
Invisible Bike Helmet Inflates Before Impact - iamelgringo
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/invisible_bike_helmet_inflates_before_impact__17690.asp
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dazzawazza
I've had two serious motorcycle incidents where a helmet protected me.

One: I fell off at slow speeds going round a corner, there was oil on the
road, no ones fault, banged my head quite hard but was otherwise fine.

Two: On a motorway at ~65MPH a fucking prick threw a coke can out of his car
which quickly decelerated and hit my visor. The visor cracked but maintained
it's integrity and saved at least my nose and at most my life.

Please wear a full helmet, there are a lot of pricks in the world.

PS: I'm swearing in this post so you get the idea that 15 years later I still
get really angry at this idiot.

~~~
Nick_C
I can sympathise.

15 years ago while cruising along a country road at 65 mph, I very clearly
remember seeing, for a flash of a second, the point of a beak of a small bird
as it hit my visor right in front of my left eye.

Without a visor (or helmet), I would have been blinded for sure.

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edwtjo
I like it but I would feel uneasy knowing that it is not just a stupid foam
helmet but an airbag and a bunch of gyros. Just reminding that the more
complex the system is the more places something can go wrong.

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diN0bot
that's why i wear my (normal) bike helmet whenever i get into a car.

~~~
edwtjo
I agree. This is perhaps close to being a luddite. The difference lies in the
fact that the airbag, for the car, didn't replace any already simpler and
proven security measure.

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hop
Has to be very hard to separate signal from noise on the deployment of the air
bag. Those dummies were in very controlled environments and the helmet
deployed at very low rates of acceleration change. In the hit from behind
demonstration, you can see the rider's head experienced only around 1g of
acceleration and little jerk.

It would get annoying as hell when this thing senses similar accelerations
from non-car-hitting-you movements like bending over to roll up a pant leg or
changing positions. Prankster friends would have a heyday too.

Dainese has an has an impressive motorcycle airbag suit -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo9Vlt5tGwY>

tl;dr - That thing would go off all that time if they made it sensitive enough
to work.

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varjag
The same problem was with early car airbags. The issue is long resolved.

~~~
gjm11
It may be the same problem, but I wouldn't count on the same resolution. A car
airbag deploys _after_ the car has crashed into something but _before_ that
has a chance to injure the passenger, whereas in a bicycle accident the first
impact could be with the cyclist's head.

(Perhaps you can make airbag-helmets that inflate when the bike hits
something, which will do for the case where you hit something in the road and
get thrown off, or where a car collides with the bike. Not so good for tree
branches and such, though.)

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varjag
Yes, I'm pretty certain the rig uses some kind of accelerometers to detect the
threshold event. Any fall from the seat is typically preceded by a kick. And
yes, you can certainly can still "hit the ceiling", but it's not clear if such
mode of injury is common among cyclists.

By any measure, it sure beats riding without helmet.

~~~
gjm11
> it sure beats riding without helmet.

Obviously an airbag helmet will be safer (but more inconvenient) than no
helmet. Presumably it will be less safe (but maybe more convenient and better
looking) than an ordinary helmet.

It needs to beat _both_ to succeed: that is, either some people who currently
use helmets need to be convinced that the loss in safety from using an airbag
helmet is small enough to be outweighed by the gain in convenience or looks or
whatever, or some people who currently don't use helmets need to be convinced
that the gain in safety from using an airbag helmet is large enough not to be
outweighed by the loss in convenience or looks or whatever.

This seems pretty difficult to me, especially as I bet the convenience gain
isn't very big: I bet an effective airbag helmet needs to fit you about as
well as an ordinary helmet, and it'll need to be put on with about as much
care.

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elliottkember
I'm always fascinated by people's opinions about helmets. In New Zealand,
where I'm from, helmets are required by law, and in my experience everybody
wears helmets while cycling - it's just an accepted part of riding a bike
there. Here in Europe, though, people ride with or without them and it's quite
odd. Sure, they look cool without a helmet, but I just can't help but cringe
when I imagine them having a nasty spill.

The one thing I'd disagree with about this helmet is its invisibility - it
doesn't encourage other people to wear one. I don't know whether that's
marketing advice or safety advice, but having everybody wear visible helmets
sets a strong example.

~~~
plamenv
I'm one of the cool-looking europeans :) I've started to bike recently and
decided not to wear a helmet after reading few articles that suggested there
is practically no evidence at all that bike helmets help you in any way. But
most convincing was data from Australia - before they started forcing everyone
to wear helmets, there were on average 7 deaths/year caused by incidents
involving bikers. After the helmets were made mandatory, the mortality rate
was reduced to 6/year, yet the number of regular bikers was reduced by 30%!!
If anything, this suggests that helmets may worsen your chances to stay alive.

And if you think about it, if you're flying with 20-30km/h towards a tree, no
helmet is going to save you. Even if the head is protected, your neck will
break. With lower speeds I guess you still have time to try to fall in such a
way so the head is somewhat protected. Btw, I'm not avoiding helmets so I can
look cool. It's just one more gear to carry and worry about. And I may still
get a helmet if start riding more cross-country. Right now I'm riding on road
and unpredictable falls look more unlikely.

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rlpb
> After the helmets were made mandatory, the mortality rate was reduced to
> 6/year, yet the number of regular bikers was reduced by 30%!! If anything,
> this suggests that helmets may worsen your chances to stay alive.

What if the majority of the bikers who stopped biking were less experienced
and thus more dangerous on average? This seems likely because the more
committed people are likely to be more experienced, and those who don't have a
helmet handy on some particular ride and so don't ride are also likely to be
less experienced.

