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Heads-Up Displays for Motorcyclists
An anonymous reader writes "An NYT article describes a new invention by a former racing driver to incorporate displays in the visors of helmets used by motorcyclists. A GPS receiver in the helmet is used to calculate position and speed of the wearer, and presumably in displaying route guidance. I'll bet some horrifying data could be gathered on the speed with which riders' heads impact the pavement after an accident."
I am waiting for the prices to go down in the glasses version of this type of technology. That would allow me to not only added data wile I am riding but when I am walking down the street. Imagine you can pull up your date file an impress her with all the stuff you remember about her. Also you can have that poem there for you to recite that will rock.
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You just have to look down a bit for your HUD...in which case, don't you consider that just as unsafe since your focus isn't on the road?
This would probably increase the usage of Helmets, if only for the coolness factor of a HUD.
;)
;)
Other ideas:
- The helmet should also play mp3 and display the song at the bottom or top each time it changes (tho this could be distracting, and the RIAA would oppose it
- 0 Lux camera to superpose picture at night to improve visibility on highways and blacktops. But with enough intelligence to supress the flaring of incoming vehicle
- SMS !! So you can get localized spam from nearby stops and restaurants (joke)
BTW: no bikers i know would even want to know/care the speed and deceleration of their heads hitting pavement. I believe the whole point of riding a bike is not to crash
Actually, eevn if the bike is going 120, the actual speed of impact is often just the speed one gains in falling the four or five feet to the ground (beleive it or not), which is enough to kill (also, beleive it or not). The forward speed doesn't mean much unless you hit something in that direction (not unusual, perhaps). Hitting something at 120 mph would likely leave nothing but a red stain, and that isn't usually the case. Its that pesky fall (and any resulting rolling resulting from the slide) - thats why GP racers actually sometimes walk away from 100mph-plus get-offs.
Related to the above, wouldn't it be better if the GPS receiver/electronics could be integrated into the motorcycle and then connected by wire (or perhaps by Bluetooth?) to a compatible helmet, saving some potential weight in the helmet? It would also make the helmet less steal-worthy.
I'm not a motorcycle rider myself, but I'm the curious sort. :)
> The excuse that far too many automobile drivers use in the US is "I didn't see him", which
> clearly shows that the driver was distracted or "filtering out" everything that wasn't an
> automobile.
Or lying.
There was a study done a few years back where they put a bunch of motorcycle cops in civilian clothes on civilian motorcycles, and had them keep track of how many times each day some shithead cager tried to kill them.
They also had a bunch of uniformed cops on police motorcycles do the same thing.
The results were striking. Across all types and configurations of civilian bikes, there was a consistent effort on the part of car drivers to kill them. The uniformed bikers experienced nearly no such incidents.
If you're on a motorcycle, everyone in a car is trying to kill you. If you understand that, you'll stay alive a lot longer.
Speaking as a motorcyclist, I don't think this will be much use for me. When I am riding hard, the thing I might possibly be able to use in a head-up display would be a tachometer, not a speedometer. On straight roads, I can spare the glance down. If I cannot glance down because I am in traffic, or heading down streets with blind driveways, etcetera, I am going too fast for conditions, and my life expectancy will reflect that.
If I am on a twisty road, and going very hard (I am thinking of the fabulous Duffy Lake road, a very remote and senic one, famous within the sport rider community in BC, on which I have never seen any scenery), there is no way I am going to use a speedometer at all. In that case, one doesn't use the tach either. Though it is true that a rider at the limit is not easily able to use gauges (a very athletic activity that invloves moving your body aggresively forward, back, and to the sides to change the weight distribution of the bike), the pace of events is too fast for them to be of any use anyway. Race bikes don't have speedometers, and the tack is usually oriented such that at redline the needle is pointing straight up. With experience, you do not need to look directly at it.
An important skill for fast road riding (even more so than on the track) is a zen-like ability to scan your visual field without fixating on anything. Particularly when you 'see' something you must avoid. Looking at an obstacle will often result you riding right into it! Anything that adds distraction in that visual field is not useful. I hold that a rider at the edge needs less information (just the important stuff), not more.
Spare me the head up display. I can see it now, mounted on the helmets of Gold Wing riders everywhere, helping them know the speed at which they are adjusting their radio pre-sets.
That said, how about making that GPS provide you some route data? Arrows that flash left or right, according to a pre-planned route, with a heading? I think that might be more useful and safer than a tank bag map...
Remember: always ride with two fingers over the front brake. Unless your hobby is rock climbing, and you are on a CBR 900. Then use one. DOH!
And how many CAR drivers forget to take off the turn signal when they decide not to turn? Or more likely, simply fail to ever put it on.
I used to have a habit of this as a learner rider and was taught to check the indicator whenever I change up gears. As you most often change down gears before a corner, it works out surprisingly well.
Riders don't need a HUD. They need better training to get rid of bad habits.
The switch on the handlebars would be key. There are times when you *know* that you've got a safe few seconds to glance around. It would be nice if you could be looking forward at that point (instead of looking down at a map on your tankbag, for example) since during that time you *know* its safe to look down, Bambi over there *knows* its time to jump in front of you and cause $3k damage to your front end.
Friggin Bambi.
HUDs are a nice thing ... but I think this will lead to bad stuff happening. ... actually most of them did so. There were a few who actually saw the smaller plane pull out onto the runway right in front of them and promptly pulled up into a pattern for another go-round ... the rest of the guys missed seeing the smaller plane pull out onto the runway ... right in front of them .
For example, there has been research done on HUD units that build the "highway in the sky" display for commercial pilots. These guys (commercial pilots, remember) were thrown into a simulator, told to land the plane, and did so.
