Written by Andra Tudor
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London cycling is enjoying a renaissance – it has never been so popular. But even the loudest raving fans of the pursuit won’t deny the potential safety issues surrounding cycling, particularly in a city as big and full of motor traffic as the UK capital. Many parties are of course making an ongoing concerted effort to improve safety for our cyclists, and one of the leading lights (if you’ll pardon the pun) in this movement is a London start up company that has reimagined the bicycle light.
Shoreditch based Blaze started as a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign by Emily Brooke in 2012, reaching its target just before Christmas of that year and with initial backers receiving their Laserlights in 2013. More are set to ship in May of this year. The Blaze Laserlight has captured attention not just in London, where the Evening Standard has eagerly followed the product’s journey, but in publications ranging from Brooke’s home town publication The Bath Chronicle to international awareness in The New York Times.
So what sets the Laserlight apart from other bicycle lights that generates this worldwide interest? It features a more traditional, torch-like light that can be set to high beam, low beam or flashing, but it’s another feature that has everyone talking…
On their website Blaze point to a 2011 report by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) which states that a startling 79% of cycle accidents occur when the bicycle is travelling straight ahead and a vehicle manoeuvres into them – the classic blind spot scenario, as Blaze put it. This is where the Laserlight’s unique selling point comes in to play.
The light is capable of projecting a green laser image of a bike five to six metres on to the road ahead, alerting drivers to unseen cyclists and preventing them from turning across their path. It is a revolutionary idea that is effectively a portable form of road signage that could save many lives.
Besides the key light and laser features of the Laserlight, the product has much more to offer the modern cyclist: it can be charged by USB, meaning you can connect it to your office computer and leave work at the end of the day safe in the knowledge that it will last the journey home; it is waterproof – always a good idea in the British climate; it has a safety switch that deactivates the laser when it’s not attached to the bike. On top of all this it looks good too – made with aircraft aluminium and with a bracket of marine-grade steel.
The Laserlight may just make a cycle in London a much safer thing to do, and consequently as Blaze aspire to in their mission statement “liberating, easy, open to all”.
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