From Wired:
The claimed purpose of the Speed Vest is safety: It gives a glowing, live readout of your speed to increase “motorists’ awareness of both cyclists and speed limits.”
What it’s really for, though, is showing off. The six inch high digits are made from electroluminescent wire which will glow for six hours on a single AA battery. The brain of the operation is the Arduino, a programmable circuit which in this case takes the speed readings from an on-wheel sensor and uses the information to control the lights.
Here’s a video of a test run done last week in Minneapolis:
We’re all for bike safety, especially on the hostile roads of North
America, where car drivers view bikers as targets in some kind of
deadly duck-hunt. We think we could go one better, though, to stop the
evil car drivers from speeding down our roads: Put one of these
displays on every car, front and back. The social stigma attached to
speeding will be huge, on a level with drink driving and that most
filthy and disgusting of habits, smoking.
