Cycle Safety with the Elert Backpack

AN Australian engineer has turned his hand to sewing and invented an Fibre Optic-lined backpack to improve cycle safety.

Mark Nowson has been working on the design and technology since 2006 when he saw and experienced the dangers of riding in congested inner Melbourne.

“Bike riders often had backpacks and the largest area was the upper torso, yet the bike lights were hard to see, especially if they were pointing down, or you were approaching from the side,”

“My main aim was to improve cycle safety and make the lights visible from all around.”

Mr Nowson has launched a crowd-funding campaign to get his ELERT backpack into production.

It features strips of flexible fibre optic light pipes, driven by high brightness LEDs on both the front straps and back which can be programmed to flash or stay on and has a minimum 4 hours of battery life. It is charged by a regular USB port, meaning commuters can charge it while they work.

“The latest (design) took close to three years to develop,” Mr Nowson said.  “I was hand sewing parts myself and making paper templates, sometimes you can’t convey things properly to someone else.

“I’m hoping to have them available in November, but I can’t meet that without the crowd funding.

“There’s no profit and (the crowd-funding) won’t cover development costs but I’ll be able to see if there is a market and if in future I could potentially have a business.”

Mr Nowson said developing manufacturing contacts had been a challenge and he’d learnt a lot promoting his idea on social media. “Bike use is going up and up and one of the key blockers for people is they don’t feel safe,” he said.

“Friends who used the original bag said they felt a lot safer and got a lot of comments, one was stopped by the police who wanted to know where he got it.

“For me it’s straightforward, I want cyclists to be seen on the roads and to get the message out there to improve cycling safety.”

With less than a couple of weeks to go before the closing of the Kickstarter campaign you can still register your interest or make a pledge to the Elert cycle safety project.