Bicycle Light and Camera Combination May Be Just What Cyclists Need

Lights, camera, Fly6

When drivers believe they are being watched they are more likely to behave themselves.  That is the principle, or at least the hope, behind a new project called Fly6, a rear mounted video camera and tail light for bicycles.

The project is in the development stage and a Kickstarter campaign is underway to help the innovative device to mass production.  Fly6 is the invention of two Austrialian cyclists, Andrew Hagen and Kingsley Fiegert of Perth.  It is a battery operated, rechargeable red flashing tail light that fastens to the rider's seat post just like many other rear facing lights on the market.  The difference is that the light is accompanied by a tiny, high definition video camera that records what is happening to the cyclist's rear.  It records on a two hour loop, meaning that after two hours of run time, the camera starts to record over earlier footage.  In the event of an incident, the camera's microSD card can be removed to download the footage for permanent safekeeping.

Having viewed the Fly6 Kickstarter page, my first impression is that this is a potentially brilliant product.  As a super bright tail light it helps the cyclist be seen by motorists.  Increasing one's visibility is without a doubt the best way to avoid getting hit in the first place.  The Fly6 also notifies rear approaching drivers that they are being watched thanks to the accompaniment of small, bright spinning lights that operate when it is recording.  The camera itself seems to be of high quality, good enough hopefully to record a license plate in the event of an incident.  The size and ease of use of the product seem ordinary enough that use of the Fly6 would not add hassle to the daily bike commute or recreational ride.

Here is a video from the Fly6's Kickstarter page:

Accident Reconstruction Wins The Day For Injured Chicago Cyclist

My client and I had a problem.  The young man who hired our firm had a separated shoulder after getting hit by a taxi.  That was his biggest worry.  My concern, however, was how to demonstrate the cab driver's negligence.  You see, the bicyclist was not completely without fault in the matter.

On January 6, 2013 at around 12:30 a.m. the male bicyclist was riding home from a friend's house in the shared bike lane north along the 3300 block of North Damen Avenue when the taxi, which had been stopped along the curb, suddenly pulled out in front of him.  The cyclist could not avoid striking the front wheel well of the cab.  The cyclist had had a few beers, though he was not drunk.  He was also riding without a front headlight on his bike, a clear violation of the Illinois Vehicle Code.  He was also wearing dark clothing.  Yeah, we had problems.  I was not worried about the beers.  I had no reason to believe that that contributed to cause the crash.  The folks at the hospital did not feel the need to draw his blood to run a toxicology screen.  The defense would have no admissible evidence regarding intoxication we needed to worry about.  But his lack of a headlight worried me a lot.  I wondered, had the taxi driver looked in his mirror before pulling from the curb, could he have seen the cyclist?  I decided to find out.

A few weeks after the crash the client and I, with the help of Aaron Bussey of LOOK! Chicago and Elizabeth Adamczyk of Ride of Silence who graciously offered up their time, went out to the scene of the crash to investigate.  The plan was to replicate the conditions of the crash as closely as possible.  We brought the client's bike, absent any lights.  Aaron would play the part of the cyclist and wore the same sort of dark clothing worn by the cyclist on the night of the crash.  I parked my car in the same spot the taxi had occupied.  Elizabeth sat in the driver's seat with a video camera pointed at the vehicle's side view mirror. Outside of the vehicle I yelled, "Action!" (I always wanted to do that) and Aaron tracked the same route the cyclist had on the night of the crash, riding in the bike lane.  The video below shows the results of our test:

The bicyclist would have been more visible if he had a light on his bike.  But, the video demonstrates that had the driver looked he certainly could have seen him.  The area was very well lit due to the presence of street lights and a gas station across the street.  I would argue that since the driver would be pulling from the curb into a portion of roadway marked for bicycle traffic that he should have carefully looked for cyclists in the area.

The taxi company's insurer was persuaded by our efforts.  This week, they agreed to a substantial settlement to compensate the cyclist.

I want be perfectly clear that if you are riding in pitch dark without a light on your bike and get tagged by a motor vehicle the mostly likely outcome is that you will not be compensated for any injuries you sustain.  We are good lawyers, but we are not miracle workers.  However, drivers and insurance companies should understand that a lack of lighting does not necessarily preclude liability for harming a cyclist.  In big cities like Chicago there is ample lighting on most main roads at night.  Drivers have a duty to look -- not just glance -- but look for cyclists at night.

