How about Cyclist try avoiding cars, how in the hell can you justify the cost.

Speakers?? Airbags??…(Next will be pedestrians seatbelts)
Why not teaching people that People walk off the street and next to cars instead of walking in front of them.

pedestrians seatbelts- Thats funny
Its sounds a little silly to me but someone has to protect pedestrians from unsafe unreliable cars like GM and Fords
Yea I said it

What a great idea!! Im going to design clothing wear that have air bag in them too and my lable on them will say HIT ME! Oh! I see the cash rolling right now.

I like to bike, but I am one of the few who is courteous enough to be aware of the fact that cars can kill me and so I don’t bike out in the lanes of traffic, I look around as I approach each light, and I make allowances for the fact that your average driver is more stupid than my water bottle.

oh hey lets find MORE reasons to jack up car prices and piss off manufacturers in this new crunchtime of CAFE.

The Roadies in my area temp drivers constantly by not obeying the rules of the road and riding where they shouldn’t, thereby, endangering all of us who share the roadway. And they ride with an attitude as though they own the entire road. I will put airbags on the front on my vehicles when the cyclists start insuring and paying road taxes on their damn bicycles, plus obeying the rules of the road. I enjoy cycling, but I hate roadies, and their attitudes.

Mayer_Ray_nagin

Can you please start your own school and teach the all the other idiots out there

Now this is getting ridiculous. If I have to get a car with cyclist airbags then the cyclist should have to get a bicycle with auto airbags. Lets see how they like adding useless weight to their vehicle of choice.

That might negatively affect my propensity for pedaling my Mongoose into Smart cars, flipping the car over and killing everyone inside.

Richt,
I would but do you know how difficult it is to teach a water bottle?

isn’t this why we have sidewalks?? why to they need to bicycle on the street anyway, to feel like they are apart of traffic? want to share the road? i’m willing to share my bumper as i give them a push out of the damn way, the cyclist here don’t even go in a STRAIGHT line, they weave and you don’t even know if they are planning on drifting into your lane or just dee dee dee (for people who don’t know, that means durrrrr )

I’m just curious how these work. When a car’s front strikes something, the airbag has a fraction of a second to inflate before the people inside get injured. If a car hits a biker, isn’t the biker pretty injured on impact? Wouldn’t an airbag rapidly inflating just serve to propel his limp corpse away from the car? I’m sure they’ve worked this out somehow, I’d just like to see the video that photo was taken from.

Jump has a point. Bikes should have bumpers installed, standard.

This organization would ban cars all together if it could.

Also, could the airbag conceivably push the injured biker into another lane of traffic full of airbag-enabled cars? I’m picturing a lifeless body just being bounced around a highway full of these external airbag-equipped cars like throwing a pingpong ball into a room full of mousetraps.

I think it would be better to mandate a teflon paint treatment that would allow the owner of e vehicle that just toasted a cyclist to hose off the blood and drive on down his merry way.

and also, when you impact a cyclist, wouldn’t you have already broken both legs, i’m sure a biker wants to REALLY feel that pain and what if you are doing over 40mph and collide with said cyclist and he just tumbles over your car completely rendering this new air bag pointless, next thing they’ll invent is a cyclist catcher for cars,….ooohhh wait i think i can invent this

My idea is for an auto-ejection seat fitted to a bike so that in the millisecond prior to getting crunched by a car the cyclist is ejected 200 ft into the air and can safely land on a treetop or some reebar at a construction site prepping for a pour. Of course the cyclist will have to tow the extra weight of this safety equipment, but that is “greener” than burdening a CO2 emitting vehicle with this.

Also, a lane departure warning device that would keep cyclists to within 1 foot of the gutter on the right would be a great invention, but that would imply some responsibility for the cyclist’s safety actually lies in their ability to bike responsibly, and so this would be opposed by every cyclist group on the planet.

Rafa LL, jumpoffit, mayer_ray_nagin: well f*cking said. This is a retarded idea and will fail to pass any legislation (except maybe in Holland where they’re used to ass-backwards laws).

Get bikes off the road! Why do these people want to get killed is beyond me.
Just tax bikes and silly shorts and use the cash to build the bike lane.

Being a road-bike racer myself, I even think this is stupid. I follow the rules while riding safely towards the right side of the lane so I’m not one of those jerk roadies. I definately know some!!

