer mat. He said: "I met up with this friend of a friend at the pub, another engineer. He was laughing at the hole in my pants".
"I was not a big bike rider at that point. I'd ride to town with my wife in the afternoon or take the bike track to work once or twice a month. But this guy at the pub said it's quite common, riding at night near cars, you take your life in your own hands."
"The sketch was a joke really – I thought of some sort of light shield around a bike so motorists can see you."
The Ding light shines a rectangle of light of 150 lumens down at the road either side of the rider, with 400 lumens of forward power. The light weighs 110 grams.
So far the product's crowd funding page reports more than 300 backers for the light with around £48,000 pledged of its £80,000 target and 13 days to go.
Of course, it's not the first experimental bike light, and it probably won't be the last, as cyclists try to tackle the issue of drivers failing to see them at night, from the light that illuminates the rider to the one that shines a bike on the road using a green laser.