Lack of Illumination Need Not Bar Compensation For An Injured Bicyclist

Courtesy Florida Cycling Law

You are riding your bicycle at night and get hit by a negligent driver suffering injuries.  Your bicycle had no lights and no reflectors in violation of the Illinois vehicle code.  Will you you be barred from receiving compensation from the offending driver?

Not necessarily.

The key to determining whether your lack of a light and reflector will bar legal recourse is whether your absence of illumination was a cause of the crash.  In many instances lack of lighting will indeed cause or at least contribute to cause a crash.  Bicyclists should ride with a bright white light on the front of their bikes and with a bright red light and reflector on the back.  Doing so will substantially reduce the chances of being involved in many types of crashes.  For example, front lighting will undoubtedly reduce a bicyclist's chances of getting doored while riding at night.  A driver exiting her vehicle will be much better able to see a cyclist in her side view mirror if the bike is properly illuminated.  Furthermore, Illinois law requires a bicyclist to outfit their bike with at least a front light and a rear reflector.  The relevant statute states:

Every bicycle when in use at nighttime shall be equipped with a lamp on the front which shall emit a white light visible from a distance of at least 500 feet to the front and with a red reflector on the rear of a type approved by the Department which shall be visible from all distances from 100 feet to 600 feet to the rear when directly in front of lawful lower beams of headlamps on a motor vehicle. A lamp emitting a red light visible from a distance of 500 feet to the rear may be used in addition to the red reflector.

625 ILCS 5/11-1507(a).

However, lack of bicycle illumination will not always bar an injured bicyclist from recovering against a negligent driver for their injuries.  To recover compensation in a personal injury case the injured person, aka, "the plaintiff", must prove that the defendant (1) owed them a duty of care, (2) breached that duty and as a result (2) caused (4) an injury.  For example, Illinois law states that all drivers owe a duty to all other roadway users to stop at stop signs.  If a driver blows a stop sign and crashes into another driver causing injury then the offending motorist will be found guilty of negligence and ordered to compensate the other driver for their injuries.  But, in our state a jury asked to decide a personal injury case may consider the plaintiff's conduct as well.  Sure, the defendant may have been negligent but the plaintiff may have been as well.  The world is messy and complex that way.  It is not always the case that person A was wrong and person B was right.  Person A and person B may have both been wrong but one was more wrong than the other.  In considering a plaintiff's "contributory negligence" an Illinois jury must, as with the defendant, determine whether he or she violated a duty imposed by law and whether that breach caused, or at least contributed to cause, his or her own injuries.  In the simple hypothetical scenario I presented above, the injured driver also had a duty to stop at all stop signs.  If both drivers blew their respective signs the injured party may have his or her monetary compensation reduced or barred altogether if he or she contributed to cause the injury inducing crash.  Jurors are generally the ones charged with determining percentages of fault.

Back to the issue of bicycle lighting.  It is important to emphasize that a defendant, to establish the plaintiff bicyclist's contributory negligence, must prove two things:  First, that he or she violated a duty either imposed by statute, e.g. the stop sign law, or by the general requirement imposed by "common law" (judge made case law) that all people act as a reasonably prudent person would under similar circumstances.  Secondly, that the failure to do so was a proximate cause of his or her injuries.  A bicyclist riding through the streets of Chicago without a white front headlight and red rear reflector has violated a duty imposed by state statute.  However, whether that failure is a cause of a particular crash and resulting injuries will very much depend on the circumstances.  I have faced this issue several times in my bicycle law practice.  In my experience, whether the plaintiff bicyclist's lack of illumination proximately caused a nighttime collision with a motor vehicle becomes controversial when the driver hits the cyclist from the side in a well lit area.  I have successfully argued a number of times that in that circumstance the cyclist's violation of the light/reflector law had nothing to do with the crash.  If the bicyclist was hit from the side, then a front facing light and rear reflector would not have helped the driver see him or her from the side much better.  Also, if the location of the crash was very well lit, then even lacking the required equipment the driver still should have seen the bicyclist.  Lack of bikes lights did not cause the crash.