Anyhow, I was hit by a car last winter and landed on my face which required multiple plastic surgery procedures. Not fun, but an airbag wouldn’t have done jack to help. Heck, the wind generated from passing trucks is sometimes enough to make an inexperienced cyclist crash. Having a pillow flying at me at 30mph is still going to make me crash.

Oh, and for the idiots that say that cyclists should be on sidewalks and don’t pay taxes, that’s BS. Of course, I’m talking about recreational/sport riders, not the drunks riding their Huffy’s to work following multiple DUI’s. Considering I have multiple bikes that cost over $5K each, I’d say I’ve paid enough in taxes. And actually, cyclists are insured through their home-owners or auto policy.

F*ck cyclists. Like F451 says when they start insuring their vehicles I might give a ****.

Now a much bigger problem where exterior airbags would be of use is along the sides of your vehicle to protect from door dings. Next time that 400lb blob of humanity parks next to your shiny new wheels and lets fly with the driver’s door of their filthy POS ‘96 Windstar the ‘Dingbag’ senses the impending disaster and explodes with enough force into the offending door to prevent those heart breaking divots in your perfect sheetmetal.

Now that’s technology gearheads can live. Now if you all will excuse me I’m running off to the patent office as I type.

If cyclists wear the airbags then the protection will be where it is needed. What’s the point of a bag on the hood if you just glance off the side of a car and hit the pavement?

I think I’m going to go weld spikes onto my bumper and drive the Hill Country looking for Lance Armstrong.

Leave it to the Euros to relieve the human race of all responsibility for themselves…maybe they should put airbags on their wooden shoes so that they don’t dent my car when I run over them.? That’s what I’d like to see.

i would fully support this idea since i live in san francisco and i think the world revovles around me-me-me-NOT, i dont ****in think so. this kind of bull**** raises my blood pressure….****in idiots i swear…

I hate cyclists riding their bikes thinking they’re Lance Armstrong and being macho going 40mph, then there are those assholes who won’t ride single file. They shouldn’t be on the road anyhow, so F them.

How about pedestrians learn how to cross the streets safely, look before crossing and stop dashing out.

I used to live in San Francisco and all those critical mass wankers bugged the **** out of me.

Oh what a crock of ****. I think anyone who cycles on a major public road has a death wish.

I guess the ASPCA is going to push for airbags that will inflate from the tires to protect innocent squirrels, chipmunks and possums.

I don’t see this pop-up hood becoming a major feature on most cars or trucks until very hard evidence to their effectiveness comes to light as with ESP, Electronic Stability Program. But I am appalled at the sheer level out gross indifference, ignorance, cynicism, and flat out bull**** so many of you are spouting on the subject of a new safety technology.

From the very top 1115’s ass mouth statement about protecting people from GMs and FORDs as if getting hit but a “safe and reliable” HONDA or TOYOTA or some such is going to hurt any less. So many other’s have reflected the same relative level of stupidity in their own statements, I find down right disturbing.

The issue is that so many dumbasses out there are behind the wheel and are not paying attention to what is going on outside the vehicle, in some cases not even inside the vehicle. This doesn’t excuse the pedestrian but most hit and run, and pedestrian/vehicle fatalities are the fault of the driver not paying attention or driving in a very dangerous manner… regardless of the make of the vehcile. Getting hit with a FORD or GM is going to run the same risk of killing you as being hit with a TOYOTA, HONDA, MERCEDES-BENZ, et al.

People are hurt severely and killed painfully getting hit with cars, even little econo-boxes. I’m guessing you never saw a person hit with a moving vehicle. It isn’t like a cartoon where the person is thrown into the bushes and gets up as if they were “only” hit but an NFL linebacker. If only…

You, a 170 pound human, gets nailed with a 3800 pound car or heavier truck, made of metal, hardened glass, and plastic, you are not getting up unless you are so lucky as to “only” be clipped. You could still wind up with broken bones anyway. Those cool Hollywood car hits do not happen. Seeing a guy jump at the last second onto a oncoming car in “Jackass” does not count. Like any stunt, it only works if you know its coming and know what to do.

This pop-up hood is meant to protect people how don’t, as the case often is, see it coming and/or know what to do. I doubt you would know what to do if a car or truck came barreling down on you.

