Motorcycle Safety

BaronVon

carsQhere wrote: »

For me personally the one issue I would like to see solved is lighting. Motorcycle headlights are, in most cases, useless. I generally fit HiD or uprated bulbs/lamps but that's not ideal. Second to that it's the visor. Pinlock works OK but seriously hydrophobic surfaces are the way forward.

That could be the job, some sort of auxilary night vision system. Not full night vision, cos it would need to work against normal street light / vehicle lighting. But maybe something could be hooked up to the visor, or a HUD that enhances vison at night, but could still work on normal streets?

Ayrtonf7

infacteh wrote: »

He's clearly very safety concious driving at night with his dark visor!

Wow I actually love that.

carsQhere wrote: »

Much of the "safety" aspect is external to us as riders. Just to comment on some of the points made earlier...

The visibility/conspicuity thing is a bit of a double edged sword. Making yourself visible is good practice but useless against drivers who fail to look properly. I still use high-viz though.

The EU has already mandated e-call for cars (see here) and will presumably do the same for bikes once they figure out how to make the module work on a bike. ABS on all new bikes over 125cc is mandatory from next year, and CBS or ABS on bikes under 125cc.

ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) will see road side beacons sending signals to your car/bike to warn of traffic or ice ahead (or kill your throttle if you believe the more paranoid interpretations).

For me personally the one issue I would like to see solved is lighting. Motorcycle headlights are, in most cases, useless. I generally fit HiD or uprated bulbs/lamps but that's not ideal. Second to that it's the visor. Pinlock works OK but seriously hydrophobic surfaces are the way forward.

Yeh I know what you mean. It was one of the reasons why I was hesitant to enter into this area. At the end of the day all we as motorcyclist can do is try to make ourselves more and more visible and pray to god that people are looking at us instead of past us. I think there is still room for improvement though in relation to a riders visibility. For example, a good portion of the motorcycle community wouldn't wear a hi-vis (from the people Ive seen around anyways). Im not saying that this is a good or a bad thing just that it is a thing. If there is a way to make a hi-vis more accessible/attractive to a rider then this could be a great product.

Ive noticed a lot of movement on road safety in the past week. Honda, Yamaha and BMW(I think) have collabed to bring in a new system where each vehicle on the road will communicate with one another to hopefully make the roads a safer place for everybody. Whether it will work or not only time will tell but it is progress.

Would there be much scope to improve headlights on bikes (aside from making them bigger and brighter) ?

Ayrtonf7

Hey,

Just a quick update. Trying to gather some statistics at the moment so I created this survey below. Would really appreciate it if you could fill it out if you had a couple of moments. Only 10 questions so it shouldnt take to long. Any advice or feedback on it is also welcome.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6BZL6T8

duskyjoe

Aryton best of luck in your studies......just for info I bought last year an airbag type of jacket.......absolutely hated it and it was like I had a straight jacket on with no freedom of movement.

For me my priority is visibility re clothing. I put extra spots up front and changed my rear light to an LED type light. From my travels motorcycles with two separate head lights on dim are very visible. 2nd I find bike manufactures pay lip service to lights at the rear re visibility.

Just my 2c

Ayrtonf7

Hey guys/gals,

Just a quick update. Currently in the interview stage of my project. The aim of the interviews is to get a detailed look into different styles of riders and try and gain insight into the problems they are having. It helps to have a good range of candidates when interviewing so I'd really appreciate it if there are any volunteers on boards willing to give me 30 minutes of their time?

So far I have a motorcycle courier and a young rider who has very little training. I'd love the opportunity to interview an instructor if there is any on here, somebody who has taken a more sensible approach to riding (proper training, quality gear etc) and hopefully somebody who works around motorcycle collisions (Maybe a paramedic or Garda) but Id be willing to listen to anybody!

The interview itself is really straight forward, just standard questions asking about your own experiences and viewpoints. Its all anonymous as well and will only be heard by me. The option is there to do it over skype as well if you dont have time to meet face to face. There is a deadline on these for Friday next so if there is anybody out there who feels like they could help, please feel free to comment below or PM me.

Thanks again guys.

Keep the rubber side down!

Rory28

Anything ever come from the interviews Ayrton?

Ayrtonf7

Rory28 wrote: »

Anything ever come from the interviews Ayrton?

Ehh so so. I had a Garda motorcyclist/collision investigator (infacteh was his username) who got in touch with me through Boards and we eventually met up to have a chat. That was interesting even without the college project! I got a lot of insights from him, mostly around the role of a collision investigator, methods they use, the garda motorcycle doctrine in general and then anecdotes of different collisions/scenes.

I also ended up interviewing a motorcycle courier and a private instructor which gave me a good insight into two different levels of experience, kinda like "trial by fire" and "by the book".