WO2016024094A1

WO2016024094A1 - Bicycle safety system with voice control

Info

Publication number: WO2016024094A1
Application number: PCT/GB2015/052289
Authority: WO
Inventors: Emmanuel Baumard
Original assignee: Emmanuel Baumard
Priority date: 2014-08-11
Filing date: 2015-08-07
Publication date: 2016-02-18
Also published as: GB2517593A; GB201414182D0; GB2517593B

Abstract

There is provided a bicycle safety system for a bicycle. The bicycle safety system comprises a program controller (10) having a programming microphone (12); a command controller (1) having a command microphone (7); and at least one safety device (2, 4, 5, 6). The at least one safety device is configured to perform a safety action when commanded by the command controller. The program controller (10) is configured to receive a voice command from the programming microphone (12); define an association between the received voice command and the safety action; and send the association to the command controller. The command controller (1) is configured to: receive the association between the voice command and the safety action; and act according to the received association by commanding the at least one safety device (2, 4, 5, 6) to perform the safety action when the voice command is received at the command microphone(7).

Description

BICYCLE SAFETY SYSTEM WITH VOICE CONTROL DESCRIPTION The present invention relates to a bicycle safety system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Bicycles can provide a convenient mode of transport using existing road networks or cycle paths. However, riders of bicycles are sometimes in a vulnerable position with respect to other road traffic, such as cars or lorries. Furthermore, riders of bicycles have the potential to cause injury to other road or cycle path users, such as pedestrians. Additionally, riders of bicycles may be involved in collisions with other riders of bicycles.

Bicycles are often fitted with safety devices such as bells or lights, to help riders communicate more effectively with other road or cycle path users. However such devices often require the rider to remove their hands from the handlebars in order to operate them. This reduces rider control, and, in an emergency situation, the rider is very unlikely to want to remove their hands from the handlebars. If a rider's attention is drawn by something happening in front of them requiring urgent attention, then the rider may not even consider activating any safety devices that may be fitted to the bicycle, let alone have the time to activate them. Similar considerations apply to the rider's ability to make any hand signals such as left or right turn indications.

It is therefore an object of the invention to improve a riders ability to activate safety devices of a bicycle. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a bicycle safety system for a bicycle. The bicycle safety system comprises a program controller having a programming microphone; a command controller having a command microphone; and at least one safety device. The at least one safety device is configured to perform a safety action when commanded by the command controller. The program controller is configured to receive a voice command from the programming microphone; define an association between the received voice command and the safety action; and send the association to the command controller. The command controller is configured to: receive the association between the voice command and the safety action; and act according to the received association by commanding the at least one safety device to perform the safety action when the voice command is received at the command microphone.

Accordingly, there is provided a safety system which a rider of a bicycle can use to program in their own specific voice commands, so that pronouncing the voice command will result in the desired safety action being taken. Voice commands are clearly much easier for a ride of a bicycle to issue in emergency situations than other manual commands which require the user to move their hands from the handlebars.

The definition of an association between a received voice command and a safety action means that the voice command is more reliably recognised by the command module, than if a simple voice recognition module having no prior knowledge of the rider's voice was implemented. Furthermore, allowing the rider to define the voice command that they want to use to initiate the safety action means that the rider can select the most natural word for them to use. This can be important in emergency situations where a rider does not have time to think about what the correct word is to say in order to initiate a particular safety action. A rider could for example associate a particular swear word which they are inclined to say in emergency situations with a safety action such as blowing a horn and/or flashing lights. Each association specifies which of the safety devices the voice command relates to.

Additionally, the use of a program controller that is separate from the command controller, means that the command controller does not require any user interface for the user to program associations into the command controller. Rather, the associations can be programmed using a user interface of the program controller, and then transferred to the command controller. Accordingly, the command controller can be manufactured more cheaply, and does not need an expensive weather-sealed user interface. User interfaces can also be problematic if they are to be used by a variety of different people that speak different languages to one another. Also, the user only needs to program their desired associations into the program device once, and then these associations can be easily transferred to multiple different bicycles, saving the user from setting up new associations each time a new bicycle is to be ridden. The safety devices aim to increase the safety of the user. Many of the safety devices may be considered as communication devices, since they communicate messages in the form of lights and/or sounds to other road or cycle path users. Other safety devices aim to safeguard the user in alternate ways, for example by recording video. Further safety devices beyond audio/visual communication devices may also be envisaged, for example airbags on the user's clothing may be triggered in response to a voice command given by the user when the user is about to have an accident.

