Volvo to launch alert-and-brake car system to spot bicyclists

http://twitter.com/chriskayTO Chris Killam

Let’s be honest – this is more about protecting responsible cyclists against distracted drivers.

mrgoldenbrown

I am hoping it also detects the more dangerous threat – a driver suddenly swerving into a cyclist’s path. As a cyclist, I have had cars swerve into the bike lane far too often, and would rejoice if there was a technological solution to driver’s inattentiveness.

penguinchris

It does seem like Volvo drivers are already less likely to be the people causing the most trouble for cyclists on the road, though.

http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my

My completely scientific system of anecdotes tells me most villainy is committed by Audis.
Beanolini

Back in the day, Volvo had a reputation for being the car marque most threatening to (and hated by) motorcyclists; mainly due to inattention rather than aggression.

I’ll second Audi as the worst now, though.

Jemmy

Wow, good thing drivers will be safe now from those erratic and irresponsible cyclists!

winkybb

This continues the bizarre logic of many motorists towards cyclists’ safety. The logic that cumulates in the thinking that it is OK to run down and kill cyclists because, at the end of the day, they had it coming. “Dead cyclist you say? That’s sad, but really, I won’t feel much responsibility; He chose dangerous cycling over motoring – what could he expect? And he wasn’t wearing a helmet. And cyclists are hard to see. And he was holding me up. And he should have been in a bike lane. And cyclists run red lights. And cyclists don’t stop at stop signs. And cyclists wear weird clothes etc etc.

Motorists do not, and never will take responsibility for the millions of people (mostly themselves) they kill and maim each year. They break the law pretty much all the time unless something (tight curve, other motorist in their way, cop sitting on their tail) is actually preventing them from doing so.

Cyclists get hit by cars because they “swerve” into the cars’ paths? What is that, some sort of “legitimate homicide”? Spare me.

brerrabbit23

You know, I can verify that it’s quite often that I speak to someone who feels completely justified in running someone over based on their mode of transport.

You’re right to be upset!

ScottCh

Better solution: Integrate a signal jammer that keeps the driver from sending text or voice via cell phone while the car is moving.

Navin_Johnson

As an urban cyclist this makes me laugh/cry.
I can tell you that none of us fear getting hurt by suddenly swerving into the path of a car that’s just safely driving in its lane, turning, and yielding appropriately.

Having said that, if this system saves playing children on bikes or one that has run out into traffic, then that’s great. These are two very different things though….

Also “threats” lol. The “threat” of getting a dent or a scratch and only having to pay a cheap traffic ticket, after the judge has automatically ruled in your favor… …..

Brainspore

I can tell you that none of us fear getting hurt by suddenly swerving into the path of a car that’s just safely driving in its lane, turning, and yielding appropriately.

For a subset of cyclists out there this is precisely the problem: they don’t fear the potential consequences of swerving into the path of a car.

As a former bike commuter who now usually drives to work (living/work situation changed) I can say that, in my experience anyway, motorists are marginally more likely to obey traffic laws than cyclists. It’s just that the cyclists are more likely to pay the price no matter which one causes the accident.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  You missed the point. We are more likely to be killed by motorists breaking the law, speeding, driving recklessly, and not yielding than we are by deciding to mindlessly “swerve into a car”. It’s beyond ridiculous. I would add in my experience that pretty much every single car on the road is disobeying traffic laws, from going over the speed limit, to not yielding and stopping correctly. The “scofflaw” cyclist narrative is an anti-cycling myth that needs to dies.
  
  http://www.bicyclelaw.com/blog/index.cfm/2012/12/5/Confronting-the-Scofflaw-Cyclist
  - Brainspore
    
    Your assessment of scofflaw cyclists being a “myth” does not match my own experience as a (law-abiding) cyclist or driver. But I digress.
    
    The point I was trying to make is that a technology designed to prevent fatal accidents is a Pretty Good Thing that we should be celebrating no matter who is at fault for those accidents.
    - dragonfrog
      
      You are probably not as law-abiding as you think you are. I’m sure I’m not.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      I can just as easily say that my experience is the opposite of yours. I actually do commute by bike every single day, and I used to drive. The point is that it’s ridiculous to suggest that any one category of traveler: drivers, pedestrians, or cyclists is any more law abiding than the other. When you do you kind of show yourself to be prejudiced toward cyclists, pedestrians etc. What we do know is that infrastructure and traffic enforcement is unfriendly toward cyclists and pedestrians, and that’s something that has to change.
    - Brainspore
      
      …it’s ridiculous to suggest that any one category of traveler: drivers, pedestrians, or cyclists is any more law abiding than the other.
      
