A maker from the USA, who is active on Bluesky under the pseudonym Sundance, had enough: too often he was overtaken by cars – especially when he was transporting his children and dog on a cargo bike. To ensure that passing cars adhere to the legally specified overtaking distance, he built the LaneSaber: an LED-illuminated safety flag that is mounted on the side of the wheel and visibly marks the required distance day and night.
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The glowing rod visibly uses up your own space before overtaking begins – so that drivers don’t notice in the middle that there isn’t enough space. In its freely available building instructions, Sundance describes this as a kind of “non-verbal conversation” with drivers without having to take your eyes off the road.
Simple construction, big effect
The structure is deliberately simple. The basis is a standard 16-inch steel bicycle stand, the spring of which is shortened. Then the arm is bent with a vice and hammer. A 6 mm fiberglass rod, wrapped with a red COB LED strip, serves as the flag pole. With COB LEDs, the light-emitting diodes are so close together that they produce a continuous line of light instead of individual dots. The whole thing is weatherproof thanks to clear shrink tubing. E-bike riders can power the LEDs from the on-board battery using a 12 V DC-DC converter. Material costs range from $60 to $100; The tools you need are a hacksaw, a vice, a drill and a soldering iron.
If a monochrome lightsaber is too boring for you, Make will find the right instructions for switching to addressable RGB LEDs – for example with ESP-based WLED for app-controlled light patterns or the festival totem with colorful LED effects.
(Image: Husband)
Overtaking distance: a controversial topic
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In Germany, there is a minimum distance of 1.5 meters in urban areas and 2 meters outside of urban areas when overtaking cyclists – values that many drivers neither know nor adhere to, which is why the topic of overtaking distance has been a concern for the cycling community for a long time. The OpenBikeSensor, for example, uses ultrasound to measure the actual distance of passing cars.
The federal government also wants to make door warning systems mandatory in vehicles in order to prevent so-called dooring accidents. The LaneSaber takes a more pragmatic approach: don’t measure, don’t regulate, just take up space.
From lightsaber to spirit level
The name is no coincidence – the sci-fi icon serves as inspiration to makers in various contexts. The LED spirit level 2.0 from Make, for example, has a hidden lightsaber Easter egg, and at “Popular Woodworking” a CNC-milled walking stick was created from Obi-Wan’s hilt design, and on Etsy makers sell functional walking sticks in the lightsaber look for people with mobility limitations.
(mch)
