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Has this been done already?
This is an interesting project to map dangerous routes for bikes using simple tech and an app:
https://newatlas.com/bicycles/proxicycle-bicycle-sensor-safe-cycling-routes/
Of course, the sensor mount is on the wrong side of the bars for roads that are driven on the left hand side!
I can see it giving Police an idea of where to target close pass operations, but I reckon most cyclists could just tell them anyway
Surely it could only help with mapping safe cycling routes if every cyclist used one! Ooh this route's safe, no close passes here.. er, cos nobody with a sensor rode it!
Other problem is, because I ride a lot of back roads on my commute, I've just got one of those little mirrors that fits in the same place that thing does.
Nice idea, but.. nah
I suspect the data would be fairly meaningless.
Just mentally plotting my route across town to the pub:
First 2 miles, painted lane, cars will pass closely, but it's a 20mph limit with speedbumps so apart from the odd tit it's safe despite probably being less than the 1.5m in the HWC.
Next few miles, cycle path, it's going to ping every lamppost between me and the carriageway. No idea what it would make of the moored canal boats later on.
Across the bridge: the traffic will be stationary and I'll be filtering, so probably 50 close passes in just over a mile.
The last bit, probably the only mile where the data will be valid.
That and it has none of the subjectivity as to what feels close but safe (I wave plenty of cars past on narrow lanes where there might only be ~2ft clearance but the road surface is smooth and clear and I'm happy being passed slowly) Vs a HGV coming past with the legal 5ft clearance at 56mph showering me with gravel and detritus from the center of the lane on a DC. I'm more bothered about the roads where I get punishment passed (typically urban roads with 2 lanes each way and people object to cyclists 'taking' one of them) than I am about narrower roads where cars give what room is available and it's safe even if it's not entirely to the rules.
Does a "close pass" occur more often on certain roads or is it not certain dickhead drivers? And if the latter, what does this gadget tell anyone? And of course I've not read the article...
My close pass monitor is on the end of my arm. Had one ping on Sunday when a car passed me and I was able to bang on the side of the rear quarter as it passed. Needless to say the relative passing speed was not very high - I was on a TT bike doing 28 mph as they decided to squeeze past!
I would have thought that such a sensor was straightforward, but what to do with the data? Needs a rear camera too. This was the subject of a reasonable academic study during a commute. The single safest feature I have found to avoid close passes has been to ride a recumbent trike or a kiddyback tandem.
it's going to ping every lamppost between me and the carriageway. No idea what it would make of the moored canal boats later on.
"...app uses a special algorithm to determine if the detected object was an automobile, and if it passed less than 1 m (3.3 ft) from the bike. If the reading meets both of those criteria, it is saved as an example of a motorized vehicle that passed the cyclist too closely"
(if that link works, they've also developed a vidcam for right-side-of-the-road close passes. We're saved!)
Strangely thought about this today - my Varia can detect approach speed of a car. They do one with a camera. So add a sideways looking distance measure and you could detect passing speed, how close they were and also record the car.
I can see it giving Police an idea of where to target close pass operations, but I reckon most cyclists could just tell them anyway
I have told police of 4 close pass / incidents over the last 5 years.
Police Scotland have said they did not have the resources to investigate 3 of them - one included assault, one included un-taxed car, one was a professional driver who had cctv all over the bus exterior.
Gloucestershire police have not even acknowledged or replied about a horrendous close pass, brake check and threats of violence (all witnessed) from a fortnight ago.
So police, in my view, will do absolutely nothing with data, reports or input from cyclists. It feels completely empty when I see another operation close pass post on facebook. They have neither the resources or inclination to see us as a concern and crime they should investigate.
So tech like this is wasted.
Whereas my colleague who commuted through the Derbyshire and Leicestershire patches would get confirmation of his morning commute close passes by lunchtime - usually a warning letter but plenty of actual prosecutions.
My report ofassault was dealt with within 48 hours.
It really shouldn't be a postcode lottery
Well, for those that didn't actually read the article....
It's academic research not aimed at experienced cyclists or law enforcement. The purpose of the project is to gather data to highlight specific areas where close passes occur "regularly". It is hoped that if sufficient data is gathered from a large enough number of cyclists/routes, then the data can eventually be used to guide novice cyclists along routes where close passes are less likely to occur.
(Of course, in an ideal world, such data could also result of road layout changes but let's not get ahead of ourselves...)
I can't see it getting any meaningful results personally, not without an impractically large number of sensors gathering data, as someone else says this'll capture such a low proportion and only ever in the places where one of the few sensors actually was. A fine idea but just statistically difficult.
Surely it could only help with mapping safe cycling routes if every cyclist used one!
I guess s route with no data would be marked
Does a "close pass" occur more often on certain roads or is it not certain dickhead drivers? And if the latter, what does this gadget tell anyone? And of course I've not read the article...
This.