The program controller may for example be a mobile telecommunications device which the user takes care to keep dry and protected, and which is configured as the program controller by virtue of application software that is run upon it. Accordingly, the program controller may already be configured according to the preferences of the user, such as the language of the user, since the mobile telecommunications device typically belongs to the user. In contrast, the bicycle fitted with the bicycle safety system may be a hire bicycle which is used by several different people during the course of each day.

The at least one safety device may comprise a horn, and one of the safety actions may comprise activating the horn in response to an associated voice command, for example "Look Out". The horn alerts other road or cycle path users to the rider's presence to reduce the chances of an accident occurring. The at least one safety device may comprise a camera, and the safety actions may comprise activating the camera to begin recording in response to an associated voice command, for example "Film It". The activation of the camera may safeguard the rider against any inaccurate claims concerning their conduct.

The at least one safety device may comprise a plurality of the safety devices, and the plurality of safety devices may be for performing a plurality of the safety actions. There may be a one-to-one correspondence between safety devices and safety action, or one safety device may be capable of performing more than one safety action, or one safety action may involve more than one safety device. For example, the at least one safety device may comprise left and right indicator lights, a first one of the safety actions may comprise activating one of the indicator lights in response to a first associated voice command, such as "Going Left", and a second one of the safety actions may comprise activating both of the indicator lights in response to a second associated voice command, such as "Problem".

The program controller may enable associations to be created between a safety action and more than one voice command. For example, a horn safety device may be associated with a "Look Out" voice command, and also associated with a "Watch Out" voice command.

Accordingly, the program controller may be configured to receive a plurality of voice commands from the programming microphone; receive user commands setting which voice commands should be associated with which safety actions; and send the associations to the command controller. Furthermore, the command controller may be configured to receive the associations from the program controller, and to act according to the received associations by commanding the safety devices to perform safety actions when voice commands associated with the safety actions are received at the command microphone. Advantageously, the sending of each association to the command controller may comprise sending a representation of the voice command that is associated with the safety action to the command controller. The representation of the voice command may comprise an audio file of the voice command, to provide a very accurate representation of the voice command to the command controller. Or, the representation of the voice command may comprise features of the voice command, at least one of the features determined by analysis of the voice command by the program controller. The features may for example be statistical features as are known in the art of voice recognition for characterising verbal utterances, and may also include features such as the language in which the verbal command is given. The use of features reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent compared to sending a whole audio file.

In some emergency situations, the rider may not have time to consider what the appropriate word is to say to activate emergency safety actions. According, the representation of the voice command may comprise an emergency volume level, for example a given number of decibels. The emergency volume level may be settable by the program controller, and the representation may be associated with emergency safety action(s), for example flashing all the lights and/or sounding the horn. Then, when the rider shouts loudly at a volume greater than the volume level, the emergency safety action(s) may be activated.

To help prevent the safety actions from being performed in response to sounds that are not voice commands from the rider, the representation of the voice command may comprise features allowing speaker recognition to be performed by the command controller. The command controller can therefore check whether the voice command was received from the rider, and should therefore be acted upon, or whether the voice command was received from another person/entity, and should therefore be ignored. This may be particularly advantageous when the command controller is configured to perform emergency safety actions whenever a voice command greater than the emergency volume level is received, since the rider could choose virtually any word to shout. Speaker recognition is well known in the art, and refers to recognising whether a voice belongs to a particular speaker (person), as opposed to other speakers (persons) or entities.

To aid communications between the program controller and the command controller, the program controller may comprise a list of the safety actions which it can be used to program, the command controller may comprise a list of the safety actions which it can be used to command, and each safety action may have a unique identifier associated with the safety action. A mapping between the safety actions and the unique identifiers is the same for each list, so that one identifier uniquely identifies the same safety action in both of the lists. Advantageously, sending each association to the command controller may comprise sending the unique identifier of the safety action that is to be associated with the voice command. The program controller and command controller may be configured to send and receive the association via a wireless communication protocol, so that the user does not need to make a physical connection between their program controller and the command controller. For example, the wireless communication may operate using WiFi^{(T )}, NFC^{(T )}, or Bluetooth^{(T )} protocols.

