A smartphone app that claims to alert motorists to the presence of cyclists on the road – assuming both the driver and rider are using it – has come under criticism on social media, as has happened with similar systems in the past.
A series of tweets over the weekend – at least one since deleted – announced that the Cycle Safety Technologies app can now be downloaded.
According to the company’s website, which has a short video showing how the app works, it is available for both iOS and Android devices. The first three months of use are free, then it costs 79 pence a month.
Joseph Edet, writing on his @CycleSafeTech account, said: “We have developed our road safety technology app on the basis that all road users should be able to communicate to each other.”
The replies to the tweet below, including from Pedal on Parliament co-founder Dave Brennan, highlight some of the objections commonly raised to such systems, including low uptake, the fact that the cyclist is required to download an app in the first place, and the way in which such technology, while presumably well-intentioned, can be perceived as shifting responsibility to keep vulnerable road users safe away from the motorist.
Yes we have hand signals.
What is missing is the abilities to be seen by a driver approaching a blind bend
Or a cyclist been able to communicate to a large lorry “hey im on your inside”
that is about to turn left at red lights or road junction.BE SEEN BE SAFE https://t.co/l8MDIc2NnM
— Joseph Edet (@cyclesafetech) February 10, 2019
It was also pointed out that a tweet with a picture of the app in operation showed the driver’s smartphone attached to the windscreen in an illegal manner.
Just to check with @Trafficwmp but this arrangement is illegal, as you have mounted a device in the area which must not have any item blocking driver’s forward vision
— Dave H – Ode an die Freiheit (Nicht dieser Tone) (@BCCletts) February 11, 2019
According to its ‘Our Story’ page on its website, Cycle Safety Technologies was born in 17 January 2017, the day after founder Joseph Edet had been sacked as an Uber driver.
Starting a new job as a chauffeur, the website says his first client was Laurence Prince – an entrepreneur who made his fortune in licensed celebrity calendars – who alongside Edel is listed as a director of the business at Companies House, where it was incorporated on 19 February 2018.
The app had been in development for several years prior to that, and was presented at the London Cycle Show
Writing on the Cycle Safety Technologies website, Edet says: “The idea for this app came when I witnessed a fatal accident between a cyclist and a construction vehicle on Hackney Road, East London. The woman cyclist was just doing what other cyclists do all the time, trying to get through slow traffic. The woman was unaware that the lorry was about to move and the vehicle driver was not aware of the cyclist!
“A split second later, a life gone!
“I was haunted by the question, why did this accident happen? It took weeks to conclude that for every road user there was no communication and no awareness – CST will change that!”
The website also has a shop, selling among other things hi-visibility vests for both adult and child cyclists and a vinyl sticker – costing between £29.00 and £46.20 plus VAT depending on the size of sticker selected – for motorists to let other road users know they are using the app.
14 thoughts on “Another app launched to warn drivers of presence of cyclists gets another backlash from bike riders”
What on earth do you have to
What on earth do you have to do to be sacked by Uber?
ktache wrote:
Uber can deactivate your account (they can’t sack you per se) for:
This app is nice in principle but there are too many “what if” arguments against it when all is realy needed is for fatalties to be massively reduced is for drivers to be aware of their surroundings and the road users near them.
What on earth do you have to
grrr.
“It took weeks to conclude
“It took weeks to conclude that for every road user there was no communication and no awareness – CST will change that!”
I somehow doubt that the uploads and downloads would have been completed before the crash, let alone factoring in registering the communication and the driver acting upon it.
And do we want drivers staring at phones or infotainment screens instead of looking at their surroundings ?
If only there were a gadget
If only there were a gadget that would enable drivers to see down the inside of their vehicles… something cheap and widely available, visible from the drivers seat, which would reflect a clear view of what it behind, or at the side.
And regarding the blind bend, a cyclist has nothing to fear because a reponsible driver will be going at a speed at which they could stop, if needed. Won’t they?
Why are there so many people
Why are there so many people who want to prevent cyclists being killed, but have no appreciation of the cause of deaths? In any other situation, as H&S tells us, you control the cause of the problem, with technology and armour being the last resort.
This is the latest in a series of “solutions” that ignore the cause; bad driving. None of them, including helmets, will ever succeed because their inventors haven’t defined the problem and ignore the cause.
When the app’s inventor was
When the app’s inventor was asked the following on Twitter:
This was his response:
Thanks for your comment
We confirm that cycle safety technology app Is for all road users.
If a cyclist Is not using the app but a driver Is using the app the responsibility rest with the cyclist.
All accidents that happen are look at on the evidence available.
This is essentially a protection racket, whereby those who choose not to use the app or simply can’t are placed in gretaer danger by drivers who are both distracted by and reliant on the app to warn them of VRUs.
Also, from the article:
It took you weeks and you still got the wrong answer.
Pudsey Pedaller wrote:
This is essentially a protection racket, whereby those who choose not to use the app or simply can’t are placed in gretaer danger by drivers who are both distracted by and reliant on the app to warn them of VRUs.
Also, from the article:
It took you weeks and you still got the wrong answer.
Those quotes are very disturbing. Do you have sources for them?
I asked a few questions on
I asked a few questions on Twitter
How does that work if I don’t have a compatible phone?
How does it work if my phone battery goes flat mid ride or phone crashes?
Or I just don’t have a stupid app installed?
Who’s responsibility is it then?
I ws blocked. without a reply. Given that the website advertises it as safety for 2p a day, this seems nothing more than a poor scam to me.
I’d recommend everyone downloads the app and then leaves an honest review
“why did this accident happen
“why did this accident happen?”
Lorry driver paying too much attention to his mobile phone instead of his surroundings?
If this Edet guy really cared about the person who died he’d get off his arse and try to make a difference in a positive way.
I hope this shitty app sinks without trace. Like so many other shitty apps, it’s part of the problem, NOT the solution.
I posted something similar on
I posted something similar on Twitter to go along with the massive hammering they’re taking there…
The only way anything like this would ever work is if it was mandatory. As it is, you’ll never get close to more than about 2% uptake (drivers & cyclists) which makes it totally pointless. And can you imagine driving through a city like London or Cambridge where there are lots of cyclists – the app would be going off literally all the time so drivers would turn the whole annoying thing off immediately!
And I can see the newspaper headlines now changing from the current victim-blaming soundbite of:
“The cyclist, who was not wearing a helmet, was in collision…..”
to a new type of victim-blaming soundbite:
“The cyclist, who had not downloaded the Cycle Safety app, was in collision….”
Just spotted that the
Just spotted that the Advertising Standards Authority recently upheld a complaint about CST’s tweet quoted above, finding that it was misleading. “We told Cycle Safety Technologies Ltd not to imply that the app would absolve users of responsibility in the case of a traffic incident.” https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/cycle-safety-technologies-ltd-a19-558103.html
Probably not worth getting
Probably not worth getting too worked up about this, as daft and victim-blaming as it is, because it won’t go anywhere anyway.
It’s an odd feature of capitalism that it seems to involve so many delusional non-starter start-ups and inventions that everyone but the inventor can see are hopelessly flawed. It seems quite an unfortunate waste of human effort. Though I suppose it’s part of why people find Dragon’s Den entertaining.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
I invented an app which can tell inventors if their inventions are hopelessly flawed. Paradoxically it told me that it was itself hopelessly flawed.