Motorcyclists To Get Wearable Airbags 515
jonerik writes "For the past hundred years or so motorcycle accidents have had an unfortunate potential for particularly horrific injuries, or worse. Improvements in safety gear have certainly been made in the past few decades, but in some ways those improvements have been balanced out by the tremendous speeds that modern bikes are capable of. According to this article from ABC News, though, Dainese, a protective sports clothing maker in Vicenza, Italy has developed a wearable airbag vest - called the D-Air - designed to cushion riders in the event of an accident. The D-Air vest features a tiny electronic computer referred to as the STM (which stands for Sensing, Triggering, and Memory), which was developed by an Israeli company called Merhav APP. According to the article, the STM contains sensors that monitor the bike's physical motion. 'The sensors onboard the STM will watch for telltale signs -- such as a sudden deceleration force of about ten times that of gravity -- that precede a collision. Once the computer determines an impending accident, the STM blasts the data to receiver in the vest to start the inflation process.'
This site also features some pictures of the D-Air vest in action. Dainese plans to begin selling the D-Air vest in Europe in the spring, though American sales will have to wait since the U.S. Department of Transportation has yet to set standards for such a device."
High side v. low side (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh (Score:4, Interesting)
This is good stuff, as a biker one of my biggest concerns is protection. Dropping the bike is no big deal, wearing the right gear you're more or less safe. But in the case of collisions with other vehichles I'm not sure this will help. But more protection is always good.
What even happened to the honda idea? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand I would also suggest investing in technology to prevent accidents from happening as well as in damage reducing gear. We can build the electronics to accomplish this in planes, why not in cars&bikes?
thats retarded... i'll take my leathers (Score:3, Interesting)
when riding, its important not to have anything on your body in case of a fall. For instance, if you wear a backpack, it has been shown not to be safe in the event of a fall (increased back injury, etc...). this is why they have tank/trunk bags. But this air bag looks like it would only protect your back and cause a more ackward fall in the case of an accident.
also price is rediculous. good full leaters will run you around 500$. the price of the vest is well over that (sure its becuase it is early development phase but still). what about re packing your air bag? i'm sure thats more $$$ too
good concept but not good enough
Accidental Inflation....OH MY, loot at that Earl. (Score:1, Interesting)
Also I don't know what the inflated jacket will look like but is it going to throw my passenger off the back of the bike if it accidentally inflates?
I'm a software developer and I've got to say that complex systems tend to have unforeseen states (i.e. bugs) I think I"ll let someone else test this one.
Biking stories ... sniff (Score:2, Interesting)
It was the 3d person of a 15 member group of bikers that had died in the course of about 2 years, and i had enough. OK, most of the blame was up to us, we drove at incredible speeds on public roads ( 200 kph+ was not at all unusual ( and it wasn't on a highway or speedway). We did have a lot of experience on circuit tests and occasional amateur racing. But nothing protects you from your own stupity or that of others that cross your path
On the other had, it's just plain impossible to respect the speed limits with any stock supersport bike these days. ( I used to have a Suzuki TL-1000 R, standard 138 hp, but after carefull tuning it got up to about 150 hp, and reached speeds of around 290 kph ) Going slower then about 80-90 per hour is impossible with this bike
Anyway,I've been reading about this airbag jacket for a while now, but i'm not sure that this kind of stuff will really help a lot.
Sure, it does offer some more support, but at high speeds, i guess it won't really help a lot. And the kick in biking for me was all about speed
But the real kick is in scraping your knee-pads at high-speed turns
And that's where protective clothing really is important, I've been fairly happy with the dianese protective clothes, they've saved my from road burn a few times already, when i was luchky enough to fall at places where i was going slow enough to survive , and had enough place to slide to a halt
Re:Ouch! (Score:2, Interesting)
Doubtful... (Score:5, Interesting)
I rode every day for 7 years and I'm not sure about this product. This won't protect against the slide (as others have already pointed out), but that only accounts for about 5-10% of accidents.
