22
Aug
07

A Cycling Jacket Worth its Weight in Gold

Found this in thisislondon:

The cycling jacket with built-in brake lights and indicator.

This would be very useful for those who bike at night, like me.  Hand signals or gestures that would indicate the course you want to take on the are quite useless at night.  Motorist following a bike at during the dark hours often ignores or worst, do not see the biker at all. It’s every cyclist’s nightmare when drivers do this, either unknowingly or deliberately.

cycling jacket

This jacket, invented by Michael Chen hopes to put an end to this. It has flashing indicators on the sleeves and brake lights in the back.  A “tilt switch” activates  indicators to flash when the biker raises his arm to give a hand signal. And a device called an “accelerometer” is used to turn an LED, woven into the jacket’s back, green when the rider is moving forward or red when he applies the brakes.

The inventor hopes to find a manufacturer to produce it on a mass scale.

Echoing the most common complaints of cyclists, London-based Mr Chen, 28, got the idea watching cyclists in the capital. He said: “There is a lot of hostility from bus and cab drivers towards cyclists.”Cyclists are brave. It is so dangerous without bike lanes. When I visited Korea last year, I noticed their cities had better bike lanes than London.”

British judges of the prestigious James Dyson design awards, have been impressed and  chose Mr Chen for a first prize of £2,000.

As impressive and useful this jacket is though, I would have a hard time getting on for myself as Mr Chen hopes the jacket be on sale by Christmas, for about £100 or around Php 8,000.


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