Road cycling should get even safer from 2018 because new cars will be able to spot cyclists and brake automatically, preventing collisions when the driver isn't paying attention
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The organizations for rating car safety, NCAP and EuroNCAP, will give extra brownie points to manufacturers that include cyclist-detection systems to trigger emergency stops when a crash seems likely.
Car-makers are already testing prototype cyclist-detectors by fitting enhanced radar and camera systems in the front of their cars. Although pedestrian-detection has been around since 2010, it's not so easy for a cyclist to be "seen" quickly enough for the existing technology to trigger automatic emergency braking.
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Compared to pedestrians, cyclists vary greatly in speed and shape and can change direction quickly. The fact that SMIDSY ("Sorry mate, I didn't see you") is a cliché among victim cyclists shows how hard human drivers find cyclist-detection, so an electronic system has to do even better.
Most use radar with a frequency of 77GHz and the data is fused with streaming camera images. Computer software analyzes it all to recognize cyclists, their speed and direction. Then it calculates if the car is on a collision course. If the prediction is grim, it slams on the brakes faster than a driver can.
Or so the theory goes. First it has to be tested to make sure it works.
You can read more at BikeRadar.com
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