      OK, but it kind of sounded like you might have believed otherwise when you wrote
      
      …in my experience that pretty much every single car on the road is disobeying traffic laws, from going over the speed limit, to not yielding and stopping correctly. The “scofflaw” cyclist narrative is an anti-cycling myth that needs to dies.
  - winkybb
    
    That article is one of my all-time favourites on the subject.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Amen, it clearly lines out what I’ve always had trouble putting into words.
Brainspore

Also “threats” lol. The “threat” of getting a dent or a scratch and only having to pay a cheap traffic ticket, after the judge has automatically ruled in your favor…

Assuming it’s only a “threat” if it directly endangers the driver is a very narrow definition of that term. I wouldn’t want to be involved in a fatal accident regardless of the victim or the party at fault.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  The point is that in most cases if it was completely your fault you’d get off with a ticket for killing somebody.
  - Brainspore
    
    That’s a secondary problem. As a cyclist and a driver I’m more concerned about avoiding fatal accidents than properly assigning blame for them.
    - http://www.jeremiahblatz.com/ Jeremiah Blatz
      
      I don’t disagree, but properly determining fault is a hugely helpful step in solving problems. So, to turn it around, “I’m concerned with avoiding fatal accidents, so I’m also concerned with assigning blame for them.”
      
      That said, the positioning for this feature is so secondary concern. No driver wants something that’s described as “this system attempts to compensate for your borderline homicidal lack of attention while you turn into a bicyclist how has the right of way,” but that’s what the system (hopefully) does.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      But you miss the point again. If there were stronger punishments for reckless driving that endangers cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers then fatal accidents would surely decline. This is one of the major things that needs to be done to drive home the point that cyclists have the same rights as drivers do.
    - Brainspore
      
      I can’t think of any reason a car company would want to bring that up when trying to convince motorists that they should pay for a new safety system designed to prevent such collisions.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      If there were stronger punishments for reckless driving that endangers cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers then fatal accidents would surely decline.
      
      Like the War on Drugs? I haven’t seen any evidence that punishment works as a deterrent at the societal level.

tomrigid

Another fun feature would be a helmet that hipster cyclists would wear. People are going to hit them, sometimes without malice or fault, and it makes me crazy to see their fauxchopped hair flapping in their slipstream.

http://twitter.com/erg79 Evan G.

I didn’t know that strawmen could ride bikes.
- Stooge
  
  Hipster strawmen prefer Segways.
- tomrigid
  
  Pet peeve, rather. Until bikers accept the helmet as an essential safety device the drivers will yawn at our complaints and say something like, “Why should we care about your safety if you lot can’t be bothered?”
  - winkybb
    
    Why do you think that cyclists who don’t wear helmets are uncaring about safety? And in any case, caring for OTHERS’ safety is surely part of what makes us human.
    - tomrigid
      
      I don’t.
    - winkybb
      
      I think I get it now. But In the context of your argument a helmet is perhaps more of a symbol “were doing our bit, now you do yours” than a safety device in the classic sense. Cyclist without helmets annoy me too, not because I think they’re unsafe, but because I know that it fuels the myth of the scofflaw cyclist who ultimately “had it coming”.
  - http://www.jeremiahblatz.com/ Jeremiah Blatz
    
    [ citation needed ]
    
    Countercitations:
    “Robinson’s reviews of cyclists and control groups in jurisdictions where helmet use increased by 40% or more following compulsion conclude that enforced helmet laws discourage cycling but produce no obvious response in percentage of head injuries.”
    “Because cycling is more healthy than dangerous, helmet laws appear to offer net health benefit only in dangerous bicycling environments under optimistic assumptions of the efficacy of helmets.”
    “Cycling in Australia was increasing before the helmet laws were introduced and fell by roughly one-third at that time.”
    - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Science:_measuring_helmet_effectiveness
    
    Anecdotally, my experience indicates that helmets are essential for off-road cycling, but not particularly useful for commuting.
    - tomrigid
      
      This was a rigorous response to a point I didn’t make.
    - http://www.jeremiahblatz.com/ Jeremiah Blatz
      
      Well, at least it was rigorous!
      
