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from the everyone-must-carry-a-radio dept.
Trek joins with Ford to propose bicycle to vehicle communications, as an addition to already proposed vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communications.
http://www.velonews.com/2018/01/news/trek-takes-a-high-tech-approach-to-save-cyclists-lives_454307
The system connects vehicles to a larger communications system, which means cars can communicate with other vehicles, pedestrian devices, bicycles, roadside signs, and construction zones.
A cyclist would ride with B2V-enabled equipment, initially manufactured by Trek or Bontrager. Or, he or she could have a mobile app with C-V2X. The driver would then be alerted by their car when a cyclist is present in a potentially dangerous area.
Trek partnered with a company named Tome, who also add in the buzzword, "AI-based" to make sure you know that they are really with it. No mention of the power requirements for this system, and how they can be met within the extremely small power capability of a bike rider, or even the small battery system used on e-bikes.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:15PM (21 children)
That's easily solved, like autonomous cars soon, by outlawing or making it prohibitive to operate a non-equipped bike. (Is the son of a US senator an investor, yet?)
What kind of evil unAmerican person would want to keep using something that endangers so many lives ? Think of the Children!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:22PM (19 children)
And I'm sure the communication protocol will also contain an unique identifier …
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:28PM (14 children)
People in Oregon are already allowing gps trackers into their vehicles to track miles driven for paying a road mileage tax, this is just the next logical step.
Its for you afterall.. with the recent uptick in bike thefts how will we be able to find your bike if you don't track it? Only doing this to protect you because you won't protect yourself.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:16PM (8 children)
People in Oregon are already allowing gps trackers into their vehicles to track miles driven for paying a road mileage tax
They are? Citation needed. Last I heard, the state (and maybe some other states too) was mulling over such a thing, maybe doing some tests, but the idea hasn't exactly been popular. It hasn't actually gone into operation or gotten the legislation it needs to do so.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:33PM
Colorado has been doing tests, but is not ready to roll anything out. Seems they want multiple states to do it with them.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/12/colorado-mileage-tax-experiment/ [denverpost.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sulla on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:34PM (6 children)
http://www.myorego.org/about/ [myorego.org]
I opted into the program early on, although I chose the reader that did not contain a GPS.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:37PM (5 children)
Thats was a really uninformative reply..
Back in like 2015/6 you could opt-in to test out the program. You had your choice of tracking device (ones that were full GPS and provided those abilities to you and one that only tracked direct mileage) and then you went and paid your taxes directly to the state on the OReGO website. The state estimates what your vehicles gas mileage should be and then whether you paid more in Gas Tax than you should have. The basis was that prius have the same effect on road wear as f350s based on DOT studies, so truck drivers can get money back and prius drivers can end up owning more.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:55PM (4 children)
> prius have the same effect on road wear as f350s based on DOT studies
Studies sponsored by Ford ? Everything I've read is that damage is proportional to an exponent of weight (4th is usually cited here).
My solution is to make people pay license plate fees based on the square of (weight of their vehicle / 1 metric ton). Taylor it or so that a Civic or Fiesta pays about a hundred bucks (less that what I pay now in CA), but people driving 2 or 3 tonnes around pay 400 to 900 bucks, properly accounting for the damage they do. Bonus: it's easier to implement than the current value-based fee, which doesn't match road wear.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:21PM
http://www.community.myorego.org/blog/splitting-the-check-to-help-fund-our-roads/ [myorego.org]
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:23PM
Studies sponsored by Ford ? Everything I've read is that damage is proportional to an exponent of weight (4th is usually cited here).
I was about to respond with the same thing. WTF? It's common knowledge that tractor-trailers cause immense damage to roads, and that's the very reason they have weigh stations, because if they're overloaded they cause even more damage. Obviously, heavier is worse, and an F-350 is a whole lot heavier than a Prius. I suppose this is neglecting the idea of pressure, which can vary depending on the vehicle weight and how many tires it's spread over and how wide those tires are, but still, the idea that a Prius is as damaging as huge pickup truck is just ridiculous. (And similarly, huge pickup trucks are nothing compared to semis.)
I agree with your proposal. People should be encouraged to drive smaller, lighter cars for many reasons, not only road damage, but fuel usage, the damage they cause to other vehicles in collisions, etc. And charging a plate fee is administratively very, very simple, unlike the absurd complexity that comes with having GPS devices in everyone's car and trying to accurately monitor all that data.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @11:30PM
It is proportional to the per-axle weight. But since the vehicles in question both have two axles, more weight => more wear.
Road wear and tear is completely dominated by large transport trucks anyway.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:16PM
And my '78 Caprice, lacking any weighty safety features, will be the cheapest of all!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:30PM (4 children)
You know, if they would only actually use this to catch bike thieves and return stolen bicycles, that might even be an argument for an opt-in system.
Unfortunately, I've never seen a bike registration program anywhere that made a damn bit of difference in the rate of bike theft. The only thing I know of that reduces bike theft is to ride and park in isolated affluent neighborhoods (or countries) where nobody cares about stealing your bike.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:25PM (3 children)
What countries are those, besides maybe Japan? From what I've read, bike theft is a real problem even in bike-happy Netherlands, and that's a rather affluent country.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:02AM (2 children)
Well, nobody cared to steal the bikes _I_ was riding on in Amsterdam, or the countryside in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany... but, in places like Miami they'd steal anything with two wheels and at least one pedal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 11 2018, @01:13AM (1 child)
Well that's no surprise, Miami is basically like a 3rd-world country.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:19AM
They were shipping them to Haiti via old scows that would dock on the Miami River - layer of bicycles, layer of mattresses, another layer of bicycles... If your bike was stolen, odds were it left the country within a week or less.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:40PM
Nope. Randomly generated pseudonyms that expire after some time and are replaced with a new one.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:27PM (2 children)
Without a unique identifier how can you catch the terrorists?
We can't have terrorists riding around freely, untracked, on bicycles now, can we?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Sulla on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:39PM (1 child)
Probably better to regulate bikes now before someone rides down the street mowing down civilians with deadly mountain assault tires and high capacity gears.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:57PM
I'm surprised they're not regulated more tightly already. As long as you have 3 wheels or less, in a certain weight class, under a certain power level, all you have to do around here is follow all the rules of the road plus wear a helmet if you're under 18... I think you're also required to carry valid ID if you're over 18, so there's that, but at least (I don't think) the ID cards are readable by long-distance RFID, yet.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:45PM
Beyond your obvious trolling: This is not easily solved.
There are technical reasons why the V2X community has "forgotten" about (motor)bikes for a while. Actually, they have not forgotten, but they know very well that the V2X standards don't work properly for motorcycles. To name just one reason steering angle cannot be used as a predictive indication of where a bike will go next. Cars relying on that info would draw very wrong conclusions and cause accidents instead of avoiding them.