30 April 2019 – By Reinhardt Nel (Article Clerk at Gert Nel Inc.)
As we all know riding your bicycle on public roads can be a hazardous situation in South Africa, especially late afternoon as the sun is about to set or early morning.
During the evening the chances of a car driver missing you and causing an accident increases dramatically. There are however some new high-tech innovations to keep you out of the way of danger.
First of these is the Laserlight Core and it’s something really special. Simply attach it to your handle bars and it will project a symbol of a bike onto the road approximately 6 meters in front of you. This supposedly makes you up to 32 percent more visible to fellow road users.
Next up we have the Livall Bling Helmet BH60. This specially designed helmet has integrated LED indicators that highlights the direction that the rider of the bike intends to go. It is operated by a wireless handlebar mount. Further features include connecting with your smartphone to send out an SOS message if it has detected any unusual acceleration or sudden stoppage to alert a friend or family member that you were involved in an accident.
Lastly, we have the Hövding Airbag. Unfortunately, no matter how careful you drive, accidents do still happen. Although to many the Hövding Airbag might seem weird looking, it is in fact an inflatable collar that can replace the use of a helmet all together. The sensors within the device detects an accident taking place and triggers the airbag. One might think why not use a conventional helmet? Well tests at Stanford University have found that it may be up to 8 times better in preventing a concussion.
These devices of course don’t guarantee you safety, but with new tech innovations like these our roads might be just a little bit safer for all road users.
Resources:
- Adele Peters “This bike-shaped laser projection warns cars that you’re coming” https://www.fastcompany.com/90248592/the-laserlight-core-warns-cars-that-youre-coming-with-lasers (Accessed 18 April 2019).
- https://beryl.cc/shop/laserlight-core (accessed 18 April 2019).
- https://livall.co.za/ (Accessed 18 April 2019).
- https://hovding.com/( Accessed 18 April 2019).
“Test At Stanford University: Airbag Helmet Protects Up To 8x Better” https://hovding.com/how-hovding-works/ (Accessed 18 April 2019).