With the recent hefty rises in the price of season tickets, switching to commuting by bicycle is becoming more and more appealing — free, no delays and of course no emissions. If safety is the one thing putting you off retiring your Oyster card, then that may be about to change because with the Cerevellum — a new digital rear-view display gadget for bikes — cyclists are given eyes in the back of their heads.

Cervellum may sound like some Latin term from a medical dictionary, but that would be entirely appropriate because as well as serving as a GPS system and digital rear-view display similar to those seen increasingly in cars, it’s also a heart-monitoring device. It isn’t attached to your arm or chest — in fact, it’s not affixed to the body at all, but the handlebars on a bike.

According to ProductDose, this all-in-one device has a 3.5-inch screen and 32MB of space to store your fitness data, as well as a 4-hour battery.

All this doesn’t come cheap at $299 ($152), but we suppose there’s some consolidation savings because you won’t have to buy three or four separate products for these various functions. Besides, we applaud anything that prevents the need for those nerdsome helmet mirrors and gets more people onto two wheels.

Many of us are both motorists and cyclists.

From the perspective of a cycling motorist two main factors contribute to the difficulty of watching out for cyclists:
1. Many nighttime cyclists are not properly lit. This ranges from cyclists who completely lack lights, to cyclists who are poorly lit, to those who are well lit, but the lighting arrangement is visually confusing.
2. The behavior of many cyclists (night time or not) is often unpredictable from the perspective of a motorist, even this motorist who cycles (or this cyclist who motors).

At any rate, here are some tidbits to consider if you cycle at night:

-Cyclist fatalities occurred more frequently in urban areas (66%), at nonintersection locations (67%), between the hours of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. (30%), and during the months of June, July, and August (36%). (NHTSA, 2004)
In 1999, 39% of deaths on bicycles nationwide occurred between 6 p.m. and midnight.

-Nearly 60 per cent of all adult fatal bicycle accidents in Florida occur during twilight and night hours although less than three percent of bicycle use takes place at that time.
Many factors compound the danger of riding at night, such as:
-Motorists driving under the influence of drugs/alcohol.
-Motorist’s ability to see what is ahead is limited to the area illuminated by headlights. Visibility is further reduced by the glare from lights of oncoming vehicles.

-The number of bicyclists killed at night has increased from 304 to 372 per year. In 1975, the number of nighttime deaths accounted for 30% of the total number of bicyclists killed. By 1982 (the latest year for which complete data are available), nighttime deaths accounted for 42% of the total number of bicyclists killed. One factor contributing to fatal nighttime bicyclist accidents is that the bicycles and riders are not readily visible to motorists. Motorists involved in car/bicycle collisions report that they hit bicyclists because the bicycles and riders were not visible. Cyclists’ failure to wear protective helmets may have also contributed to the severity of head injuries suffered in car-bike collisions.

1. If you cycle after dark, you may be sharing the road with motorists who are inebriated. Sorry, this fact is not negated if you are an inebriated cyclist.

2. If you are a bicycle commuter this time of year, you are riding in conditions that are stacked against you: The volume of automobiles is larger during commute hours, and it’s more difficult for drivers to see you. Add the glare caused by wet conditions and it’s even worse.