Students advance work on a bicycle ‘dash cam’
Cycle Safe’s sponsor and adviser collaborate to improve road safety for all.
Interdisciplinary Capstone Team 25050 plans to meet cyclists participating in the 2024 El Tour de Tucson, a road bicycling and fundraising event that attracts 9,000 riders each year, to educate them about the Cycle Safe device.
A University of Arizona Interdisciplinary Capstone team is continuing the efforts of prior students by working to bring a lifesaving invention to market. Team 25050’s project, the Cycle Safe, is poised to replace the handlebar plugs on bicycles with sensors that detect a passing vehicle within 3 feet of the rider.
Arizona law requires motor vehicles to grant least 3 feet of clearance for cyclists to avoid a potential collision, a regulation that project sponsor the Rob Dollar Foundation has advocated for since its inception. John Dollar started the Rob Dollar Foundation in 2017 after his son was killed in a bicycle accident.
Dr. Daniel Latt has been developing the Cycle Safe concept since 2019.
Dr. Daniel Latt, project adviser and associate professor of biomedical engineering and orthopaedic surgery, described the Cycle Safe as a “dash cam” for cyclists.
“It senses when a vehicle approaches closer than 3 feet to the left handlebar of the bicycle,” he told Phoenix radio station KJZZ. “It has audio/visual warning and begins recording a video to capture the license plate of the vehicle, along with the time and location of the event.”
Progressing a natural partnership
In 2019, Latt sponsored a U of A Interdisciplinary Capstone project, in which the student team created the initial prototype of the Cycle Safe. This effort led to a provisional patent in 2021 and a full patent application in 2022. that same year, Latt met Dollar, who took an interest in collaborating.
“We decided this would be a natural partnership,” he said.
With sponsorship from the Rob Dollar Foundation, Latt and Dollar directed a 2022-2023 capstone project which gave the device wireless connectivity to users’ cellphones and added additional features. In the 2023-2024 academic year, Dollar enlisted the help of a software engineering masters team from Arizona State University to upgrade the initial software.
Now, Team 25050 is handling Phase 3 – making Cycle Safe smaller and lighter, improving operational efficiency and upgrading cellphone integration. The team will showcase the latest prototypes at the Rob Dollar Foundation booth at this year’s El Tour de Tucson Expo November 21-23.
Advocacy unites with engineering
Latt and Dollar hope to take the device to market in 2025 and ultimately seek to improve overall road safety by gathering new data that can inform policy decisions related to cyclist safety, said Latt.
“We don’t really know how many close calls there are, and how many incidents that don’t result in an ambulance coming out, or in death,” he said.
He added that the Rob Dollar Foundation, which will host the database, hopes the data produced by users will reveal potential hotspots where cyclists are routinely endangered so more adequate safeguards can be put in place.
Dollar told KJZZ it’s important for drivers to stop seeing cyclists as “just a bicycle.”
“It’s someone’s mom, dad, brother, sister, that wants to come home to their family,” he said. “So have some patience, give them 3 feet when you pass, and let’s just keep the road safe for everybody.”