Colorado puts up $500k for inventors to improve cycling safety
Colorado Department of Transportation offers $500,000 of grant money for inventors to find ways to keep cyclists safer on the road.
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While Colorado is known for great riding and a deep cycling history going back to the Coors Classic, cyclists in the Centennial State are not immune to the dangers of the open road. For that reason, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has created the RoadX Bicycle & Pedestrian challenge, a $500,000 grant program to encourage entrepreneurs and inventors to devise ways to reduce cyclist and pedestrian fatalities and injuries.
According to the RoadX website, “Bicyclist crashes represent 2% of all fatalities and 4% of all serious injuries in Colorado. Pedestrian crashes represent 10% of all fatalities and 7% of all serious injuries in the state.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2013 data shows that bicyclists accounted for 2.3 percent of all fatalities in traffic crashes nationwide.
CDOT’s challenge has two tracks. The first is simply encouraging inventors to submit ideas, and for that up to five winners will earn $10,000 apiece in grant money.
The second track requires inventors to actually implement their concepts with 50 car drivers, 50 cyclists, and 50 pedestrians. Five semi-finalists will be given initial grants of $75,000 to proceed to the proof of concept phase, and the final winner will get another $150,000 to continue development.
Proposals are due by February 27, 2017, and winners will be announced on March 31.