There is support in Illinois case law for the notion that an injured bicyclist's violation of a statute need not bar her recovery against a negligent motorist.  Though not a bike lighting case, the First District Appellate Court (Chicago is in the First District) considered this issue in Savage v. Martin, 256 Ill.App.3d 272 (1st Dist. 1993).  That case arose from a car versus bicycle crash occurring at 103rd and California in Chicago.  The bicyclist, a 10 year old girl, was struck by a westbound vehicle on 103rd near its intersection with California as she attempted to ride from south to north across the east-west roadway.  The impact occurred in one of the westbound lanes of 103rd.  There was conflicting testimony as to what color the light controlling westbound traffic was when the girl rode into  the westbound lane.  However, there was no issue that when the girl started across the eastbound lanes of traffic on 103rd the light controlling eastbound traffic was yellow.  The girl was in clear violation of the vehicle code when she crossed the eastbound lanes.  Based upon that the trial court found that she was contributorily negligent as a matter of law.  The appellate court reversed that ruling, however, finding that crossing the eastbound lanes on a yellow light was not as a matter of law a proximate cause of the crash that occurred in the westbound lane.  The Court stated that, "A jury could conclude that by the time plaintiff crossed over the eastbound lanes of 103rd and the median and reached the westbound lanes, the signal for westbound traffic had turned red.  Thus, her act of riding in front of eastbound traffic when the light was yellow may have been negligent, but not a proximate cause of her being struck by a westbound vehicle."

Riding a bicycle at night without lights is dumb 100% of the time.  However, the legal effect of not doing so will very much depend upon the circumstances.

Should You Flash Motorists? The Moth Effect and The Bicycle

Nowadays many Chicago bicyclists equip their bikes with red rear flashing lights that alert motorists coming from behind of their presence.  This is a good thing.  Generally, when a motorist sees a bicyclists he or she will make every effort to steer clear.  Illinois law does not require rear facing lights on bicycles.  Only front headlamps and rear reflectors are legally necessary.  However, taking the extra step of equipping both the front and rear of a bicycle with lights is an excellent idea.  There is some debate, however, regarding the best and safest way to illuminate the bicycle rear:  Should the rear light blink or remain steady?

The debate arises from something dubbed the "moth effect."  Studies considering when emergency vehicles should and should not utilize flashing lights at a crash scene have sometimes demonstrated this effect.  Like a moth to a flickering flame, a human being behind the wheel will be attracted to a light blinking in the darkness.  The implication is that blinking lights on vehicles, and on the back of bicycles, may be more dangerous than steady lights.  Rather than alerting and repelling the motorist, a flashing light may actually draw the approaching vehicle to the light's source causing a collision.  Apparently, steady lights do not have such an effect.  There is little science, however, that supports the existence of this supposed effect.  According to James D. Wells Jr., who conducted a comprehensive 2004 study of the moth effect, "There are no known studies that have not been disproven that substantiate the actual existence of this effect in real world driving."  Furthermore, even if there is some evidence for the moth effect in the emergency vehicle context, there are no studies I'm aware of considering its application to bicycles, which generally do not emit nearly as much light as say an ambulance with all lights a-blazin'.

In a dense urban atmosphere bicycles at night at competing to be seen with a lot of illuminated objects, i.e. cars, street lights, flashing pawn broker signs, etc. Moreover, bikes are small in comparison to other vehicles on the road and bike lights can offer relatively little candle power compared to these other illuminated sources.  It seems that using a flashing light would help the bicyclist been seen best in the urban road discotheque.  The bicyclist should, of course, make up his or her own mind on the subject.  Either option is perfectly legal in Illinois.  I recommend reading an excellent treatment of the moth effect by human factors expert, Marc Green, complete with study references.

New Video Demonstrates Importance of Riding With A Light At Night

The majority of bicycles sold in Chicago are not legal to ride at night.  Unless a bike is equipped with a light you may not ride it at night.  By my observation, very few bikes sold in the city come with a light.  Reflectors are not enough, and having them does not place the rider in compliance with the law.  Specifically, Chicago Municipal Code requires bicycles to have a white light on the front that can be seen from at least 500 feet.  On the back a red light or reflector is required.  Recently, the City of Chicago created a good (though slightly weird) video that demonstrates why it is so important to ride with a light at night:



Before you leave the bike store with your new ride, buy a light.  If you don't have a light on your current ride, get one.  Hell, go ahead and buy two, one for the front and one for the back.  If you don't know what kind of light to buy here's a suggestion.