Jaguar Land Rover play ‘Spot the Bike’

Jaguar Land Rover are developing new technology called Bike Sense that taps the driver and rings a bike bell when it senses a bike is close.

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Another day and another technology that aims to make driving safer, this time from Jaguar Land Rover with Bike Sense, a technology to make drivers more aware of bicycles and motorcycles in an effort to cut the 19,000 bike injuries and deaths a year on UK roads.

Bike Sense uses sensors on the car to detect other road users, and if it identifies your fellow road users as a bike – pedal-powered or with an engine – it uses lights and sounds the driver will associate with the potential hazard to put them on notice there’s a hazard to be aware of. But it gets cleverer.

If Bike Sense spots a bike it will ring a bicycle bell or motorbike horn from the speaker closest to its location to give perspective to the hazard and then the driver’s seat will ‘tap’ the driver on the shoulder to make them look in the right direction.

As the cyclist gets closer, a series of LEDs around the inside of the car will glow amber and then red as the bike gets closer, with the movement of the lights indicating the bike’s direction of approach.

Dr Wolfgang Epple, JLR’s R&D Director, said:

Human beings have developed an instinctive awareness of danger over thousands of years. Certain colours like red and yellow will trigger an immediate response, while everyone recognises the sound of a bicycle bell.

Bike Sense takes us beyond the current technologies of hazard indicators and icons in wing mirrors, to optimising the location of light, sound and touch to enhance this intuition.

This creates warnings that allow a faster cognitive reaction as they engage the brain’s instinctive responses. If you see the dashboard glowing red in your peripheral vision, you will be drawn to it and understand straight away that another road user is approaching that part of your vehicle.

The system can also prioritise the hazards if you’re surrounded by a pack of bikers and can even ‘see’ hazards the driver can’t, and if you ignore the warnings it’ll give feedback through the throttle to push you in to taking appropriate action.

It’s all clever stuff, but we do wonder if all these warning systems – and endless lights and gongs – will end up making drivers less safe as they come to rely on automated warnings rather than their own skills and observations?