A University of Brighton student has developed a safety device that projects a bright green laser image of a bike onto the road ahead – alerting motorists to their presence.
Emily Brooke’s invention – BLAZE - is a small, battery-powered device attached to the handlebars which projects a laser image ahead onto the road ahead. A bright green bicycle symbol travels ahead of the cyclist, alerting others to its presence. She worked with road safety experts, Brighton & Hove City Council, the Brighton & Hove Bus Company and driving psychologists in developing the light, which is visible in daylight.
Brooke, who is in the final year of her Product Design course, told BikeRadar she believed the design was a really simple idea which could make a huge difference to the safety of cyclists on our roads.
“I wanted to tackle the issue of safety of cyclists on city streets by increasing the visibility, footprint, and ultimately the awareness of the bicycle," she said. “Eighty per cent of cycle accidents occur when bicycles travel straight ahead and a vehicle manoeuvres into them. The most common contributory factor is ‘failed to look properly’ on the part of a vehicle driver. The evidence shows the bike simply is not seen on city streets.
"Even when lit up like a Christmas tree a bicycle in a bus’s blind-spot is still invisible. With BLAZE, you see the bike before the cyclist and I believe this could really make a difference in the key scenarios threatening cyclists’ lives on the roads.”
BLAZE will be on show along with other final-year student inventions at an exhibition in the Creativity Suite at the university’s Moulsecoomb campus today (6 June). For more information, For more information, click here.
