Calm down, deer: Antler-shaped bicycle handlebars

Cycling on urban roads can feel like a primordial battle, so it’s perhaps fitting that New York designer Taylor Simpson has come up with a pair of bicycle handlebars that look like a stag’s antlers.

The black antler look magnificent and might encourage drivers to look properly before pulling into the path of bicycles, but the handlebars are likely to remain a one-off sculpture.

Bringing traffic to a halt

The decision by Charles I in 1637 to enclose the land southwest of London now known as Richmond Park might have been unpopular with local residents at the time, but it more than likely saved the green space from being built upon in the future. To this day, the 2,360-acre site remains homes to hundreds of deer, but, other than the abundance of wildlife, the most striking thing about the park is the way motorists stop religiously for deer when the animals show even the slightest sign of wanting to cross the road. Elsewhere in London, if a group of kids crosses a road causing – heaven forbid – the traffic to slow, drivers at best hoot their horns and at worst fail to acknowledge the children at all.

In 2010, 2,134 children were injured on London’s roads.

We don’t know why drivers seem happy to wait patiently as a group of animals dawdles across a road, and yet behave dangerously when children are around, but it’s given us an idea for a new line of safety clothing for pedestrians and cyclists – whatever their age.

Forget cycle helmets and high-visibility tabards, the do-it-yourself headgear pictured below will not only make you stand out, it will bring traffic to a halt...

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