O.K. I'll assume the superbiker may be riding outside the traffic laws. One proposal might be how to keep ME safer when I encounter him/her coming at me head on in my lane in the rain at night. The underlying theme of our challenge is how we can safely SHARE the road. Slow bikers may also need some consideration here.

here's is something for the bikers...

THINK!

That one is undeniably gratifying, but its not a patch on the laugh-out-load "Now you see him" advert where the prat on the bike overtakes the indicating car and comes a richly deserving cropper against the drivers door. Sweet.

Bikes can be safe. Havent you seen Tron? Those bikes can stop on a dime!

Riders of the future wont be afraid of traffic.

I think Garo had a good idea. From what I've read about safety cars it seems that the safest car has a rigid passenger cell in the middle and crumple zones in the front and rear. During a crash The crumple zones absorb impact by getting crushed. They use styrofoam in packaging, it gets crushed and absorbs the impact if a box is dropped. This gives a designer freedom to design whatever he thinks looks good, then he says the coach work is made of moulded styrofoam, that looks like steel after its painted. He can enter a picture of any car he has, then write that the styrofoam you cant see makes it a safe car, because the styrofoam absorbs impact, so less damage is done to the other car in the accident (the car you hit), as well as your car. I looked at the last years Michelin C.D. gallery. It looks like many of the entries were already designed before the theme was announced. They were done for school or some other purpose, then some things that were associated with California were added to them. Do the rules allow you to do this? Any car can be safer if you add the styrofoam to it. Actually if you you really designed or invented something you would not be able to describe it in 100 words, so why bother? Are groups allowed to enter? i.e. 3 or more guys who worked on the same project?

The rules allow you to do anything you want as long as it relates to our theme and you think it's not a waste of the judges time. If you look at last year's jury, I think you'll agree that, at that level, Gordon Murray, Freeman Thomas, Peter Brock . . . , we'll recognize viable, believable, and novel solutions. We feel 100 words, correctly chosen, works pretty well. Yes, groups are allowed, just make sure you give everyone credit. As a matter of fact sometimes the ideal situation is where a good designer hooks up with a good techology guy and the result is truely a team effort with each one using his unique talents.

vonce2.. Is the reason you agree with Garo because you ARE Garo? (and killer, 2002, server, lari, les9, and leon...?)

Bret, You need a holiday! (happy jokey tone)

There has been some concern over the 100 word limit we've imposed on the explaination part of you enrty. The 100 word limit is for the questionaire only. If you make it to the next round you will be able to go into a little more depth but we'll ask that you keep it to about 200 words. This allows the jury, who have a short time to judge a lot of entries, adequate time to consider the thought proccess behind your design. Creativity and the explanation part of the entry have been known to carry a mediocre rendering. Also in our exhibit at the 2007 NAIAS we will now have the explainations on display along with the entry. We will host "Media Walk-throughs" where I, you if you're there, or some other member of the team/jury explain your entry to the journalists and your fellow designers as they tour the exhibit. Not unlike a museum setting. Have you at least filled out the questionaire? Check out www.michelinchallengedesign.com for details.

What I dont quite get is if I have to send the questionnaire TOGETHER with the design render or I can suscribe and keep working on the renders until submission deadline