The command controller may be held by a housing having attachments for attaching to a bicycle, so that the command controller may be considered as part of the bicycle. For example, the command controller may comprise an attachment configured to attach the command controller to a handlebar of a bicycle.

Furthermore, one or more of the safety devices may be held by the housing.

One or more of the safety devices may be mounted on additional apparatus for use with the bicycle. For example, one of more of the safety devices may be mounted on cycle clothing, or on a cycle helmet.

Additionally, the command controller could also be located on cycle clothing or on a cycle helmet as an alternative to attaching it directly to the bicycle.

The command controller may be connected to each of the safety devices via wired or wireless connections. Wireless connections are advantageous if the safety devices are not mounted directly on the same apparatus as the command controller, to allow for relative movements, whereas wired connections may provide a more reliably connection and therefore be preferred when both the command controller and the connected safety device are both mounted to the same apparatus as one another, for example both mounted to the bicycle. The command controller may allow the adding of additional safety devices to the system, for example some safety devices may be permanently attached to the bicycle, and additional safety devices may be attached the user's cycle clothing or helmet and be communicatively coupled to the command controller when the user wishes to ride the bicycle.

Preferably, the command controller comprises a speaker that is configured to sound an acknowledgement whenever a voice command is recognised by the command controller.

It may not always be possible for the rider to determine whether a safety action is currently being performed or not, for example indicator lights may emit light sideways or behind the bicycle where the light is not easily visible to the rider. Accordingly, the command controller may comprise one or more lights which light up when a safety action is being performed. Then, the rider of the bicycle can easily check whether any of the safety actions are currently being performed. Each light on the command controller may correspond to a respective safety action.

Each one of the safety actions may be set to continue for a respective length of time after the voice command associated with the safety action has been spoken. For example, safety actions providing indications of an intention to turn left or right, may be maintained for a longer period of time than safety actions providing warnings of an emergency. Preferably, the command controller is configured to recognise an "off" voice command which the rider may speak to turn off all the safety actions that are currently activated. Then, safety actions providing indications of an intention to turn left or right may be maintained until the rider issues the "off voice command. The program controller may associate the "off" voice command with a requirement to terminate all currently active safety actions.

Optionally, the command controller could be provided with a compass or accelerometers so that safety actions providing indications of an intention to turn left or right may be maintained until the compass or accelerometers detect that the left or right turn has been made, so that these safety actions are turned off automatically when they are no longer needed.

According to a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a bicycle comprising the command controller and the at least one safety device of the first aspect.

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of personalising a safety system of a bicycle, comprising receiving a voice command at a program controller, programming an association between the received voice command and a safety action into the program controller, sending the association to a command controller, and in response to receiving the association, the command controller setting itself to command a safety device to perform the safety action upon receipt of the voice command at the command controller.

Therefore, a user having a program controller such as a mobile

telecommunications device can approach a bicycle comprising the command controller and the at least one safety device of the first aspect, and use their program controller to easily program the command controller to respond to their voice commands by activating the safety devices to perform safety actions.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of non-limiting example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a bicycle safety system according to a first embodiment of the invention when fitted to a bicycle;

Figs. 2a and 2b show front and rear views of the bicycle of Fig. 1 ;

Figs. 3a to 3f show schematic diagrams of a program controller forming part of the bicycle safety system of Fig. 1 ;

Figs. 4a to 4c show side, front, and rear views of the bicycle of Fig. 1 when the bicycle safety system is in use;

Figs. 5a to 5d show a bicycle safety system according to a second embodiment of the invention;

Figs. 6a to 6d show a bicycle safety system according to a third embodiment of the invention; and

Figs. 7a to 7c show a bicycle safety system according to a fourth embodiment of the invention.

The figures are not to scale, and same or similar reference signs denote same or similar figures. A first embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to

Figs. 1 to 4c. Figs. 1 , 2a, and 2b show a bicycle safety system comprising a command controller 1 , a program controller 10, and various safety devices in wireless communication with the command controller 1 . The bicycle safety system is fitted to a bicycle 20, and the bicycle is being ridden by a rider 30.