      (What point were you trying to make, then?)
    - tomrigid
      
      I was saying that bikers who commute without helmets invite the apathy of drivers and public safety administrators. I understand that’s somewhat like blaming the rape victim for wearing a short skirt, and I didn’t suggest any legal compulsion in my comment; I just wanted to make the point that bikers must govern themselves to an adequate minimum level in order to have a fully effective voice in the political process which determines the conditions in which they ride. In my opinion, that minimum level includes helmets just as much as brakes and the rational obeying of traffic laws.
      
      To your point re helmets and safety: http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm
      The ratio of helmetless to helmeted US cycling fatalities over the last ten years appears to have been roughly 9/1.
weshigh

Why does others hairstyles make you so crazy?
- tomrigid
  
  I’m bald, of course. And thank you for bringing that up, again.
  - http://www.jeremiahblatz.com/ Jeremiah Blatz
    
    All the easier to wear flamboyant wigs!

Snig

This reminds me very much of an accident prone friend who has blamed trees and guardrails being too close to the side of the road as causes of his accidents.

brerrabbit23

OMG YOU GUYS CARS ARE THE ENEMY AND TRYING TO MAKE THEM SAFER IS LIKE SAYING WE’RE NOT SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT WHILE THEY EAT BABIES.

winkybb

Cars are indeed the enemy. They are destroying our world. They pollute our atmosphere. They eat our money. Roads consume our land. They kill and maim us. They make us fat and lazy. They isolate us from each other. They make much of our living space thoroughly unpleasant. They cause us to see less of our friends and family because they let us choose to live further from them.

Make no mistake, cars ruin everything I love.
Navin_Johnson

Is anybody complaining about making them safer?

http://www.fieldsovgravity.com/ Garymon

When I lived in Portland (about 5 years) I commuted to work downtown by bike. I now live in Seattle on Capitol Hill in Seattle and most transport is either walking or driving. The point being I empathize with each mode of travel.

Several times a day I drive down to the SLU via E Olive and E Denny. This is where hipsters go to die. Daily I see motorist driving too fast while fiddling with their phones and swerving into lanes that don’t exist. I also see cyclist run red lights and stop signs and actually exceed the speed of the cars that are going too fast down the hill. I have also seen cyclist cut from the road to a busy sidewalk with zero regard to pedestrian safety and then fly back out into the road in the blink of an eye. And finally pedestrians… they just walk into the road, without looking, in random mid-block locations like desert jack rabbits.

My point? Regardless of your mode of transportation you have the choice to make the road more safe or less safe. Anecdotal stories about some other mode of travel does not excuse you from being responsible for both your safety and the safety of those around you.

Mike drop and exit stage left…

http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

Seattle has a strange breed of bad driver. It’s like they get on the road and just give up and hope the gods coast their car to it’s destination.
IronEdithKidd

Minus bigger hills, this sounds almost exactly like trying to get anywhere in Ann Arbor via any mode of transport.
oasisob1

Thanks for taking the moderate position on this argument. Fact is there are bad motorists and bad cyclists. Not everyone is perfect, and I do hate watching every BB thread that mentions motorists/cyclists degenerate into extremist arguments. It detracts from the point of the article every single time.

peregrinus

At £1,850 to have it added, I suspect only St Christopher himself will sign up.

The only way this kind of thing will work is if every vehicle is networked and tracking every other vehicle and wheeled object. They all talk to eachother and harmoniously auto-co-ordinate their choreography with regard to everything else on or near the road.

This is an excellent early step though.

http://profile.yahoo.com/RMMZCH4GVSBMHYDP7NP22RQ4EA Bartool

No matter how they frame it, I am just happy they are doing something to make the streets safer for cyclists- the good and the bad.

jellyfishattack

I’ve never hit a cyclist, but in the Fall, one cyclist flew between the row of parked cars in the right hand lane and all the cars stopped at a red light in the left lane, knocked my mirror and scratched it. Cyclists have this air of God-given entitlement that they can do as they please and disregard all traffic laws, at least downtown.

http://www.ahmedeltawil.com Ahmed Eltawil

ABC system? :)

Brainspore

“Honey, why is there blood on your windshield?”

“Oh, I had a fatal collision with a cyclist today. But it’s totally cool because he swerved in front of me unexpectedly, so I won’t be horribly traumatized for life or anything. Certainly lives were ruined through this tragic turn of events, but it’s not like that’s my problem. After all, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be! What’s for dinner?”