Newsly - News Dashboard

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- michh: Coincidentally, I bought a 12v car horn yesterday with the intent of wiring it into my ebike's power supply with a little button on my handlebars.Not because of other cyclists or pedestrians wearing (anc) headphones but because modern cars are so heavily sound-proofed they don't hear a bicycle bell anymore. A recent incident with an inattentive taxi driver in a brand new EV nearly flattening me prompted me to want to pursue this.I'm still waiting for my cheap AliExpress dc-to-dc step down converter but otherwise I have everything I need and I think it should work. The horn module itself is definitely loud enough: I connected it to a 12v power supply at my desk and jumped out of my chair.

- 0x3f: Do horns and bells really prevent accidents?In order for e.g. a horn to work you need enough time that the driver processes the situation and decides the horn will communicate something AND enough time for the pedestrian or whatever to process that and react to it. Generally it's a lot easier just to press the brake, and more importantly be travelling at a speed and in a manner where the brake is sufficient.Structurally, we'd be much better off reducing conflicts between the different tiers of users. I.e. properly segregated infrastructure for each class of vehicle.

- red_admiral: In the scenario presented (London, mostly not segregated bike paths), the solution is for the cyclist to ride in a way they're not endangering pedestrians.There's even a fairly recent UK law (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-highway-code-8-changes-you-need-to-know-from-29-january-2022" rel="nofollow">https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-highway-code-8-change...</a>) that more or less says in a collision, the "stronger" road user is at fault unless proven otherwise. That applies to car v. cyclist as much as cyclist v. pedestrian.

- CalRobert: This may also be of interest to people - emulating a car horn for bikes <a href="https://loudbicycle.com/" rel="nofollow">https://loudbicycle.com/</a>(of course, there's also the locomotive horn, but the equipment required is a bit impractical - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTQSWtK65PE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTQSWtK65PE</a>)

- ahmedfromtunis: I think it's time for some sort of a safety standard for a sound frequency to be reserved exclusively for alarm/alert use and that ANC systems have to let through.It goes without saying, use of said frequency should be prohibited for other purposes, especially marketing.

- Oras: Over engineering in real life, solving lack of common sense by introducing a solution where the cyclist is paying.I think the solution is nice for sure, but solving the wrong problem.

- upofadown: Seems to be some misunderstanding of what bike bells are for here...A bell is helpful in a situation where a pedestrian is not aware of an approaching bike. The bell informs the pedestrian of two things:1. That there is an approaching bike.2. Roughly were the bike is approaching from.The hope is that the pedestrian will then behave in a predictable way to allow a safe pass by the bike. In almost all cases the pedestrian will be able to simply continue doing what they were doing before they heard the bell.If a pedestrian can not hear bike bells, for whatever reason, that is not a problem. They can just stay consistent with the centreline of the path/road/way. They then have a responsibility to shoulder check when shifting from side to side.

- patates: Draw a line, say this is for bicycles, pedestrians and cars have no business here, and bikes have no business being on any other lane as long as these exist.When bikes have to go through areas where people walk freely, they need to limit their speed to a walking pace.People should not wear headphones (noise-cancelling or not) when going through traffic as pedestrians. Take them off when crossing!People should not hear loud music when driving - max is normal speaking voice level. Bike drivers should never hear any music, let alone wearing headphones. Behind-ear speakers on low could be a compromise.Hey, we just solved 90% of the accidents.

- cocoto: I’m sure Android and iOS could add some AI feature to let some specific noises in the headset when needed (baby cries when enabled, smoke detector alarms, bike/car bells, etc). Simply stop the music for the duration of the specific noise and replay it. That would be a cool use of AI.

- everdrive: It's hard for me to understand why people choose to walk around in public wearing headphones. I'm aware that it's incredibly common, but you put yourself at risk of theft, accident, and of course the mild hearing loss that accompanies _any_ frequent headphone usage. In the case of both theft and accident, you cannot hear your assailant coming, and miss the queues that would otherwise keep you safe.

- laydn: Next challange: Place a camera in front of the bike that scans approaching pedestrians. Calculate their head position and trajectory. Use directional speakers and focused sound beams to focus the ~780Hz sound towards the head(s) of the pedestrian(s). Now that you are not bothering the environment as much, you can increase the volume as well.

- ChoGGi: You could also not blast past me on the path, yes I am off to one side, and no I don't wear headphones outside.

- gambiting: That's fantastic. Where can I buy one?

- grvbck: For anyone that wants to actually hear the bell before reading all the marketing material:Bell sound starts at 2:09 in the video.

- mc7alazoun: I genuinely had a similar thought a few days ago while riding my motorbike; I had my AirPods on with noise cancelling, and I was like: I wish there was something that would alert me to horns/bells ... not that AirPods are super efficient at cancelling background noise but still!

Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones