The Bike Lane Newsletter
in the lane
Federal grants help bike projects reconnect communities
April 30, 2024Bikes were a big winner in USDOT’s recent round of grant awards for the highly competitive Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Program. By Martina Haggerty Senior Director of Local Innovation PeopleForBikes Editor’s note: This text was first published online by PeopleForBikes…
‘Informational safety’ in the landscape of vehicle safety
April 30, 2024By Gopi C. Surnilla Director, Business Development Valtech Detroit The technology landscape of vehicle safety has been evolving over many years. The initial safety solutions have been around the protection of the occupants in an accident. These solutions were designed…
Road to safety means harnessing the power of connectivity, collaboration
March 21, 2024By Brock Aun Vice President, Communications & Public Policy HAAS Alert Among the many transformations unfolding in the automotive space today, autonomous vehicles have unquestionably captured the most public attention and reporting. From the proliferation of advanced driver assistance technologies…
Own your backyard: An industry guide to supporting local bike infrastructure
March 21, 2024By Martina Haggerty, Senior Director of Local Innovation and Dave Snyder, Senior Director for Infrastructure PeopleForBikes Editor’s note: This text was first published online by PeopleForBikes on Feb. 23 and is shared in The Bike Lane with permission. PeopleForBikes works…
When will US consumers learn that their vehicles can save lives?
February 15, 2024By Ken McLeod Policy Director League of American Bicyclists The Tesla Model Y is sold in the U.S. and Europe. It looks the same in both markets. It was the best-selling vehicle worldwide in 2023. If you’ve heard about Tesla’s…
Rolling into 2024 with a chat about tech, trends and services
February 15, 2024Podcast with John Quain Founder, Editor-in-Chief OntheRoadtoAutonomy.com Rolling into 2024, John Quain stops by to chat with host Jake Sigal about tech, trends, and services. John is the founder, Editor-in-Chief of OntheRoadtoAutonomy.com and has views on the rising popularity of…
VRUs in the headlights
January 25, 2024By Roger C. Lanctot Director, Automotive Connected Mobility TechInsights The reports keep coming in from far and wide. Pedestrians – including cyclists – are dying in record numbers on roadways around the world and in the U.S. The figures are…
‘Invented for life’ e-bike innovations, the Bosch way
November 16, 2023Podcast with Jocelyn Vande Velde and Kunal Kapoor Bosch eBike Systems NA Jocelyn Vande Velde, of Bosch eBike Systems, and Bosch’s Kunal Kapoor chat with host Jake Sigal about innovations in Bosch’s e-bike products and contemplate the company’s long-standing corporate…
How research and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding can reduce bicyclist injuries, fatalities
November 16, 2023By Brian Cronin Director, Office of Safety and Operations Research and Development Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation In 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determined that there were 966 bicyclist fatalities and 41,615 injuries. NHTSA’s…
Look globally, act locally for safety solutions
October 13, 2023Podcast with Natalie Draisin Director, North American Office and United Nations Representative FIA Foundation FIA Director Natalie Draisin stops by The Bike Lane to chat with host Jake Sigal about Vulnerable Road User safety projects, toolkits, and discovering great safety…
Framing our safe, healthy transportation system revolution
October 13, 2023By Seth LaJeunesse Senior Research Associate University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center It’s hard to remember a time when we were as divided as a culture as you are today, isn’t it? Consider where your family members…
Let’s talk about e-bikes
September 21, 2023Podcast with Kerri Kauffman Chief Revenue Officer Juiced Bikes Juiced Bikes’s Chief Revenue Officer, Kerri Kauffman, stops by the Bike Lane to chat with host Jake Sigal about e-bikes: Why training and age limits are crucial to safety; how cheap…
How great bike plans transform communities
September 21, 2023If you’re seeking inspiration to help guide your local bike planning process, here are nine cities with plans worth duplicating. By Martina Haggerty Senior Director of Local Innovation PeopleForBikes Editor’s note: This text was first published online by PeopleForBikes on…
More data on car-bike interactions needed in drive to protect VRUs
August 11, 2023Podcast with Clark Haynes Founder and CEO velo.ai Velo.AI’s CEO Clark Haynes stops by to chat with host Jake Sigal about the important need for more incident (“near-miss”) data affecting bicycles and vehicles. Clark also describes his company’s sophisticated new…
Ensuring safe journeys should top our ‘back-to-school’ lists
August 11, 2023By Natalie Draisin Director, North American Office and United Nations Representative FIA Foundation As the school year approaches, parents across the nation are planning schedules, buying new shoes, and experiencing age-old anxieties that come with children growing up too fast.…
Automakers ‘need all the help they can get’ from safety tech startups
July 13, 2023Podcast with Roger Lanctot Director, Automotive Connected Mobility TechInsights Roger Lanctot returns to The Bike Lane for a lively, wide-ranging chat with host Jake Sigal about startups trying to penetrate the hard automotive bubble (or fail trying), why one large…
Your bike advocacy playbook
July 13, 2023Want to help make your city a better place to bike? We developed a 15-point, research-based fact sheet to help you push for change. By Martina Haggerty and Kiran Herbert PeopleForBikes Editor’s note: This text was first published online by…
Revolution coming in ‘bicyclist safety via tech’
July 13, 2023By Clark Haynes, Ph.D. Founder and CEO velo.ai As a lifelong bike commuter, safety has always been my primary concern whenever I embark on two wheels. This concern is grounded in a harsh reality: nearly 1000 bicyclists lose their lives…
E-bike popularity, the infrastructure bill and ‘a lot of great wins so far’
June 08, 2023Podcast with Noa Banayan Director of Federal Affairs PeopleForBikes People for Bikes’ Noa Banayan stops by to chat with Jake about policy successes and how her team’s focus largely shifted towards incentives and ways to get e-bikes in the hands…
Ultra-wideband: A feasible addition to D2V safety?