I'll often get loads of cars come past and give me a whole lane to myself on a small road, followed by an absolute whopper that wants to prove a point. It's not the road that's the issue.
What I didn't quite get from the article was where the data goes?
As in who's looking at it and how is it going to be used?
Does it punt a 'close pass' signal to my Garmin? Which acts as a single datapoint 'flag' on their map, accumulate enough and road gets tagged as a cycling risk for routing?
A new sort of passive, crowd sourced data gathering.
Is that the way it works?
Will all routing devices/apps have access to the same data?
Is it actually a good thing to move bicycle users off of roads? Isn't that just caving in to automotive bullying?
Lots of people asking questions which are covered in the article:
- transmits data to your phone where an app analyses it (and presumably forwards to a “central” server for mapping, that bit isn’t explicitly stated but is implied)
- they claim to be able to tell if the object it detects is an overtaking motorvehicle.
- people moaning about UK police doing nothing when it’s being developed in the US, and not targeting a prosecution.
- people asking questions if close passes happen more on certain roads or if it’s random - that’s kind of the point of research - to answer questions like that…
- so far in their very limited trials it seems to correlate with accident stats and rider self reported perception data. That is significant, not because this “product” would replace the data but rather because if a few thousand of these sensors actually simply say “yes you can trust the other data” then you have lots of free data.
Do I think every cyclist is going to rush out and buy one? No (although I would also have said that about helmet cams!). I could see it being open sourced as global citizen science. I could even imagine a council paying for a bulk load of these because 1000 sensors would be far better information to base road layout, signage etc changes on than people in an office arguing!
so I actually think it’s quite a good idea. I’m also mostly in the camp of: close passses don’t happen as much as people think, and fear of the roads puts people off more than actual risk, whilst more cyclists increases safety for all. I’m pretty sure there are roads where close passes are more likely and it’s not necessarily pushing cylcists off those roads if it helps them work out alternatives which may be more pleasant to ride but they have no personal data on.
If I was going to critique it I’d need more info but understanding cyclists speed, road position, solo v group, perhaps even clothing/helmet/child seat/style of bike would all be interesting. Equally how long was the car sitting behind before pushing through etc. some of that stuff might be in the app (now or in future).
there’s a lot of shit science around, and this might be some of it (but it’s a news article not a peer reviewed paper so I don’t expect it to be substantial) but people doing research on bike - vehicle interactions and developing tools to support that should probably be encouraged rather than criticised because it doesn’t do what you would want.
- transmits data to your phone where an app analyses it (and presumably forwards to a “central” server for mapping, that bit isn’t explicitly stated but is implied)
No I read that... Who's server exactly?
TBH this just looks like someone's uni project not a 'product' and it's really just academic. The thing it rolls over is how do you get this sensor into widespread use? Is it really commercially viable? Personally I'm not so keen on buying and operating a device just to add to someone else's dataset, so they can tweak a routing algorithm.
Also I'm not sure this is true:
Mapping platforms additionally base their recommendations on theperceivedsafety of different streets, as self-reported by cyclists. This is a rather subjective approach. After all, it's certainly possible that motorists may actually tend to give cyclists plenty of space on busy roads that are perceived as being dangerous, while passing dangerously close on quieter "safe" streets.
I don't think they use cyclists "self reporting" I think they just use "popularity", i.e. how many (recorded) bike rides happen along a specific road/route, obviously dangerous roads tend to get avoided, and hence aren't "popular" with the routing platforms, so they already have a (clunky) mechanism that sort of achieves the same outcome.
The only "reporting" I'm really familiar with is my Garmin's hazard reporting and alert function, which is frankly a bit crap. Mostly it gets a seasonal spamming with pothole Warnings, and the bastard thing starts beeping away like mad in April. I turned the feature back off because all I'm really being told is that the nodders that only come out in spring, were somehow unaware that the UK has crumbling roads...
Give the same people some sort of Close pass reporting function (passive or user input based) and I can just see a disproportionate number of panicky Herberts labelling most roads as inappropriate for bicycles and screwing up any routing platforms that use their data.
Data-wise, I can provide from experience, rather than analysing computer nonsense - on my commute, the road which has easily the most close passes is the road where my place of work is located. If I was providing data to put people off riding to work there, that would easily do it. But we have 30+ cyclists on a good day (and 3 rammed car parks most days). So, er, well, I don't live in America anyway, so it's all pretty irrelevant.
TBH this just looks like someone's uni project not a 'product' and it's really just academic.
It is! And it says so in the article.🤷
No one is trying to push an untested product thru Kickstarter or similar, though I could imagine a point in a few years when the theory has been tested sufficiently that someone like Garmin might be interested in adding a similar capability to their Varia radar products
BTW: I'm pretty sure the server where the data is held is in China* and the crafty Chinese will be spying on all the reckless cyclists 🤣
* Or it might be sitting on the desk of the editor of the Daily Mail...