According to the recent statistics, nearly 19,000 cyclists are killed in the road accidents in the U.K. every year. To address the problem, the British car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover has initiated a research project aimed to identify the best warning sounds, colours and actions that will catch a driver’s attention immediately.

The company’s research centre is developing a smart technology «Bike Sense» that would alert drivers to potentially dangerous situations on the road involving bicycles or motorbikes.

The smart system of sensors and signals will detect and identify another moving objects on the road as bicycles, and then alert a driver even before he or she sees it in a number of ways. There will be red, amber and yellow LED-enabled signals involved, an audio system of sound alerts, as well as kinesthetic attention getters such as «tapping» a driver on the left or right shoulder,  a system preventing the door from opening not to hit a cyclist, or vibrating and buzzing door handles and accelerator pedals.

Probably, the most unusual and innovative way to warn inattentive drivers of approaching cyclists or pedestrians is a «shoulder tapping» system in-built in the the top of the car seat that will be able to extend and «tap» the driver on the shoulder to make him or her look left or right.

Dr Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology, Jaguar Land Rover, commented to The Telegraph today:“Bike Sense takes us beyond the current technologies of hazard indicators and icons in wing mirrors, to optimising the location of light, sound and touch to enhance this intuition. This creates warnings that allow a faster cognitive reaction as they engage the brain’s instinctive responses. If you see the dashboard glowing red in your peripheral vision, you will be drawn to it and understand straight away that another road user is approaching that part of your vehicle.”