LightSpot

LightSpot - Taking away the blind spot

Increasing the amount of cyclists is the goal of many cities around the globe. However, through research we found that in the Netherlands (the cycling capital of the world!) cycling is still very dangerous. Even though we have outstanding bicycle infrastructure, still over 66.000 cyclists get hospitalized every year. This is way too many and we made it our purpose to find a solution to bring this number down. That's when we came up with the idea to create the LightSpot light. This light will safe a lot of cyclists who get caught in the blind spot of a vehicle. We want to create a prototype of our idea to develop our concept further and improve our designs, but to create this prototype we need your help. So if you want to be part of a safer traffic environment please support us and in the future we will see everyone with their own Lightspot light.

The problem

Out of the 66.000 cyclists who get hospitalized due to traffic accidents in the Netherlands, more than 200 people die each year. Most of these accidents are caused because of insufficient visibility. This is a major problem in the Netherlands, especially because many cities want to promote car-free city centres and the bicycle is a popular alternative. 

The problem we want to focus on is related to the blind spot. The blind spot is an area in which the driver of a vehicle cannot see other participants of traffic when checking his mirrors. This is a problem for truck drivers in particular, but regular cars also have a blindspot. The blind spot contributes to many bicycle accidents each year and because the driver does not see the cyclist at all the severity of these accidents is usually very high. 

The product

To solve this problem of not being seen when cycling in the blind spot, we want to create a light that shines far in front of the bicycle. Far in front of the cyclist and concentrated enough, so that drivers of other vehicles are able to notice that there is a cyclist in their blind spot. Besides that, we found many problems with existing lights. The existing lights either get stolen or lost often, break easily or are hard to install. Therefore we aim our product to be affordable, durable, easy-to-use and thiefproof. By doing so, we aim to improve the urban traffic safety and encourage people to use their bicycle. 

The people

The LightSpot team: Martijn de Heus (Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management), Susanne Reitsma (International Studies) and Philipp Schneider (International Bachelor of Psychology).