25
Apr
2014
By Calvin at 09:31 GMT, 10 years ago
I know this is not a road safety website, but this new product caught my eye a few days ago and I thought I’d bring it to the attention of my visitors, especially those that come to the site for advice against bike theft. Please read on....
Over the last few years the behavioural sciences have given us a lot of insight into how people think and behave; they have also shown how it is possible to nudge or steer people’s awareness and behaviour. Crawford Hollingworth is a behavioural scientist and change consultant working for a consultancy which advises governments and major corporations how to use these brain wirings and constructs to nudge and steer behaviour. It’s powerful stuff.
Crawford’s idea for Brainy Bike Lights® was sparked partly by having had many near misses while cycling himself and friends and family suffering cycling injuries. And almost every time the driver would be of the ‘Sorry Mate I didn’t see you’ variety. So working from the premise that drivers don’t set out to hurt cyclists and realising just how much of our time we all spend on autopilot he decided he could use his expertise to try to improve cyclist safety on our urban streets. He realised that increasing awareness of cyclists amongst drivers of motorised vehicles would have a good chance of preventing accidents and saving lives.
Research has shown that drivers frequently fail to recall anything about a journey they’ve just made if it’s one they drive so often they don’t need to concentrate. This made Crawford wonder if this was a contributory factor in cyclist deaths and injuries on the road and how he could create more awareness of cyclists in drivers of motorised vehicles - a way of making the brain a little brainier…
As with all the very best ideas, it’s simple. Brainy Bike Lights® are an illuminated bike symbol with a cyclist on a set of front and rear lights in a unique design. He says: “The symbol of the bike primes drivers to ‘think bike’ and to make associations with the person on the bike and their vulnerable presence and progress along the road. It’s a symbol that everyone can understand – wherever you are in the world the image of a bicycle is universally understood. Priming works on our subconscious.
“We don’t even know it’s happening. We can be primed in all sorts of ways – to be clever, to be rude, to be polite, to feel old – and in this case to be conscious of a cyclist on the road. The symbol increases awareness and standout on our light cluttered urban streets and it makes drivers more cognitively efficient – they notice the bike symbol and react accordingly. Rather than having to struggle to identify what the red or white light belongs to (in amongst all the other urban light clutter), these symbol lights play to our brain strengths by short-cutting to all the bike information that’s already in our heads.
“When the findings of research conducted by the University of Oxford said these lights could have a major impact on cyclist road safety, we knew we had created something very powerful.
For stacks more information about theseBrainy Bike Lights® and to purchase a set please visit their website at http://www.brainybikelights.com/
Please note that this website is not commercially connected with Brainy Bike Lights – we just think it’s a great product and thought you might like to know about it!