If any of you meant your statements to be funny, at least one of us is not laughing. Sometimes you people really do make me sick.

#12 is the BEST post. Jumpofit is the perpetuator of @$$ kicking on LLN. How about the alarm that “warns” them of the car’s presence. Doesn’t rolling down your window and yelling at them do the same thing. I want a car with a mechanism that B!T@H slaps them everytime they are “sharing” the road with a sidewalk right next to them.

Oh ****, we didn’t make Blakkarr laugh! OH THE HUMANITY!!!!

If I’d wanted a sermon today I would’ve scheduled a Doctor’s appointment.

To be honest, if I was on the road and seen another car accidentally hit a tight pants wearing, toaster helmet sporting, water bottle in one hand, geek on a bicycle because the bicycle was in the CARS lane, I would probably cause another accident I would be laughing so hard.

You guys are all ignorant phooks if you actually think injuring someone is funny. Burn in hell.

I’ll be sure to open the door for you when you get there 6ix.

I wonder if the wankers in hell bitch about global warming and irritate satan about airbags.

6ix, i am burning hell, im living in San Francisco with sensitive wimps like yourself. lol look, this problem isnt about increasing technology wastefully, its about increasing common sense. raised in Chicago, i learned that even when you cross the street, your risking your life. it seems like some places, like San Fran and apparently some places in Holland they believe that the world revolves around them and there needs. airbags on hoods? get the **** outta here! every man for themselves. ****in shmucks i swear, my blood pressure…damn

btw i love the picture they used for this article. HAHAHA

its not about injuring someone on purpose, but man if you have a helmet on, elbow AND knee pads and now you need air bags from us to feel MORE safe, go bicycle at a park, dirt trail or again on the sidewalk, STAY off the road, if you MUST be on the street buy a damn motorcycle atleast that gets respect- not like those jehovah witnesses on bicycles trying to preach to me…

6ix,
Any sales tax you pay for your $5k bikes I would wager has no chance of offsetting the additional engineering costs of exterior airbags.

That being said, I find this to be an interesting issue. It can be argued that most of the active and passive safety features of a car are designed for the mutual benefit of both people involved in a car vs. car accident (i.e., less energy is transferred into my spine if your bumper crumples, and vice versa). Another example: airbags protect passengers, who, it can be argued, are similarly situated as pedestrians or cyclists–that is, they are not actively involved in the driving process (although pedestrians and cyclists certainly control where they walk/ride), and statistically they are at risk of being injured by an automobile.

My initial reaction is that this whole exterior airbag is bull****, but that’s also because I can’t fathom how exterior airbags would make a difference. The Dutch Cycling Federation was the group that released the study saying that airbags help, but did they fund and/or conduct the study? Also, it’s probably true that their claims would be true if EVERY car on the road were fitted with the system. Even if airbags go on every car built starting tomorrow, odds are for the next several years the cyclist will be hit by a car without exterior airbags. And the stats in the study will probably be much different in, say, the U.S., where the density of pedestrians and cyclists on car-driven roads may not be as great.

Still, I just can’t believe that a puff of gas and a balloon will prevent a femur from splintering.

But, let’s say exterior airbags are studied, and it can be shown that the Dutch cyclists’ claims are true. Also assume that the systems can be fitted to cars relatively cheaply (say $500) and with relatively little additional weight (say 50 lbs)? At that point, why not put the airbags on?

I’m not saying that personal pedestrian and cycling conduct shouldn’t be the #1 preventative measure, but isn’t adding 1.3% weight for 1.7% more cost worth 60 lives and 1500 serious injuries?

Just because the hood has an airbag doesn’t mean I still can’t get’em with my door!

Teach drivers to pay attention.
Teach bikers to stay off the ****ing road.

Problem solved.

**** you cycling organizations. 1st decide if u wanna be a pedestrian or a vehicle. Choose one of the following:
1. Riding on the road and respecting traffic signals and staying off the ****in sidewalk, parks etc.(put it on your shoulder and walk, u will burn more callories that way Mr. workout)
2. Act like a pedestrian, stay on the sidewalk and watch out for me with a ****in baseball bat.