The safety devices comprise right indicator devices 2 attached to the front and rear at the right side of the bicycle, and left indicator devices 3 attached to the front and rear at the left side of the bicycle. The left and right indicator devices are four orange-coloured lights, two of which can be commanded by the command controller 1 to flash when LEFT TURN or RIGHT TURN safety actions are to be performed, or all of which can be commanded by the command controller 1 to flash when an EMERGENCY LIGHTS safety action is to be performed.

The safety devices further comprise a red braking light 4 mounted at the rear of the bicycle and facing backwardly behind the bicycle. The braking light 4 can be commanded by the command controller 1 to light up when a BRAKE LIGHT safety action is to be performed, or to flash when the EMERGENCY LIGHTS safety action is to be performed. The safety devices further comprise a horn 5 mounted on a housing 8 of the command controller 1 , and which can be commanded by the command controller 1 to give audible warnings to other road or cycle path users, to perform a HORN safety action. The safety devices further comprise a camera 6 also mounted on the housing 8, and which can be commanded by the command controller 1 to start filming to safeguard the user against incorrect claims against the user's conduct, to perform a CAMERA safety action.

The command controller 1 comprises the housing 8, and further comprises a microphone 7 for receiving voice commands from the rider 30 of the bicycle during cycling. The microphone 7 is referred to herein as a command microphone, since it forms part of the command controller. The microphone 7 is mounted on a top side of the housing 8, so that it faces towards the mouth of the user 30 and can more easily pick up voice commands from the user 30.

The command controller comprises a WiFi^{(T )} transceiver and a processor inside of the housing 8. The horn 5 and camera 6 have a wired link to the processor, and the lights 2, 3, and 4 have a wireless link to the processor via the WiFi^{(T )} transceiver. Alternatively the lights 2, 3, and 4 could be wired directly to the processor, or use an alternate wireless protocol to communicate with the command controller 1 . The WiFi^{(T )} transceiver is also used to receive associations between voice commands and safety actions from the program controller 10. The command controller 1 stores the LEFT TURN, RIGHT TURN, HORN,

BRAKE LIGHT, EMERGENCY LIGHT, and CAMERA safety actions in a list, each of the safety actions has a unique identifier associated with it. In this embodiment, the unique identifiers are simply the wordings LEFT TURN, RIGHT TURN, HORN, BRAKE LIGHT, EMERGENCY LIGHT, and CAMERA. Although, alternate identifiers for representing the safety actions could be implemented in alternate embodiments.

The program controller 10 is held in a pocket 15 of the user's clothing, and is a mobile telecommunications device such as a smartphone. The program controller 10 has a microphone 12 and a touchscreen 14. The microphone 12 is referred to herein as a program microphone, since it forms part of the program controller. The microphone 12 and a touchscreen 14 are used to associate voice commands with safety actions, as will now be described in relation to Figs. 3a - 3d, which show a sequence of steps being performed using the smartphone 10. In particular, Figs. 3a - 3d show the smartphone 10 running a voice recognition mobile phone application for programming the command controller 1. Fig. 3a shows the touchscreen 14 displaying a first view in which the rider 30 is asked to select their language. In this example, the user touches the English language button, and in response the second view of Fig. 3b is displayed to the user.

The second view of Fig. 3b lists various safety actions which can be associated with voice commands. The safety actions comprise LEFT TURN, RIGHT TURN, HORN, BRAKE LIGHT, LIGHTS, EMERGENCY LIGHT, and CAMERA safety actions. The user selects a button corresponding to a safety action, in this example the LEFT TURN button, and in response the third view of Fig. 3c is displayed to the user.

The third view of Fig. 3c invites the user to speak into the microphone 12 to record a voice command that is to be associated with the LEFT TURN safety action that they selected in the second view of Fig. 3b. The user speaks the voice command "Going Left" into the microphone 12, and this is recorded, and an association is stored by the program controller 10. The association comprises a unique identifier corresponding to the LEFT TURN safety action and a representation of the recorded voice command "Going Left".

In this embodiment, the unique identifier is simply the wording LEFT TURN, although alternate identifiers of the LEFT TURN safety action could be used in alternative embodiments.

The representation of the recorded voice command is formed by analysing the recorded voice command and storing features characterising it, as is known in the art of voice recognition. The features also include the English language designation that was made by the user in the first view of Fig. 3a.