The biggest cause of motorcyle accidents is when the car driver doesn't see you and either turns left in front of you, or pulls into your lane. In the left hand turn accident, the bike would experience the sudden deacceleration and the vest would inflate. But if it does, the inflated vest makes you a slightly more "round shape." I believe this would tend to cause more rolling and less sliding. At 30+ mph, the rolling effect would likely protect the head and neck (IF you are wearing a helmet), but tend to cause a LOT more arm and leg injuries.
In the accident where a car pulls into your lane, you usually bounce off the car and go into an uncontrolled tumble. I don't believe the vest would inflate.
I also wonder about the vulnerability of the wireless link. If a passing cell phone/CB/Ham radio/TV tower caused it to go off accidentally, it would almost certainly cause an accident.
The biggest hurdle by far, though is cost and use. Most riders are young, predominately male. As a general rule, we either are so young we don't fully understand the risk of riding (or after about 2 weeks of street riding) we realize the risk and accept it as the cost for our freedom. Most riders will spend plenty of money on their bike, but not much at all on their gear, so you would first have to convince the young guy that the risk will really be minimized and that the financial cost is worth the reduction in risk. Not an easy sale! I give it a 10% chance of being successful.
Snow Crash (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ouch! (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that these bags are not as powerful as you might think. Having said that I wouldn't want to wear one.
is an airbag the right concept? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps the various semi-rigid body armors are better after all. Does anybody know how effective they actually are? Are there any studies or tests?
Re:Ouch! (Score:4, Interesting)
As for the women who put the shoulder belt behind them -- well, I hope they never wind up in an accident. Three point harnasses (shoulder and waist belts) are not made to be worn without the shoulder strap. They will probably wind up being seriously injured in the groin area, along with upper chest injuries from slamming into the steering wheel (with or without airbag -- my sister has been spending the last 4 months recovering from a 90 mph head on collision because some ditz crossed into her lane of traffic; if it hadn't been for her wearing a selt belt properly and airbags she would be dead).
Re:Important Safety Rule For Motorcycle Riders (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand, it seems we need to do something. The report indicates that a motorcycle is 18 times more dangerous than a car. Even if we get rid of drunk riders, that still is a very dangerous machine to ride. On the other hand, air bags will only protect the rides in limited circumstances, like a head on collision or running into another vehicle, which is only like 20%, while running off the road, falling down, or having a car smack into the bike is the rest. While air bags will protect the center of the body from trauma, will the effectiveness be high enough to make a difference?
One thing I found interesting on the above link is that deaths were falling until 1998. It looks like deaths have increased like 30% since then. I wonder if this might be due to the increased sales of larger vehicles, and the maniacs that drive them. I wonder if we required a different kind of drivers license for anything bigger than a Ford Escape we might save lives. After all, the car companies convinced congress to give trucks a catalytic converter exemption because they were largely commercial vehicles. Therefore, perhaps we should require commercial licenses for these large vehicles.(we were at 35% trucks in the mid 90's, and about 45-50% now)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I just moved from California [has a helmet law] to Texas [no helmet law]. I can tell you there's NO FRIGGIN WAY I'm getting on my bike [sport bike] without a helmet. Especially on Texas roads. The speed limits are generally lower than they would be on similar roads in California, but the driver's here are so bad that I feel safer doing 90mph [speeding nicely] in California than I do going 55mph [under the limit] here [Dallas/Ft. Worth area]. It's to the point where I'm tempted to start riding tracks only. [Partially because there don't seem to be any nice twisty roads here]
Anyway, the most I've ridden my bike without a helmet is across a large parking lot [helmet propped on tank] and I feel so naked without it. No way I'm getting on public roads without it.
As for the Air-bag vest, I dunno. Maybe it'll be ok if you t-bone a truck or something, but if it were to go off during say a high-side [don't think it'd go off on a low-side], I'd think [based on the size of it when inflated] it would make you tumble more once you hit the ground. The reason leathers are so tight is to let you slide so you're not breaking limbs left and right.