HemiRoadRunner, if you dont get the door open fast enough you could always opt for the conventional, and classic, ’stiff arm clothes line’. but dont worry 6ix, they wont die, theyll just get hurt severely. serously wouldnt an exterior airbag actually increase a ‘bounce effect’ on impact? in turn flinging a pedestrian even further? if thats the case, count me in! 200 pts for every bike **** out there! field goal! yes!hahaha

Wow it is people like you that are going to kill me one day. I am a roadie and believe it or not I have every right to ride my bike on the road. I am sorry that my activity of choice causes such an inconvenience during your daily commute, but the fact that you people are willing to injury or possible kill someone just for riding a bike on a road is sicking.

Now I know some roadies out their don’t follow the rules of the road and ride where every they please but at the same time I have seen drivers have the same disregard for the rules as some bike riders do. So unless you believe in injuring or killing ignorant drivers as well, maybe you need to reevaluate your hatred of roadies.

Now I am sure most of you people won’t change your hatred of the fact that people will ride their bikes on the road. But could you at least keep your hatred of us roadies to a rude gesture/comment, we are people to and I rather die of old age instead of on the hood of a ignorant motorist. Yea, I said hood, I don’t support this idea of airbags as well.

Nothing more dangersou to themselves and everyone around them than cyclists on the road where I live. They dive in and out of lanes on high-speed streets, never look to see who’s coming up behind them, and generally don’t give a ****ing ****. I’m not supporting more costs and bulk on cars because these faggots don’t have the sense to ride responsibly. **** them.

hey fuzz40 do you turn into a pedestrian when the light is red? And then cross on the crosswalk?

Yea this is bull****. I hate cyclists. HOw about get off our ****ing roads and go ride some ****ing bike trail in the mountains. Roads are for CARS. WE DONT WANT TO SHARE THE ROAD.

I think it is misplaced airbag: since bicycle is a vehicle put air bag on it. Then saving the lives of bicyclists will be their own responsibility. Actually pace 2: one for impact with a car another with landing object when thrown away from the car (pavement, tree, wall etc).

Nitinsharma1000 actually no, I wait behind whatever car I pulled up to at the red light and wait for the green light.

Edgeguy, we don’t care if you want to share the road or not, the law is the law and we have every right to be riding on the road. Stop showing your ignorance and read the about laws of the road. Because the roads are also OUR ****ing roads as well, but unlike you, I am willing to share them others.

Autonut, since we are going to put airbags on bicycles we should go ahead and require motorcycles to add airbags as well since they are “vehicles”.

Nitinsharma1000, you may seem like a rational biker but no matter what–the majority of bikers i see, ,especially in the city are morons asking for a death wish. riding fast and dangerous–is part of the thrill, no? so when bikers turn around and try to blame cars—i dont buy it. laws? lemme know when laws govern over common sense, coz if you get hit and win the lawsuit with a missing limb and brain damage, was it really worth the ‘right of way’? for me i’ll follow common sense, **** the ‘laws’ ,but thats just me.

Two things, Fuzz40:

1) Having the law on your side is of no matter when you are under my tires or doing a vulcan mind-meld with my bumper, and

2) In response to your statement “unless you believe in injuring or killing ignorant drivers as well” as a matter of fact I would love to see ignorant drivers killed, injured, or tortured, as well as a host of other ignorant bastards that make life difficult for the rest of us on this planet.

Wow this is interesting common sense would tell you that four wheeled vehicles pay road use fees,and the highway taxes on my favorite fuel that is not used by bicyclists, and truckers pay through the nose to make a living as the heaviest vehicles pay more. Yet you believe that we should all just stay behind you at 10 mph until you decide to move your ass out of our road.Maybe I am old fashioned but when I rode as a kid I could ride 20-30 miles and not get in anybodys way,why because I knew if I did I may not make it and did not plan my route very well…

What if it just had the looney tunes style boxing glove on a spring that flys out and knocks them off their bike? This makes me want to mess with some cyclists now, thanks for the ideas LLN.

Mayer_ray_nagin
1) If you decided to run me over then so be it, nothing I can do to stop a 2 ton car from deciding to end my life, but realize that by ending my life you are also ending yours because killing myself or other humans is murder and you can go spend the rest of your life in prison. Your choice….
2) If we were all allowed to kill, injure, or torture anyone who made life difficult then I don’t believe their would be anyone left on the planet. So what you are really trying to say is you just want to kill, injure, torture anyone who annoys you, which is really just your saying you are self-centered.

