This week at ProBikeKit UK we bring you a special feature from Blaze, the cycling company looking to revolutionise night-time bike safety. Their product, the Blaze Laserlight, is designed to project a light in front of your bike in order to prevent accidents from happening when there is still margin for correction. Let’s see what the guys at Blaze say about the Laserlight.
“The bicycle light has been the same for decades. The sole purpose of a white front light is to help a rider be seen by other road users, but it’s a less-than-perfect solution for a very real issue.
But things are changing. The Laserlight projects into the space in front of a bicycle – that ‘hot spot’ where vehicles are more likely to turn into – helping people on bikes to be seen when they’re otherwise out of a driver’s field of view.
Back in 2011, a Physicist-turned-cyclist called Emily Brooke decided to focus on urban cycling while studying Product Design at Brighton University. She quickly identified that the biggest issue here was a concern for personal safety. A closer look at the accident statistics revealed an astonishing fact: that 79% of cyclists involved in an accident were travelling ‘straight ahead’ and another vehicle manoeuvred into them*.
This is vehicles turning left in front of a bike, pulling out of a junction, or cutting in front of a bike in a lane.
Riding on the roads during the rush hour in Brighton, Emily witnessed a rider in front of her get knocked off by a car turning left ahead of him. The rider was fine, but the incident got Emily thinking. If only that rider had some kind of signal, or flare in front of him, then the driver would have seen him. Emily then began working with other cyclists, bus drivers, town planners, driving psychologists and optics experts and, to cut a two-year story short, the result was the Laserlight!
The numbers of urban cyclists are growing every day. Riding a bike is popular in cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam, but it’s seeing strong growth in towns and cities further afield. For example in London, where Blaze is now based, half a million trips are completed by bicycle every single day. It’s greener, more active, very sociable and much more fun than other transport options – and city planners are beginning to support it with better infrastructure. Bike lights are a legal requirement on every bicycle after dark, but what the Blaze Laserlight offers is a big upgrade to the bicycle light – one that can help you be seen even when you’re otherwise invisible.”
* “Collisions involving Cyclists on Britain’s Roads: Establishing the Causes” compiled by Transport Research Laboratory. Page 29
Pick up your Blaze Laserlight here at ProBikeKit UK today!