Well
Needless to say, there were a lot of people really shaken up that day, and 2 pilots reported that they shouldn't be flying at all, after seeing that.
The point of it is this: HUDs are nice and all, but they cause cognitive tunneling, which is awful - especially in people not trained for it. I meant to find the NASA Ames article, but I can't recall it off the top of my head. Rather, I direct you to C.D. Wickens & J. Lang, "Object Versus Space-Based Models of Visual Attention: Implications for the Design of Head-Up Displays," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 1 (1995), pp 179-193 for some background information.
I'll bet some horrifying data could be gathered on the speed with which riders' heads impact the pavement after an accident.
/.'ers have already pointed out that HUD's (Heads-Up) mean that you don't have to look down at your instruments thereby taking your eyes off the road. This much is true, but it's not always that helpful really. Every motorcycle I've ever ridden has had the instruments in a position that are quite easy to read with a casual (and speedy) flick of the eyes as opposed to a full head tilt. This means that I choose when I fill my head with this information and wait for moments of safety (i.e. not passing any junctions with those lethal car things peering out of them). But with a HUD, the rider has an abundant display of information all the time. Now actually I'm not so sure this is a good thing. I wouldn't mind a HUD too much myself, but we have to bear in mind that many motorcyclists are fairly casual (think born-again-bikers). These people are already a liability to themselves and others and I can't help but think that a HUD with all the 'cool data' (GPS, telephone, trip computer, fuel, speed etc.) would distract them a little too much.
Speaking as a motorcyclist, thanks for that unnecessary and rather gruesome little tid-bit. =/ I'll save you the research though; if I'm doing 90mph on my bike and I hit something that jolts me clear, then my head will hit the road at a little under 90mph. Or I suppose if I hit a truck doing 60mph head-on then similarly my head would hit the grill at just under 150mph.
Now, "horrifying data" aside, I also have a concern about HUD's in bike helmets. A few
Military jet pilots travelling at supersonic speeds with a huge and deadly payload screaming towards some unsuspecting target not only need that level of information in a HUD, but they also have to be trained to cope with it.
Aside from military pilots, perhaps F1 drivers and some other 'extreme' activities, I think that HUD's are an unnecessary and potentially quite dangerous distraction for your average civilian motorcyclist.
"His HUD was still frozen on the last thing he did before the crash. Apparently he was trying to dial the 1-800-How's my driving service."
'97 YZF1000-R
Couldn't resist getting in the anti-motorcycle jibe in there, could you? So many people have been subjected to anti-motorcycle propaganda that they just accept it as truth. Yes, please, by all means go through life without ever taking any kind of risk whatsoever. I'm sure you are popular with the ladies since you are such a totally feminized wussy boy!
I rode motorcycles for years and barely ever looked at the gauges while I was underway to any significant degree. The speedos on bikes are notoriously imprecise, and all they really tell you is how much you are violating whatever local speed limit is posted. And if you can't shift a bike without a tach, you had better just park it and do something else because motorcycles are not for you.
In all the years I've ridden bikes, I never remember abiding by a single speed limit at any point. Never once got a ticket and never had any accidents.
If you want to help riders, invent something that makes other motorists more aware of them. A device that jams cell phones would be good.
Yet another "invention" by some idiot who doesn't ride, like airbags for bikers etc etc etc.... A biker does not need ANY instruments to ride, you judge you speed to the road conditions, the actual mph doesn't matter, just "safe" and "smooth" and "controlled" is all that matters. You don't need a bloody revcounter, fuel gauge, selected gear indicator, tyre pressure indicator, inclinometer or any other crap, you can hear and feel everything you need to know, this is the WHOLE POINT of being a biker.... In the real world a speedo has one use and one use only, to make sure you don't get a ticket, particularly here in the UK where councils use speed cameras set at arbitrarily low speeds on good roads and revenue generators, for everything else your brain and your experience tell you everything you need to know about speed. Another thing about this thread, people writing about their local experience and making it sound as though that applies worldwide, it doesn't, alcohol certainly is NOT the major cause of death amongst motorcyclists in the UK... in my own opinion that would be "born again" bikers who sold a 500cc bike years ago when the kids came along and now in later years with increased purchasing powers buy a 1300cc 200mph penis extension, and only discover that they lack sufficient training and experience going into that 60 mph corner at 120..... Similarly helmets, ride here (UK) in winter on motorways and (full face) helmets are beautiful things, they stop your brain from being chilled down to the processing power of a chimpanzee on mogadon... ride in southern europe in summer and no helmet is the only sensible choice, assuming the law allows you to make a sensible choice, which it doesn't. Then we have riders who wear bulletproof kevlar everything and ride around like assholes thinking they are superman, and others who ride around wearing shorts and a tee shirt and sneakers... stupidity, no more and no less. Bikers do not need or want more crap getting on the bike with us, bikers need LESS crap, less distractions, less gizmos, and MORE bonding and feedback between rider and bike in the seat of your pants area. As for me, I'm mid 40's and I've ridden just about everything one time or another, in a lot of places around the world, currently running a 23 year old xs11 special that does everything I ask of it, don't own a car and don't posess a car licence, winter / summer, rain / shine, year in year out and more miles than I can shake a stick at. In all of that time and experience there is ONLY ONE THING that I can think of that is any use, and that is training, not the sort of training that you forget 2 minutes after you pass the exam, but the sort of training that sticks with you and changes how you do things... you just can't have too much of it, and it would be nice is some of the car drivers had some compulsory (2 wheel) training too... ride safe, and don't forget what makes biking fun. freedom. not reading instruments.
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