Dodgezilla
Sorry but you get to stay behind myself and other cyclists as we ride 5,10,15…. however many MPH we decided to ride at, until it is clear to pass us safely. I have no problem with cars passing me as long as they wait to pass safely, just like when you are passing a slow vehicle.
Also if you don’t like the paying the highway tax on fuel then there is always the possibility of riding a bike!!!! You where able to do it as a kid why not pick one up now and save some money. It may take you longer to get somewhere but you won’t be having to pay the fuel tax or fuel prices you are complaining about.

Again cyclists have every right to be on the road and I know being right doesn’t matter when you are killed by a vehicle which is why I ride as safely as I can. I follow the laws of the road just like everyone else and if you want to run me over for us over for it, then you can suffer the penalty for it. I have no problem with anyone getting pissed off or hostile with any cyclist that is not following the laws of the road, I yell at cyclists just as much as you do when they are in the wrong. But could you please stop being hostile towards us cyclists who do the right thing and still have to suffer your aggression when we are not doing anything wrong.

Fuzz, you are waaaaaaaaay to serious about riding your bike. What kind of geek are you, don’t you have ANY other hobbies? You don’t have the right to obstruct traffic on your dinky little bike, that’s called IMPEEDING the speed limit! Get on the sidewalk, you look like a retard riding your bike on the road with an empty sidewalk right by you. I’m going to open up the headers on my Road Runner and buzz all the cyclist I see riding on the road that day. Why are you riding your bike anyway? Are you trying to excercise or is just “fun”? You could at least deliver newspapers while your riding your bike you lazy mofo. You guys are just another nerdy group of people screaming you have rights to this and that meanwhile mine and other’s rights get taken away. Pull out in front of me, I dare you. I’ll suck you up the intake and blow you out the exhaust.

One day Fuzz will no longer be posting here and all of us will drive happily along knowing that his arrogant biking style pissed off the wrong person, or that some ditz on her cellphone didn’t see his lumbering ass exercising his “right of way.”

BTW, Fuzz, Hemi has a point. I can get a ticket for impeding traffic if I drive too far below the limit and so can you. You are also required to pull over and let cars pass if you are blocking 5 or more vehicles. When you do reach nirvana and become one with the pavement, drivers everywhere will rejoice and laugh at your corpse as it quivers with its lame tour-de-france-wannabee garish shorts and stupid looking shirt.

And it’s only murder if you get caught.

Alright HemiRoadRunner you got me, I am a bike geek, along with being an auto nut which is why I am on this site to begin with. I enjoy cars as much as anyone else and I can be honest, if you own a Road Runner that is an awesome car to have! If you passed me safely and then floored the gas pedal on your road runner, I would give you a huge thumbs up for such a sweet ride.
Once again your are correct and I have no right to impede traffic, which is why I ride to the far right side of the road where I am told to and give cars plenty of safe room to pass me. Where I live their is enough room to pass me safely with out even going into the other lane.
If you want to know why I ride my bike I do it for the exercise and the thrill of racing my bike. It is my passion just as much as cars are. But I fail to see how I am a lazy mofo, when I am out exercising.
Also I am not taking your or anyones rights away, I am just using mine. I don’t scream out for cars to stop using the roads or for everyone to go buy hybrid so the polar bears still have an ice pack to live on. I am all for a big block mopar running down the street with an awesome sounding exhaust, instead of some fuel sipping hybrid that sounds like a damn RC car. But about your road runner don’t run me down with it, that would be a waste of a great car/engine to get wrecked just because you don’t like cyclists on the road.

Side note do you really have a 426 street Hemi road runner? or do you just have the 383, or the 440 in it?

Mayer_ray_nagin

I will reach would reach nirvana when you become just another driving death statistic but then the democrats would point to your dead corpse and explain to the world that cars are not safe enough and require more safety features for cars. When really we need less safety crap on cars and less idiots on the road driving.

You may want to reconsider the idea of bicycling as being “Gay”, “wimpy”, “lazy”, or some other deriding tag you want to stick to it.

The fact is that Bicycling is a very popular sport, even in developed nations. It takes a truly lazy and insensitive cretin, or just your ” typical lazy-ass American”, to believe that bicycling to stay fit is stupid. The very idea. As soon as you get your driver’s license you sell or scrap your bike… then you start to pack on those pounds, can barely walk or run 50 feet without losing your breath, and just can not socialize well because you are so isolated in your car. Which likely explains the lack of empathy for those who make bicycling part of their lives.

