
The Invisible Bike Helmet: An Airbag On The Go - barca_fan
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/15/invisible-bike-helmet/
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ShabbyDoo
In the US, perhaps the real market might be for motorcyclists where the
surrounding culture attaches negative traits to helmet use -- dislike of
freedom, lack of bravery, etc.

It is now so common for skydivers to use automatic activation devices (deploys
one's reserve canopy if he passes below a certain altitude traveling at least
a certain velocity) that many dropzones refuse to allow the use of "rigs"
without them installed. I recall being told that, when the Cypres (www.cypres-
usa.com) was first introduced, a major marketing feature was that it is not
visible to those casually observing the skydiver or his rig. So, a user could
avoid the stigma associated with choosing to reduce the risk of death from
skydiving. Over time, the culture reversed so that those not using a Cypres
were deemed foolhardy.

I should note that I stopped jumping a few years ago, so my information is
somewhat out-of-date.

~~~
Wingman4l7
Reminds me of complaints I saw about new table saw tech that aimed to prevent
injury[1]. It wasn't that people were opposed to increased safety, but rather
were afraid that expensive equipment would become mandatory, and possibly
encourage complacency that would undermine existing safe practices.

Did you feel that the Cypres encouraged skydivers to become more complacent?

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop>

~~~
ShabbyDoo
At least as of a few years ago, the rate of death per skydive had remained
largely constant for years. What changed drastically was that people died from
injuries sustained after a successful canopy deployment. Concurrent with
Cypres's adoption was the emergence of high performance canopies. With large,
"boring" canopies, it would be hard to kill oneself if already under a good
canopy above cornfields. However, small, high-performance canopies provided
thrilling swoops toward the ground along with long plane-outs. Half the fun of
the skydive now could be had during the landing. With this fun came the risk
of a poorly executed turn slamming a person into the ground hard enough to
kill him. So, having achieved greater safety in the air, perhaps skydivers
adopted add-on risks? The other factor which probably reduced deaths due to
low deployments was the widespread adoption of larger aircraft which could
quickly take large groups of jumpers to 15K ft. When one's only option for
skydiving was to ride for 20+ minutes in a Cesna 182 to 10K, he wanted to
maximize his airtime and might deploy somewhat low. However, the extra time in
the air isn't so significant if one can exit 5K higher after a mere 10 minute
ride. Deploying higher means extra time to cut away a malfunctioning main
canopy and deploy a reserve parachute.

tl;dr; Skydivers traded increased safety levels for newly-found risks.

~~~
Wingman4l7
Interesting -- I didn't even know such canopies existed; I've only ever seen
the bog-standard rectangular ram-air ones at airshows. Are high-performance
canopies restricted to certain levels of licensed proficiency? That's
basically how it is with paragliding _(although the licenses are basically
self-regulated and the restrictions are informal)_. IIRC, at least one of the
skydiving wingsuit manufacturers won't sell to you unless you can prove an
advanced level of skydiving experience -- and paragliding in a wing that is
above your skill level is highly discouraged.

Glancing at Wikipedia, the higher-performance ones sound like paraglider wings
-- more cells, elliptical shape. I guess paragliding wing optimization has
come full circle back to skydiving parachutes.

~~~
ShabbyDoo
"more cells, elliptical shape" Yeah, a relatively rigid wing which reacts
quickly when deformed by pulling a toggle.

"Are high-performance canopies restricted to certain levels of licensed
proficiency?"

Circa 2004 (when my knowledge ends), rules were informal and largely enforced
on a case-by-case basis by dropzone owners who didn't want the bad publicity
of an inept person splattering himself into the ground. "No Bob, you're not
going to jump with that canopy here!"

I do recall the wingsuit manufacturers at least having minimum standards and
then asking questions when someone called to purchase one. It also helped that
most wingsuits were sold at skydiving conventions where the manufacturer was
on-site and could directly assess the buyer's competence. This sort of
regulation is quite prevalent in the BASE jumping community where it's even
frowned upon for individuals to sell used gear to someone without first
assessing competence (or at least the existence of a mentor).

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justinph
Neat, but it's fixing a problem that doesn't really exist.

Bike Helmets are reliable and inexpensive. This thing isn't. How about putting
it on the bike itself, or on other parts of the wearer's body, so that it
works in coordination with the helmet.

~~~
emmelaich
No-one wears helmets in Amsterdam, very few die (~5 p.a.) mostly due to others
faults (trucks). Not sure whether helmets would help.

Helmets give you helmet hair.

Where do you put them when not using?

~~~
akldfgj
On the bike.

Most dead bikers aren't at fault. That's part of the point of the helmet.

Where are you drawing the boundary of Amsterdam? It has ~0.1 the population of
NYC, and 0.5 the bike helment death rate.

So, maybe helmets would save lives in Amsterdam (not to mention non-death
casualties like paralysis)

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netfire
So you replace a bike helmet with something you wear around your neck instead.
That seems less comfortable and more annoying that just wearing a normal
helmet. Plus you could get a very comfortable helmet for much less than $600.

~~~
thematt
Not to mention it looks like some parts are electronic, so I wonder how much
it weighs.

~~~
vacri
More importantly, it means it's battery operated, and batteries can go flat.

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emelski
I wonder why they chose to use compressed helium to fill the bag. I don't know
much about these things, but helium is not cheap, and surely you don't need
its lighter-than-air properties in this application. Couldn't you use
compressed carbon dioxide, or even just compressed air? For comparison,
apparently automotive airbags are inflated with nitrogen gas.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Automotive airbags are inflated with an explosive which has Nitrogen gas as
the majority byproduct, it's rare for actual compressed Nitrogen to be used.

