One good thing that came out of the pandemic is that more people took up cycling. In the first three months of 2021, U.S. consumer spending on bicycles and bicycle accessories grew 34 percent year-over-year to $8.2 billion. However, the pandemic also caused more deaths and injuries while cycling. According to the National Safety Council, 1,260 cyclists were killed in 2020, a 16 percent increase from 2019.
It’s a problem that Ford believes technology can solve. On Monday, the automaker announced it is working with Commsignia, PSS, Ohio State University, T-Mobile and Tome Software to explore how a smartphone app could warn drivers of pedestrians and cyclists they may not see. As someone who shares the road with a car, you install the company’s software on your phone. Using Bluetooth Low Energy, vehicles with Ford’s Sync infotainment system would see you as ‘beacons’. If the car then determines that there is a risk of a crash, it will warn the driver using audiovisual signals.
According to Ford, the approach has a number of advantages. One is that Bluetooth LE is almost ubiquitous. The technology has been part of the Bluetooth protocol since 2009, which means that any modern smartphone can access it. If you own a Ford vehicle, there is no need to take your car to a dealer for a hardware upgrade as the Sync system offers Bluetooth compatibility. The other benefit of using Bluetooth LE is that your car doesn’t need to see pedestrians and cyclists before it can warn you. Ford and T-Mobile are also working on a version of the app that will use 5G instead of Bluetooth LE.
In practice, the company’s approach is reminiscent of the COVID exposure reporting apps that some countries and states deployed at the start of the pandemic. As you may recall, those also used Bluetooth LE. However, despite support from Apple and Google, they were never effective due to low usage. In Canada, for example, the federal COVID Alert app was downloaded just 6.9 million times and registered 63,117 positive tests. In other words, not nearly enough Canadians have downloaded the software to make it an effective contact tracing tool. Ford’s app will likely experience the same issues.
As an avid cyclist, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen cycling at night without an LED light to make themselves visible to traffic. On the other hand, statistics suggest that motorists have become more aggressive in driving in recent years, leading to the aforementioned increase in both the number of cyclists and the number of road accidents. Any kind of intervention would be welcome, but Ford’s app probably won’t be a meaningful solution if it ever hits the market. While the Bluetooth LE solution to COVID had only one climb up, apps like Ford’s have two: biker adoption and automaker adoption.