Safety

As if cyclists didn't have enough choices to illuminate themselves at night, we now have one more. Joining the lighted helmets, belts, backpacks, wheel lights, and plain old bike lights are Realflex arm and leg wraps.  Read More

Wind farms and airports don’t mix. Unfortunately, when the blades are turning on wind turbines, the motion can interpreted as aircraft on air traffic control radar screens. Needless to say, the results of such confusion could potentially be catastrophic – or at the very least, they could make things much more stressful for already-frazzled air traffic controllers. UK tech firm Aveillant, however, claims that its Holographic Radar system is the solution to the problem.  Read More

When we first came across Emily Brooke's BLAZE, a bicycle attachment that projects a cycle lane symbol on the road ahead of the cyclist, it was little more than a concept. That was in June of last year. Since then, Brooke's launched her own company, developed working prototypes, and taken to Kickstarter to fund fabrication of the first batch.  Read More

Motorcyclists are already at risk when they’re traveling amongst cars, so it certainly doesn’t help that their bikes’ horns tend not to be very loud. That’s why biker and electrical engineer Peter Olt created the ear-splitting Screaming Banshee supplementary motorcycle horn. Now, he’s offering a smaller, easier-to-install model, known as the Plug & Play Screamer.  Read More

When you turn around to look behind your car as you’re reversing, what do you see? If your car is like most, you see a bit of the road through the back window, with a whole lot of your back seat underneath. If only you could see through that seat, you could see so much more of the road. Well, a group from Japan’s Keio University has developed a system that lets drivers do that ... sort of.  Read More

First responders such as firefighters or police officers are often faced with a difficult situation – they need to get into a building as fast as possible, yet it’s unsafe for them to just blindly run in without knowing what hazards await them. Some groups are attempting to address this problem by designing reconnaissance robots, although such devices can be expensive and/or complex. Boston-based Bounce Imaging, however, is putting the finishing touches on something a little more simple to use – a throwable smart ball.  Read More

In the same way that we didn’t go straight from landline phones to smartphones, there are likewise going to be some intermediate steps between today’s manually-driven cars and tomorrow’s fully self-driving models. We’re already seeing some of those steps starting to pop up, in the form of things like Cadillac’s Super Cruise control, Volkswagen’s Temporary Auto Pilot, and Volvo’s traffic jam assistance system. Nissan’s latest contribution is its recently-announced Autonomous Emergency Steering System.  Read More

With the increasing focus on sustainable urban transport comes an increasing call for proper safety infrastructure and products. We've recently seen LED bicycle helmets, and now a company called Light Bohrd has developed LED helmets and skateboards for commuters that use their feet for pushing rather than pedaling.  Read More

Researchers from the Dartmouth’s Smartphone Sensing Group have one core mission: make smartphones smarter by levering their embedded sensors to create new sensing applications. As part of their pursuit of techno-cognition, the team sensed that smartphones could make driving safer and conceived CarSafe, the first dual-camera app for smartphones.  Read More