Once the association has been stored, the second view of Fig. 3b is again displayed to the user, for the user to record further voice commands corresponding to the other safety actions. In this example, the user records a voice command for each safety action as shown in the table below:

Clearly, the user could associate more than one safety action with the same voice command, for example the voice command "Problem" could be recorded for both the HORN and EMERGENCY LIGHTS safety actions. Then, both of these safety actions will be performed when the user speaks "Problem". The program controller may also allow recording of more than one voice command for each safety action, for example a voice command of "Watch Out" could be recorded for the HORN safety action, as well as the "Look Out" voice command. Then, the user can speak whichever command comes to mind first to activate the HORN whilst cycling. Once associations have been stored for all of the safety actions, the fourth view of Fig. 3d is displayed to the user, inviting the user to search for nearby command controllers to which the stored associations should be sent. When the user wishes to send the associations to a bicycle, the user presses the Search button in the fourth view of Fig. 3d, and in response the smartphone 10 searches for nearby command controllers and displays a list of command controllers in the fifth view of Fig. 3e.

The fifth view of Fig. 3e shows buttons corresponding to command controllers within WiFi^{(T )} range of the smartphone 10. The command controllers include a command controller which the user has named "My Trek", and command controllers associated with various hire bicycles. The user selects one of the buttons to declare which of the command controllers the stored associations should be sent to. The smartphone then pairs with the selected command controller to establish a WiFi^{(T )} connection with it, as shown in the sixth view of Fig. 3f, and sends signals 1 1 comprising the stored associations to the selected command controller. In this example, the user selects the "My Trek" command controller, which corresponds to the command controller 1 .

The command controller 1 receives the associations via the signals 1 1 . As previously described, each association comprises a unique identifier of a safety action and a representation of a voice command. For each association that has a unique identifier of a safety action that the command controller 1 has in its list of safety actions, the command controller sets itself to command performance of the safety action whenever a voice command matching the representation of the voice command in the association is received at the command microphone 7.

Once the user has set up their desired associations in the program controller 10, the associations can be transferred to as many different bicycles as the user desires, without needing to re-program the associations for each new bicycle that is encountered.

Some bicycles may not have sufficient safety devices to perform all of the safety actions defined in the associations that the bicycle's command controller receives.

For example, the bicycle 20 does not have any front light, and so the command controller 1 does not include a LIGHTS unique identifier in the command controller's list of safety actions. Therefore, the association comprising the LIGHTS unique identifier that the command controller 1 receives from the program controller 10 in the signals 1 1 , is not acted upon by the command controller 1 , since the LIGHTS unique identifier does not appear in the command controller's list. Or, some bicycles may only have limited safety devices for performing safety actions, and so the safety action is implemented in a different way depending on the safety devices that are available. For example, whilst the bicycle 20 has four indicator lights, other bicycles may only have two, and so for these other bicycles a LEFT TURN safety action may only result in the lighting up of one indicator light, rather than two.

Defining associations between voice commands and safety actions, rather than between voice commands and safety devices, means that the program controller 10 does not require knowledge of what safety devices are implemented on each bicycle. Each bicycle is left to execute each safety action in the best possible way using the safety devices that are available to the bicycle. Accordingly, the program controller 10 can be easily used to set up many different types of bicycle.

The use of the bicycle safety system to perform safety actions will now be described with reference to Figs. 4a - 4c. The rider 30 of the bicycle 20 finds themselves in an emergency situation, and so speaks 33 the voice command "Problem" into the command microphone 7. The command controller 1 recognises that the voice command "Problem" received at the command microphone matches the stored representation of the voice command "Problem" that was sent to it from the program controller 10. Since the voice command "Problem" is associated with the safety action EMERGENCY LIGHTS, the command controller performs the safety action EMERGENCY LIGHTS by commanding the safety devices 2, 3, and 4 to all flash via wireless commands 9.

Alternatively, the rider 30 could speak the voice command "Going Left" to cause the command controller 1 to flash only the lights 3, "Going Right" to cause the command controller 1 to flash only the lights 2, "Look Out" to cause the command controller 1 to blow the horn 5, "Stopping" to cause the command controller 1 to light up only the light 4, or "Film it" to cause the command controller 1 to activate the camera 6 to start recording. Although the safety devices 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are all mounted to the bicycle 20, one of more safety devices may be alternatively or additionally mounted to items carried by the user. For example, the diagrams of Fig. 5a to 5d show a second embodiment wherein the indicator lights 2 and 3 and the brake light 4 are mounted to a cycle top 35 that the user is wearing.