~~~
plamenv
Well, that makes the anti-helmet case even stronger. If the most dangerous
riders from the pool were in the 30% that stopped biking and if the helmets
were actually helpful, wouldn't it make sense for the reduction in mortality
rate to be bigger than 30% as opposed to the actual 17%?

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fab13n
Tested at 20km/h; IIRC that's how normal bike helmets are tested too.

My problem is, I'd bet that crashes causing serious harm happen way faster
than that: 20km/h is the average speed of a champion marathon runner, and no
one runs with an helmet. My 2nd guess as to why is that if helmets were
effective when it matters, at higher speeds, they would look very similar to a
motorcycle helmet, and be impractical.

So, facing the choice between something that does its job, and something
ineffective but slightly less impractical, lawmakers try to make the latter
mandatory. It reminds me of the TSA "security" policies...

~~~
s3graham
Marathon runners aren't generally dodging the mirrors of automobiles driven by
inattentive people.

Do you really believe bicycle helmets are completely ineffective? I'm going to
have to call [citation needed] on that, because having at some hard padded
thing on my head seems like it should at least help somewhat. Concussions,
etc.

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fab13n
I don't believe it's _completely_ ineffective; it can certainly save your
scalp from some road rash, and I'm sure you can find a couple of cases where a
helmet avoided genuine head trauma.

But I'm not convince that the benefit of helmets for cyclists far exceeds the
benefit of the same helmets on pedestrians, or on car passengers. Now, most
people agree that there's a comfort/price/benefit compromise, which makes it
inappropriate to enforce mandatory helmets onto pedestrians, although it would
obviously save some lives. In order to accept that what applies to pedestrians
doesn't apply to cyclists, I'd like to get some hard data, not some "gut
feeling" from lawmakers who barely read what they vote for.

Also, I could understand that serious head traumas avoided in significant
numbers would justify a law: in most civilized countries, the corresponding
hospital bills and disability grants are paid by public insurance, i.e.
taxpayers; cyclist are therefore accountable in front of them. But if it
mostly saves scalps from roadrashes, I don't think that a law is appropriate.

~~~
oiujmngbvfgh
There was a study that car drivers would benefit far more than cyclists from
wearing bike helmets. Apart from there being 100x as many car drivers - there
were a lot of accidents were the seatbelt saved them but they suffered
injuries hitting the dashboard (this may have been before airbags).

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hifoo
I wonder if the designers were influenced by the inflatable collar that Y.T.
wore in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. I think I'll wait for a suit that
inflates like the airbags used by the Mars Pathfinder.

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praptak
I'm curious how noisy it is. It has to inflate _fast_ , so it's rather "bang"
than "pffft". I wonder about the implications, given that it's so close to
your ears.

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bearwithclaws
It's actually interesting. If it really works, we could see it evolve to vest,
or pants or anything that protect the crucial area of the body other than the
head.

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Das_Bruce
All the tests show low speed impacts/crashes, I'm curious as to how well it
would work in a high speed impact where your head hits the ground going
forward, is it attached firmly enough to stay in place?

Also, how does it know when to inflate? Can it be repacked?

It looks interesting, but I'll stick with my regular helmet for now, even if
it isn't stylish.

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JoeAltmaier
Never going to wear that heavy collar while cycling. Bike helmets are vented,
cool. That collar has to be stifling.

And all in the interest of fashion? Ok, then I am Definitely not the target
demographic. However, that model wearing that thing that looks like a cervical
collar doesn't look very fashionable in my ignorant opinion.

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VladRussian
reminded. 20+ years ago my friend biker explained to me the advantages of a
full-head-face helmet for a biker - it makes for greater chances that your
head/face would be relatively intact, even when severed, so they would be able
to put it into the coffin with your body and have an "open coffin" ceremony

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nprincigalli
Reminds me of this I saw on a documentary when I was a kid: airbag-based
ballistic protection: <http://ip.com/patent/US6412391>

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Yaggo
Wow. Would buy that right now. I do use a helmet, and while I don't think they
are "uncool" or something, I just find them uncomfortable.

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nkassis
Pretty cool, I wonder if it could make the diff between doing a high speed
banking turn and falling.

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imd
Helmets don't stop you from falling.

~~~
TallGuyShort
They don't stop you from getting hit by cars, either. That's not his point.

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aberkowitz
A helmet doesn't have to be fashionable to prevent serious brain injury.

~~~
sgibat
But more people would wear something that is fashionable so it's worth
creating.

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sliverstorm
It may protect you from impact, but what about your head sliding across the
pavement?

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jpr
Great, more ammo for the helmet-nazis.

