Better safety for cyclists

Bicycles are now becoming trendy, particularly with young people. Now-a-days, it has been observed that college and university-going students are using this mode for transportation. Most recently a student has been killed under the wheel of a vehicle from behind on a highway. This indicates that the young rider was not aware of the danger coming from behind. As such, it has been recommended that inclusion of side mirrors to all bicycles should be made mandatory. In the current road traffic environment where road-rules are blatantly disregarded and enforcement standard is very poor, the best approach for safe riding is to have a keen watch on the surrounding road traffic environment. Under the current perspective, a bicyclist can watch the front side only unaware of the rear. This has now become a very important issue for safe riding in a chaotic road traffic environment.
Wearing of prescribed helmets is the most effective strategy for preventing head injuries from a crash or fall. Although, the most concerning issue regarding bicyclists' safety is that their presence is hardly perceived by the motorists, about 70 per cent of drivers reported that they did not see the cyclist before crash. Therefore, mandatory use of visibility enhancement materials at the manufacturing stages is urgently necessary to maximise its conspicuity. The authorities should ensure that all cyclists use helmets. Moreover, wearing of protective gears painted in visibility enhancement materials with headlights and taillights being lit up to increase the conspicuity is a more appropriate approach for their safety.
Another important issue is that modern bicycles can take up much higher speed, which is not safe for this road traffic environment. Moreover, it has been observed almost all over the world that the young age group people are responsible for the highest limit of speed-related accidents. With this reference and given the fact that bike is the growing mode among the young age groups; lower speed limit consideration should be underscored at the  manufacturing stage of bikes. As such, the arrangement of the gear systems at the manufacturing stage should be such that top speed should not cross more than 40 kilometres an hour at best.
All other issues like safe braking system, bells or other audible signalling devices have not been discussed here as it is presumed that modern bikes are equipped with such devices.
The writer is traffic-cum-road            safety engineer [email protected]