The diagrams of Fig. 6a to 6d show a third embodiment in which the indicator lights 2 and 3 and the brake light 4 are mounted to a rucksack 37 that the user is carrying on their back.

The diagrams of Fig. 7a to 7c show a fourth embodiment in which the indicator lights 2 and 3 and the brake light 4 are mounted to a cycle helmet 39 that the user is wearing.

Many other variations of the described embodiments falling within the scope of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art. For example, the program controller may be implemented by devices other than a mobile telecommunications device, such as a computer laptop. Alternate safety actions to those discussed herein could also be implemented, for example a HAZARD safety action could be implemented to flash the right and left indicator lights 2 and 3 together at the same time as one another.

Claims

1 . A bicycle safety system for a bicycle, the bicycle safety system comprising: a program controller having a programming microphone;

a command controller having a command microphone; and

at least one safety device, the at least one safety device configured to perform a safety action when commanded by the command controller,

wherein:

the program controller is configured to: receive a voice command from the programming microphone; define an association between the received voice command and the safety action; and send the association to the command controller; and

the command controller is configured to: receive the association between the voice command and the safety action; and act according to the received association by commanding the at least one safety device to perform the safety action when the voice command is received at the command microphone.

2. The bicycle safety system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one safety device comprises a plurality of the safety devices, the plurality of safety devices for performing a plurality of the safety actions, wherein the program controller is configured to: receive a plurality of voice commands from the programming microphone; receive user commands setting which voice commands should be associated with which safety actions; and send the associations to the command controller.

3. The bicycle safety system of claim 2, wherein the command controller is configured to receive the associations from the program controller, and to act according to the received associations by commanding the safety devices to perform safety actions when voice commands associated with the safety actions are received at the command microphone.

4. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein sending each association to the command controller comprises sending a representation of the voice command that is associated with the safety action to the command controller.

5. The bicycle safety system of claim 4, wherein the representation of the voice command comprises an audio file of the voice command

6. The bicycle safety system of claim 4 or 5, wherein the representation of the voice command comprises features of the voice command, at least one of the features determined by analysis of the voice command by the program controller.

7. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the program controller is configured to receive a user command to set a language in which the user will speak the voice command to the program controller.

8. The bicycle safety system of claim 7 when appended to claim 6, wherein one of the features of the voice command is the language set by the user command.

9. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the program controller comprises a list of the safety actions which it can be used to program, wherein the command controller comprises a list of the safety actions which it can be used to command, wherein each safety action has a unique identifier associated with the safety action, and wherein a mapping between the safety actions and the unique identifiers is the same for each list.

10. The bicycle safety system of claim 9, wherein sending each association to the command controller comprises sending the unique identifier of the safety action that is to be associated with the voice command.

1 1 . The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the program controller and command controller are configured to send and receive the association via a wireless communication protocol.

12. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the command controller is held by a housing having attachments for attaching to a bicycle.

13. The bicycle safety system of claim 12, wherein one or more of the safety devices is also held by the housing.

14. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the at least one safety device comprises left and right indicator lights, wherein a first one of the safety actions comprises activating one of the indicator lights in response to a first associated voice command, and wherein a second one of the safety actions comprises activating both of the indicator lights in response to a second associated voice command.

15. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the at least one safety device comprises a horn, and wherein one of the safety actions comprises activating the horn in response to an associated voice command.

16. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the at least one safety device comprises a camera, and wherein one of the safety actions comprises activating the camera to begin recording in response to an associated voice command.

17. The bicycle safety system of any preceding claim, wherein the program controller is a mobile telecommunications device.

18. A bicycle comprising the command controller and the at least one safety device of any preceding claim, wherein the command controller is configured to receive the association from the program controller of any preceding claim.

19. A method of personalising a safety system of a bicycle, comprising receiving a voice command at a program controller, programming an association between the received voice command and a safety action into the program controller, sending the association to a command controller, and in response to receiving the association, the command controller setting itself to command a safety device to perform the safety action upon receipt of the voice command at the command controller.