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Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

This sadly has become less useful with the increase in headphone usage by pedestrians.

A pedestrian with headphones needs to ensure that he can hear any relevant traffic noise, e.g. my bell or an approaching car. Noise-blocking headphones or loud music impeding the hearing of a pedestrian are a traffic offense.

In that case a loud freewheel wouldn't do much either though.

Yep, anything audio, like a whistle, shouting "ahoy there!", has less use these days and with tiny airpods being a thing now, it's not even possible to guess from a distance if someone is listening to music.

Possibly some kind of laser beam thing that sweeps the ground in front of you might work?

> Possibly some kind of laser beam thing that sweeps the ground in front of you might work?

That's what the TFL bikes in London do[0]:

"The Blaze Laserlight is fixed to the cycle frame and projects a green cycle-shaped image onto the ground around 6 metres ahead of the cycle."

[0] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/santander-cycles/blaze-lase...

I don't really get the AirPod proliferation. Even if I'm in the woods by myself, much less on a busy path, I can't stand the disconnection from my environment.

Do you drive a lot? Drivers are very used to the audio disconnect.

Before I did my licence I was a firm believer in "no earbuds on the road", but after a few driving lessons I got so used to taking in the traffic situation with eyes only that I quickly converted to an earbuds all the time cyclist. A few years later I stopped driving so much and my cycling reverted to ears-always-open without me even noticing.

I drive regularly. Yes, there is some degree of audio disconnect in a car. I also have various mirrors and sensors of various types. And I'm hopefully paying more attention than if I'm just walking around.

You are also a lot less squishy inside of a car.

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