Innovation of the week: Fashionable bike safety

last updated 10 January 2015

A London-based designer wants to make cycling safer and more fashionable, said Adele Peters at Fast Company. Given that male commuters on bikes far outnumber women cyclists in both London and the U.S., Will Verity hopes to get more women riding "by tackling their main concern: Most just don't feel safe weaving through cars and trucks in heavy traffic." His cycling jacket, made from lightweight and semitransparent fabric, uses embedded sensors "to tell if a car or bus is approaching and then starts flashing LED lights" to keep drivers at bay.