So I'll wear the helmet, but I think I'll skip the air-bag vest.
Ender
Re:Important Safety Rule For Motorcycle Riders (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes, it's just safer to speed. :-/
this is more about scooters in Italy (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a biker and a geek (Score:2, Interesting)
I can say with absolute certainty that bikers are not the cause or well over 90% of the accidents. Of all the drivers I know the ones that ride motorcycles are the most cautious, the most careful, the most defensive drivers I know. They won't cut you off. They won't pull out in front of you. They won't try to occupy your lane while you're still in it. They won't turn in front of you. All these things here are exactly what "cagers" do to bikers.
Cagers, not the bikers, cause almost all of the motorcycle accidents. It truely reminds me of "suit syndrome" where the suits lose 1/2 of the brain cells within seconds of strapping on their tie. It's as if as soon as cagers get behind the wheel they instantly suffer from tunnel vision, incompetence, and stupidity all at once.
I had a fun experience happen once. I was driving down a busy 2-lane road in town. I was going about 45mph. A cager in at a crossroad (he had a stop sign) looked right away from me, looked back at me, literally looked me in the eye, and then pulled out in front of me. I was about 3 car lengths away when he did that. I damned near nailed him. I didn't have a chance to slow down so I swerved into the ditch. I was going fast enough I just zipped right by him and back onto the road. The dumb son of a bitch had the nerve to honk at me and flip me off. Now that pissed me off.
I see shit like that happen all the damned time. It's not just women drivers (fitting the stereotype) that cause these problem. Male cagers cause just as many problem to us bikers.
Before people start saying how dangerous bikers are, they read should ride a couple miles in our shoes. The vast majority of wrecks bikers have are not their fault. Given the lack of metal surrounding their bodies though, even a small accident on a motorcycle is usually a bad one. I consider myself a fairly good biker and I've never had a wreck. I've had close calls though. One of these days a cager will probably get me.
Re:Until then.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was coming home on my bike once, in traffic, and this FUCKING IDIOT threw his cigarette out the freakin' window, it flew right into my left eye.
Now lemme tell you, there is nothing like red-hot ashes in your eye to make you realise the value of a full-face helmet (it was really hot, so my visor was up). I still can't believe I managed to get to the curb and stop safelly without being run over by another idiot...
Of course now whenever I see someone throw a cigarette out of a car window I get an adrenaline rush and the urge to ram their car, drag them out and beat them to a bloody pulp...sigh.
Re:Ouch! (Score:2, Interesting)
First of all, I have grave reservations about whether this device will do all it claims. However, putting that aside I think that there are several major practical problems with it.
As some people have mentioned, many motorcyclists wear ruck sacks and belt pouches. I think that these are probably not a good idea with the D-Air, which will put a lot of people off. (I use a belt pouch as a safety measure: beter to have keys and stuff in there than in my pockets if I go sliding down the road.)
Clearly this is designed to be worn over clothing. But I wear different gear according to the season. In the summer I've got my leathers; in the winter a very bulky waterproof jacket. Can they make something like this sufficiently adjustable, or will I need two of them?
In the summer, I may also wear a waterproof oversuit. It's enough trouble to put the damn thing on without having to take off the D-Air first.
People ride different sorts of bikes. I'm usually fairly upright on my trailee, but someone on a sports bike could well be leant right over the tank. Is this jacket going to produce similar results in each case?
What about the poor pillion? "Pillion Pal" type handles are becoming quite popular, (that's a belt that the rider wears, with plastic handles for the pillion to hold onto), which will increase the liklihood of the two people being quite close together when the vest goes off.
This thing _may_ do some good, but overall I very much doubt that it's a sufficient improvement over good, armoured leathers to overcome the practical disadvantages.
Snow Crash (Score:2, Interesting)