I really don’t see the rational behind the bitching against the Pop-up “airbag” hoods. The more some of you keep crying about it the more moronic you look and make anyone you are supporting look. This, as if, you would have much of a say to effect on the matter.

The auto and health insurance companies, seeking to reduce liability, would likely push to mandate this on all new cars after a certain point. After all, they are not going to be willing to pay for a killer car… but they sure will make you pay for it. It isn’t just what the vehicle costs but also how much the insurance costs as well.

Why is it that some of you fools think it is okay to drive around “Death Race 2000″? You realize that unless you can prove you could not have gone safely around or stopped for a pedestrian or bicyclist, you can be convicted on “vehicular assault” and if the persons dies “Vehicular manslaughter”. There is also “failing to stop and render aid”, better known as “Hit and Run”. It gets better, if it is found you made NO EFFORT to avoid striking a bicyclist or pedestrian and they die, that is “Murder with a deadly weapon (your vehicle)”. They live it’s still “Attempted Murder”.

Try cracking wise about it during your criminal sentencing not to mention to possible civil suits that could follow. Americans love to sue.

I would think you assholes would want this on your cars if only so you had your own sorry asses covered in the likely event you did do something so stupid. So why are you still going on about it?

Blakkarr, thank you!

Ok fuzz, why did you have to be so cool about it. Maybe you wouldn’t piss me off afterall. It’s a real “R” code car (426 Hemi) it has a 440 in it now but I do have a crate 426 Hemi block waiting to be built to go in it and make it correct. It’s a 1970, 4 speed pistol grip, dana 60 with 3:54’s, B5 blue, blue bench seat interior, 5 spoke magnum 500 wheels. It’s faded out, the interior is pretty shot, but it’s still fast as all hell. I have been getting as many N.O.S and reman peices as I can to put it back to 100% original, even the factory highrise exhaust manifolds. I found it 14 years ago when we were playing paintball in an old orange grove here sitting between an old tractor and a rusty international truck. So give it another 4 years and it will be new again. At least somebody on here knows what those cars are.

blakkarr, could you write more? i’m not sure you got the point across yet

don’t forget to add those engine/hood airbags Hemi- don’t want a suicidal bicyclist to run into you since they want to hog the road like the elderly in their big cadillac sedan deville going 5mph

BTW, Fuzz, as I said above, I bike also (for exercise and fresh air) but am in no way a dick about it. Pretty much I am anywhere but on the road if possible, and there I hug the gutter and would never block a car, nor would I ever double-file, much less triple- or quadruple-file like I often see (in tour-de-france shorts to boot). So I don’t hate bikers, I hate assholes, and when people imply they can hold up traffic and be burdensome because they damn well want and it’s their damned right to do so, they are annoying or ignorant whether they are bikers, runners (I also run), dip****s playing football in the street, or sunday drivers – so nothing against you except a bit of humor.
.
Sounds like if Blakkarr had his way we’d all be driving around motorized sponges of some sort to appease every whiny interest group imaginable, but it does not matter – stupid pussies will always whine and sue. As such I actually prefer metal and no bags so that the chances are better the pussies will die rather than live to whine another day.

phuzz note the small p,I only made a observation.I am truly sorry that yours is the only one that counts and the common sense was way over your head as I did not hear any coherant response,only babbling of puppies.lame pal….

HemiRoadRunner, that is one hell of a find!!! Nice to hear that you crate hemi waiting for that ride, then again the 440 isn’t a bad motor at all. I know a guy around my place that has a sharp looking silver cuda with a 440 in it and that car is scary quick!!! I have been searching around for a plymouth demon or a dodge dart sport. I am trying to find one before 1972 when chrysler took compression away from the 340. If not I can’t find one before that year I might just turn the 340 into a little stroker motor then, but we will see when I find a car.

Mayer ray nagin you have every right to get pissed off at cyclists who ride 3 to 4 people wide and take up the whole lane. I get pissed off when fellow cyclists don’t follow the rules of the road. Just please don’t get pissed at those of us who do follow all the rules of the road and ride to the far right as safely possible.

mayer_ray_nagin

Good point