Can cycling be safer if bikes are smarter and ‘talk’ to cars?

Jake Sigal, CEO of Tome software, shows off a piece of cycling equipment that could be made smarter through a research project his company and Trek Bicycle are launching at Mcity in Ann Arbor, Mich. Sigal says smarter bikes and accessories could communicate with cars and trucks and help make cycling safer. (Eric D. Lawrence/Detroit Free Press/TNS)

DETROIT: Jake Sigal wants to make biking safer. 

To do that, Sigal and his Detroit-area software company, Tome, plan to make bicycles, or their accessories, smarter and allow them to communicate with the cars and trucks that occupy the same streets, sometimes leading to fatal interactions.