Dutch cyclists lobbying for external airbags on cars

[Heracles 417]

AMSTERDAM (Reuters Life!) - Air bags in cars have helped cut traffic deaths in recent years and now cyclists want to benefit too.

The Dutch Cycling Federation said a study showed that 60 lives could be saved a year if air bags were installed on the hoods of cars, where cyclists are typically hit in accidents. External air bags could also cut 1,500 serious injuries a year.

"In the past many measures have been taken to protect those sitting inside cars but hardly anything has been done to protect people outside cars," it said in a statement on Monday.

"The federation calls on politicians and the car industry to take measures that could limit the chance of serious injury."

The organization said 216 cyclists died in the Netherlands in 2006, including 106 in crashes with cars.

It said Sweden's Autoliv Inc, the world's biggest air bag and seat belt maker, had already developed a bag that inflates from the bottom of the windscreen.

Cycling has always been popular in this flat country that is well-served by cycle lanes and home to 18 million bikes for its 16 million people.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson, editing by Paul Casciato)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMol...283695520080422

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The cost of the extra airbags should be passed on to bicyclists in the form of a tax

[Peikko 1,575]

Dutch cyclists are a large lobbying group - it's a way of life (as well as death it would seem) so it might appear outrageous to a culture that doesn't use bicycles that much, but maybe isn't in a culture that uses them as much as the Dutch do.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I vote that cars in the Netherlands be made out of sponge.

[Heracles 417]

I say we all go Dutch..

[Peikko 1,575]

Sea sponge or Victoria sponge?

[Heracles 417]

Victoria Sponge, hmm miss those cakes..

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Dutch Oven.

[JeroenAndMichelle 28]

it might appear outrageous to a culture that doesn't use bicycles that much, but maybe isn't in a culture that uses them as much as the Dutch do.

Well.. I am Dutch myself, I have never heard of this before (so I guess the news coverage didn't exactly caught this even tho it is for this country lol) but I have to say that I think it is a ridiculous idea

[Peikko 1,575]

Can I ask why you think it's ridiculous? Because it will not work? Because it's going to make cars more expensive?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Because a dead bicyclist is good.

[Peikko 1,575]

Maybe it's because deployed air bags look bad? I would have thought though, that not only would this be good for cyclists, it would reduce the damage done to the car too - am I wrong?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Maybe it's because deployed air bags look bad? I would have thought though, that not only would this be good for cyclists, it would reduce the damage done to the car too - am I wrong?

Why not cover the entire car with thick padding - that same material you get in gym mats?

[Peikko 1,575]

Are you suggesting that the bags are permanently deployed? That wasn't what I got from the article. I am not quite sure how such a device would work, but I am sure the idea is not to have them permanently fixed but to be deployed when a cyclist crashes with a car.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I think the entire world should be made of tempur pedic material