Heads Up!
I am tired of the ever increasing number of so-called “bike safety” products. Especially when everyday I share the road with drivers like this. There needs to be a spray for them.
A product that would give drivers some perspective.
I can follow all the road rules, pay attention, wear bright colors, lights and shiny things while riding my bike. But I’m not the one operating heavy machinery on a public way. Let’s recognize the real problem.
This product does need to exist; but all the same, I’m not going to take the reflective tape or lights off my bike. The lights are required by law, and required when I ride at night; the tape is where I go beyond the requirements and have more than a dinky little reflector for passive visibility.
Now that’s a product that should be at Kickstarter or Indoegogo! Until then, I use this awesome “bicycle bell” that sounds like a car horn. Big different now a days when I bike with cars! http://www.loudbicycle.com
Yes, it is an awesome bike horn. It aromatically (pun intended) gets drivers attention. Jonathon is cooking up a second batch now. Getting one for my tandem.
YES! I have often longed for a pocket-sized air horn (and a pocket full of rocks to throw).
Shut up and take my money!
In Japan, some restaurants have cell phone jammers to prevent folks from using the phones there. Not legal in the USA.
But sometimes … tempting.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/05/tech/mobile/cell-phone-jammer/
the only thing more dangerous than a texting motorist is a motorist trying to figure out why his phone is no longer working. talk about a distraction!
:SO there I was officer talking on my phone over the hands free when the signal just cut out and while I was trying to figure out what happened that idiot on the bike just appeared out of nowhere. And now you found a cell phone jammer on his saddle bag. Clearly his death was all his fault.”
And very few juries would not buy that argument.
Lets make this happen! An air horn filled with fart gas. Or car exhaust smell. You know that really pungent smell when you are sitting in heavy traffic in the middle of the city.
Straight in the window. TOOOOT!
Or skunk oil!
I know some couriers who used to keep a water bottle of piss on hand at all times. In the course of a hot summer day, it can get pungent. Imagine it settling into upholstery or if squirted at a window and it runs down inside the door where it can’t be easily washed away.
heh funny that the illustrated car is exactly what my wife drives, a 93-97 Toyota Corolla. Thankfully she’s always very attentive and careful behind the wheel.
I find the best thing to wake up motorists who may be inattentive is to position myself squarely in their line of sight of the road ahead, which is center or just left of center in the right lane. I commute 31 miles round trip and have maybe 1 close pass a week, sometimes even less than that. Yes I wear high-viz and use bright lights, but on my utility bike pulling a trailer I do not wear high-viz typically. Yet I still use the same lane positioning and motorists still give me plenty of room at all times.
I ride a ‘bent trike. Flags, flashing lights, even a strip of international orange duct tape on the rear fender. I drive the center of lane whenever practicable. My wife ask if I wasn’t afraid of being run over. “Have you seen my trike? I am way more afraid of not being seen.”
“Well you put that mess in the middle of the lane and they’ll see you all right.”