BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Research released by Santander Cycles shows that 48% of cyclists are worried about visibility whilst cycling at night.
Following a successful pilot, organizers of the London cycle scheme will now be tackling the issue of night riding by rolling out Blaze Laserlights to the whole fleet of city bikes. The new improvements are on-track to be completed by July 2017.
The Laserlight, which features what the brand calls ‘ground-breaking laser innovation’, is largely funded by Santander. The light projects the image of a bike up to six meters in front of the rider, helping drivers of vehicles to remain aware of cyclists.
As part of a Twitter campaign to raise awareness for the new lights, customized emjoi will be released to support the roll-out of the Laserlight. The custom emjoi will appear when users tweet the hashtag #SantanderCycles.
To promote the roll-out, Santander has also teamed up with the newly-retired Olympic gold, silver and double-world Heptathlete Champion Jessica Ennis-Hill and Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button to create a short Halloween-themed film called ‘The Blaze With Project’ highlighting the benefits of the Blaze Light. (The video can be found here.)
Commenting on the launch, Jessica Ennis-Hill said: “I’m a fan of anything safety-related that has the added benefit of encouraging people to be more active. I love the idea of more people getting out on the roads doing exercise with the confidence that they will be highly visible thanks to Santander Cycles’ innovative Blaze Laserlight.”
The light was developed by Emily Brooke, the CEO and founder of Blaze. Having previously studied physics at Oxford University and design at Brighton, the Laserlight was her final year project. The innovation won her a place on a Santander funded entrepreneurship program in Boston.
Brooke commented:"We are truly thrilled our Laserlight technology is being integrated into the entire fleet of Santander Cycles. We’ve been shipping the consumer version for over two years now, to more than 60 countries, but this incredible partnership immediately takes things to the next level and will make thousands of cyclists more visible and safer on our roads. The stats speak for themselves – independent research from the TRL showed a Laserlight decreases the blind spot around an HGV by over 25%.”
For more information, visit the Santander website here.