June 08, 2023By Rich Rarey Senior Software Engineer, Bluetooth SME Valtech Mobility Detroit We have long been interested in furthering Vulnerable Road User (VRU) safety at the Valtech Mobility Detroit (formerly Tome Software) Safety Team. Our transmission and reception of SAE Standard…
Let’s talk about safe autonomy
April 30, 2023Podcast with Phil Koopman Professor Carnegie Mellon University Philip Koopman, author, researcher, and Carnegie Mellon University professor, stops by The Bike Lane for a frank chat with host Jake Sigal about why autonomous vehicles’ driving is worse than a 16…
OSU using photorealistic driving simulations with AI to advance VRU-safety research
April 30, 2023A new frontier for virtual edge-case testing to ensure VRU safety in era of autonomous driving By Ekim Yurtsever, Ph.D. Research Associate 2-Engineer The Ohio State University, Center for Automotive Research Our mission at The Ohio State University Center for…
A lively chat about transportation
April 13, 2023Podcast with John Quain Founder, Editor-in-Chief OntheRoadtoAutonomy.com John Quain returns to The Bike Lane for a lively, wide-ranging chat with host Jake Sigal about banning e-scooters in urban areas for safety reasons; dangerous e-batteries; the trend to ‘return to bicycles’;…
Good and bad news from Paris, San Francisco
April 13, 2023By Roger C. Lanctot Director, Automotive Connected Mobility TechInsights Just a week ago, a tiny fraction (less than 10%) of eligible voters in Paris voted to ban rental electric scooters. Once welcomed with open arms by the city’s leaders, these…
The USDOT is forging a new path in VRU safety
April 13, 2023By Brock Aun Vice President of Communications HAAS Alert Although there’s little media coverage or discussion on the topic, the United States is currently experiencing one of the worst periods of roadway pedestrian deaths on record. Last month, the Governor’s…
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Newsletter Archive
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 1 • May 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 2 • June 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 3 • July 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 4 • August 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 5 • September 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 6 • October 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 7 • November 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 8 • December 2022
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 9 • February 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 10 • March 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 11 • April 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 12 • May 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 13 • June 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 14 • July 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 15 • August 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 16 • September 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 17 • October 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 18 • November 2023
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 19 • January 2024
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 20 • February 2024
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 21 • March 2024
- The Bike Lane: Vol. 22 • April 2024
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About The Bike Lane
Welcome to The Bike Lane!
Protecting vulnerable road users (VRUs) is more critical than ever. Fortunately, some of the best in business are building bikes, scooters, and vehicles with connected technology in mind dedicated to this very purpose.
As proud founding members of the Society of Automotive Engineers Industry Technologies Consortia® (SAE ITC) VRU Safety Consortium™ (VRUSC), we created The Bike Lane newsletter as a sales-free zone dedicated to the common mission of making roads safer. The Bike Lane is a place for cross-industry voices to be shared and heard. It’s a forum to explore the tough questions around VRU safety, and how the bike, automotive, and tech industries are responding to those concerns. Our guest bloggers and podcasters are the professionals working actively on projects and programs related to VRU safety. They live and work where the rubber meets the road, literally and figuratively.
As for the Tome Safety Team, we believe that precompetitive software and standards are necessary for safer roads. We ride (and drive), and it’s personal. Our team brings collective experience to ongoing standardization efforts and technology development aimed at protecting VRUs.
With so many great companies working together to achieve this common goal of safer roads, our mission will be accomplished that much sooner. So much progress has already been made, and there’s still much work to do. As this happens, we’ll be reporting it back to you in The Bike Lane!
Stay safe, innovative, and ride on!
Angela Fessler
Director, Safety Team
Tome