maddmike

More and video here.

Don't know if I like the idea of the big collar, but I like the neck brace it provides.

JPMacG

How is the bag activated? In an automobile the bags are fired when an accelerometer mounted on the body of the car senses high acceleration or deceleration. But here there is no deceleration until the bicyclist's head hits the window, but then it is too late for the air bag to help. Are there sensors attached to the bike frame?

dougmc

I believe that the bag is activated by your head (well, your chest where the bag is initially mounted) doing weird things. It's not supposed to be activated by bending over, for example -- but if you go flying over your handlebars that sudden change in orientation is supposed to do it.

I can see where they could make it work correctly much of the time, but since there's so many different possible crashes, I don't see how they could make it activate properly all the time. And worse, they need to make sure it never activates when it shouldn't -- that could cause a crash right there.

prathmann

They claim in the article to have put the sensors on test dummies undergoing crashes and also on kids and adults doing both trick and normal riding to be able to determine the conditions where it should fire. But they admit there would be some rare cases where it wouldn't - the obvious one is if a rock or other object were to fall on the cyclist's head. Presumably the sensor software would be looking for very abrupt changes in orientation to indicate that a crash is occurring.

tatfiend 

And what happens when the sensor battery goes dead? Car airbags work off of the electrical system and the car has both a alternator and battery. If the car can be driven then these are working.

Looks to me like the collar could restrict head motion in daily use and be hot to wear in warm weather. Also what is the likely cost? Airbags in cars cost literally thousands of $$$$ to replace if necessary.

Besides bicycling is relatively safe compared to many other activities and while I do wear a helmet I do not expect it to do much if I am hit by a car, the commonest cause of major injury and death of bicyclists in the USA.

dougmc

Nobody ever said this thing was going to replace helmets tomorrow.

It's a new development. They'll play with it for a while, work out the kinks, see if it's practical, etc. It does have the potential to be superior to the helmets we use in several ways -- and looks to be inferior in some other ways. Perhaps it will supplement helmets rather than replace them, just like air bags generally supplement seat belts.

Will it pan out? I do not know, we shall see. So far, it just looks like a novelty.

I'm not sure that cars really are the most common cause of major injury in cyclists. Deaths, possibly, but I'm not sure about major injuries. A whole lot of cyclists break bones and the like by hitting things that aren't motor vehicles, or falling off their bike, etc. If a car is involved, the injury is more likely to be properly recorded by the government, however -- which will further skew the statistics.

AdamDZ

Probably some kind of accelerometer like the one in the iPhone. But wearing that thing around your neck in hot weather will probably be next to impossible.

What we really need is a gadget that can look 5 seconds in the future

Pippin

No thanks on the sir bag. If you want more neck protection Hans style device is offered and being worn by some DH/ Super D racers.

chaadster

I think anyone who remembers the ghastly death of Brian Douglas Wells, the "collar bomb bank robber," would be hesitant to wear that thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-WxG...has_verified=1