| Agreed that the ultimate solution is infrastructure. That's what we harp as well (Luxonis-Brandon here). And we actually see our goal as means to get there... to do what we can (as technologists) to try to keep people who ride bikes safe, keep people riding bikes, and keep there being demand for the infrastructure going. If everyone is too afraid to ride bikes like my circle is (reminder: 1 of my friend was killed, and 3x got broken femurs, broken hips, and 1 of those got a traumatic brain injury), then there won't be demand for such infrastructure. And with lower demand, it's harder for there to be incentive to make the infrastructure, so the infrastructure may actually get worse - making it even less safe - and then resulting in even fewer people riding bikes. And there's another constraint: I'm an Electrical Engineer and such tech solution are all I’m good at. I don't know how to make roads with bike lanes. And more importantly, I don't know how to influence politicians to make these roads. (And my wiring is such that I'd never be good at it, no matter how hard I try.) That, and there are ~4 million miles of road in the US. So if we put the whole economy onto making new roads as fast as we could, we'd be a decade or more realistically probably two or more decades out until we had the new roads with dedicated bike lanes. This is what The Netherlands did, by the way, and they accomplished it (in a comparatively small country) in about 2 decades. And this accomplishment is why there exists absolutely zero car-bike accidents in the Netherlands (and much lower car-car accidents too). So our goal is to try to help on the demand side. If there isn't demand for safe infrastructure, that infrastructure won't come. And there won't be demand if people are too afraid to ride bikes because of deaths and injuries of their friends/family. So we want to try to use technology as a bandaid until the infrastructure is there, to try to keep people safe, and to also then help drive making infrastructure (by making demand for the infrastructure). Speaking of which, this device quantizes risk. So when used on a bike, it would allow mapping quantized risk to bikers, which then helps to advise which are the most important routes/streets/etc. to be improved for safety. And also advises people who want to ride bikes as to which routes they should avoid. So then when infrastructure is installed, this system can make it so the most-fatal locations get infrastructure first. So it's more prioritized and effective. Thoughts? Thanks,
Luxonis-Brandon |