As to why they chose Helium for this application, it's hard to say. It might
mean that they are compressing the gas to very high pressures which would
result in liquifaction of other gases, but that's just speculation.

~~~
dhughes
Maybe the container which holds the gas has to be small so helium would
require a smaller storage container which is able to fill the volume of the
device.

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3JPLW
I wonder how well the crash-sensing technology works. In a car, it's dead
simple: you notice a rapid deceleration and you can inflate the airbags while
the crumple zones are crumpling.

There are no crumple zones in your head. Yes, you do often fall forward or
sideways onto the ground, allowing for time to sense the new orientations...
but not always. Would it inflate if I broadside a bus (like if the bus ran a
red)?

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swang
If you watch the doc that's on Vimeo about this thing they sampled a lot of
data themselves by actually simulating normal riding situations and then also
situations where they would crash in different ways. I'm assuming they used
some accelerometers and other recording devices and then designed something
that discerns a crash situation from a normal bike riding situation

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lifeisstillgood
And Neal Stephenson is proven right again.

~~~
Wingman4l7
"In his 1992 book Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson described a protective airbag
technology for bikers and skateboarders."

Below quote courtesy <http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1824> :

"At the same time, she jerks the manual release on her cervical collar and
goes into full Michelin Man mode as tiny gas cartridges detonate in several
strategic locations around her bod. The biggest one goes off like an M-80 at
the nape of her neck, unfurling the coverall's collar into a cylindrical
gasbag that shoots straight up and encases her entire head. Other airbags go
off around her torso and pelvis, paying lots of attention to that spinal
column."

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Thank you, too lazy to go find the book and quote it

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js2
Previous discussion - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828134>

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koof
Saw a demo of this where the dummy fell off the front of a bike and the dummy
fell right on its face. The helmet doesn't seem to protect the dummy's
forehead, not getting all the way in front of it.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Oud3iGXWY&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Oud3iGXWY&feature=player_detailpage#t=236s)

~~~
grecy
I recently crashed my mountain bike wearing a full face (think motorbike)
helmet.

I can personally attest that even those won't protect your face in certain
circumstances. No helmet is perfect.

(here are pics of me. WARNING: blood <http://imgur.com/a/UgGTI> )

~~~
koof
Very true, but were I to wear a helmet or neck airbag helmet I probably
wouldn't wear one that was objectively worse at protection than another. I
figure if I'm going to look like a dork either way, might as well go with the
safest option?

If there's data to prove it's just as safe as regular helmets (which right now
aren't tested very well either, if memory serves me correctly the only test
required is to drop a weight on the helmet at height) then I might be less
critical, but I still think the forehead protection looks a little shoddy on
the surface.

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diane4abate
The CDC started this, with inconclusive information. They are giving the
general population bad stats. Go to the American Motorcycle Association
website listed here. They have been at this a looonnnggg time. The CDC is only
going on what has been given to them without doing any research on their own.
So, who do you trust? There are pages and pages that come up when you search
CDC Motorcycles that have run this mis-information all over the nation. Please
check out AMA's information. It is much more indepth, and much more American.
[http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/Rights/PositionStatement...](http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/Rights/PositionStatements/VoluntaryHelmetUse.aspx)

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Wingman4l7
I could have sworn I've seen a prototype of something very similar to this for
motorcycle racers years ago...

EDIT: A quick Googling comes up with a whole suit system by Alpinestars,
reported on 2 years ago, and another airbag system made by Dainese from 4-5
years ago, which I think is what I saw. I always wondered if these ever made
it into the mainstream, or if they were too expensive or were otherwise
unavailable/undesirable for the average motorcyclist.

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dmix
If you want to see it in action, it's at 2m:50s in the video.

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ekanes
Some great points in the comments about how helmets are less expensive, but
I'm surprised how quickly a revolutionary new tech is being dismissed because
of its high initial price point. If this can find scale, the price will fall
and they could become even more compact. And if any of this can mean more
people actually wearing helmets, this company might save lives. A pretty
awesome innovation.

~~~
zizee
It is interesting tech and to be sure, but when the target market is "people
too cool to be seen wearing helmets" it loses some of the punch for me.

I'd be much more interested if the system was a fully body airbag that
provides additional protection above and beyond a standard helmet.

~~~
Wingman4l7
See my comment: <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4389384>

Looking at a few pictures of these systems inflated _(harder to find than
you'd think)_ , it doesn't look like they are really "full body". I've always
been amused by the idea of an airbag suit that, when triggered, resulted in
something like what the Mars rovers used
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag#Airbag_landing_systems>).

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jsherry
My initial impression was that this wouldn't be commercially viable in the US
due to prohibitive bicycle helmet laws. Well to my surprise, bike helmet laws
in the US are actually pretty lax, with only 21 states requiring them (and
usually only for younger riders):
<http://www.iihs.org/laws/HelmetUseCurrent.aspx>

~~~
mechanical_fish
I'd think the real question is whether you'd be allowed to market it as a a
"bike helmet". Will it pass ANSI certifications for helmets, like my "real"
helmet did?

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michaelcampbell
I thought not only impact, but "skidding" was a huge danger for cyclists [that
don't wear helmets]. This seems to do next to nothing to help there.

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adnam
I'd rather just wear a helmet. Visca el Barça btw.

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devgutt
I´d love to see this to motorcycles too. At my country the helmet is
mandatory.

~~~
Wingman4l7
See my comment: <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4389384>

