By VennerRoad, 1st Nov 2015
An introduction to the Babel Bike, the safest bicycle in the world according to its inventor.
Crispin Sinclair with his Babel Bike.
The humble bicycle has been with us in one form or another since 1817, although it was only around the mid 1880s that designs similar to those still used today began to catch on. The basic design has changed little since then, in spite of innovations relating to specialities, eg racing, mountain bikes, etc.
This applies too to safety considerations; cycling in city traffic can be dangerous in the extreme. Now here is a shocking statistic, between August 2011 and June 2015, 16 female cyclists died on London’s roads, and every one of those deaths was the result of an incident involving a lorry. What can be done about this?
One person who thinks he has the answer is Crispin Sinclair, son of the famous inventor Sir Clive Sinclair. Genius has been known to run in families, and in September this year he gave a presentation to the new Women’s City Cycling Network; at the heart of this presentation was the Babel Bike.
The inspiration for this innovation came from a collision he had a few years ago with a turning van whose driver had failed to check his mirrors, or signal. The Babel Bike’s major feature is a roll cage which experiments with dummies have shown improves the chances of survival on impact with cars and especially lorries. The bike has many other features too, including enhanced security which makes it if not impossible to steal then unprofitable to do so. It comes in two versions, one with an electric motor (which kind of defeats the point of cycling), but its inventor hasn’t finished with it yet.
The Babel Bike is not without its critics, though some criticisms are not simply cruel but unfair. Having said that, the big stumbling block at the moment is its price, which is best not to mention, but as the Government is currently being pressurised to subsidise a dying steel industry so it can continue to produce a product nobody wants, it would be a better idea to subsidise a product that is not only useful but will surely save lives, as well as all the ancillary expenses that accompany road accidents, be they fatal or otherwise.
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