Primorsky

Hi all

Preamble. I am roadie guy and city commuter. Bycicle is my primary personal transport for eight/nine months of the year. I live in the city, use broad (at least, two lane in one direction), heavy traffic roads. Also, sometimes Im riding on a public roads(where cyclists are allowed) outside the city.

Unfortunately, unlike many Western European or US cities, we don't have very strict speed limits for motorized vehicles here. Typical speed limit on a large streets and broadways is 60 kmph (37 mph). Also, we have a +19 kmph of "free" non-punishable over speed possibility "due to a possible measurement errors of speed control cameras". Many drivers abuse this opportunity and usually drive with "free" 60+19 kmph speed. Although in the event of an accident, this +19 can be an aggravating circumstance. Also, our cycling (anti-cycling, in better words) infrastructure is joke.

That's why road safety in traffic is a very serious concern for me. I have a good helmet mounted rear view mirror (I am using it since my first days of a road cycling). My daytime running lights (all three of them) are always on. Also, high-viz elements on my bikes frames/wheels and garment.

The majority of our drivers are adequate people. They hardly want to endanger me as cyclist. Despite all "freedoms to violate" and our ridiculous speeding penalties (equivalent to the cost of a big coffee-cup, usually), harming of a cyclist is prosecuted act here.

However, in some cases, there are jerks who "rush" in the right-most lane next to me at speeds "well above" 80 kmph (e.g. 100 kmph or 62 mph, or even more). NO, this doesn't happen every day or every week, but it annoys me to an extreme degree. Because it happens unexpectedly! In many cases I can't catch in my mirror with a good margin of time a really fast cars, when they travelling in the right most lane. Especially in the dark, the efficiency of the mirror drops dramatically.
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Now I am very interested in the Garmin Varia radar (as the only tech. solution available) to "catch" threats and warn me about aggressive(fast) drivers. I still don't have Garmin hardware. And I think I don't really need these expensive devices, if some specific functionality is not technically possible.

From Garmin web-site, how the threat detection works:

"The RDU or compatible Garmin device will change the threat level to red, indicating high awareness, under the following conditions: A fast vehicle is detected (any vehicle faster than 90km/h (55mph) relative to the bike or any vehicle significantly faster than the average vehicle speed)"

Faster than 90km/h (55mph) *relative* to the *bike speed*? Are they serious? Why is the value so high and why it cannot be changed in the settings. What is "Vehicle significantly faster than the average vehicle speed"? Formula 1's bolid?
I'm not surprised why so many people think that Varia is almost useless on a busy roads e.g. in the city. The head unit paired with Varia simply beeps on every vehicle, but ignores a potencially dangerous objects.


1. The idea is about to detect (and alert me) not about *every* vehicle which is approaching me, but vehicles with speed faster than average. it means that not only slow, but also "ordinary" vehicles should be ignored.

I hope it's possible trough the developing of a Connect-IQ application (software for Garmin platfrom, running on the head unit) that will interact with the radar in its own way.
In best case scenario this speed threshold value should be editable in settings. I believe that the application should get data from the radar in real time (at least, with minimum delays) to make it possible. After detecting a fast car, there should be an immediate alarm - strong vibration of the smartwatch or beep of the head unit.

2. Alternative and more flexible app's behavior. The application calculates the average traffic speed from radar data and notifies(alerts) cyclist about vehicle that exceed AVG traffic speed by specified value from the setting(e.g. exceeding by 30 kmph).


- What do you think about this idea? Could it be useful for you?

- I read somewhere about the existence of an application (for the Garmin platform or for Android/iOS) that can visually display and update speeds of detected vehicles(by Varia) in relatively real time. Who can test the operation of the system in practice? I am Interested in knowning the real hardware capabilities to complete task. What I need to know, how much can you trust the radar in terms of reading and updating speeds?.

P.S. I understand perfectly well that there is no AESA-radar in Varia like inside the F-35 or Su-57 fighter jets. And in fact, this is civilian technology, not space-grade or military-grade tech.