By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: August 2, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

The orange safety bracelet that connects a driver’s wrist to the ignition key on the Zero X motorcycle resulted from customer feedback, Zero Motorcycles founder Neal Saiki explained.

The Zero runs on lithium-ion batteries rather than gas. As a result, the engine doesn’t make any noise. Before the safety bracelet, riders would dismount, forget they left the engine running, and send the bike on a ghost ride after accidentally twisting the throttle. The bracelet flips the key to the off position.

I handled the throttle with extreme caution on my test ride. I almost ran over Saiki, but that was due to driver incompetence. More on that later.