Slashdot Mirror
Honda Makes Motorcycle Talk To Oncoming Cars
An anonymous reader writes "The system generates warnings to riders and drivers of other vehicles by continuous exchange of positioning data from satellite GPS sources. This is particularly relevant as road users approach intersections, alerting them to other vehicles that are potentially on a collision course, allowing avoidance manoeuvres."
I think they need to do buildings first. Maybe not to ward off on-coming traffic, but for triangulation. If buildings like the towns city hall were to pipe up and give out their latitude/longitude, it shouldn't be too hard to remove the unreliable gps from the equation. The more buildings of significance were to participate the easier it would be to create maps based on that town/city. Then cars can locate themselves and others. If 75% of cars have local positioning system, then it becomes mandatory.
Security would be a nightmare though.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
"reasonably" means doing it when traffic is slow enough that lane changing is hard for the cages (cars/SUVs/pickup trucks), and still giving yourself enough time to see the potential change and avoid it. You learn to watch the faces of the drivers in the mirrors and you can see their head movements to give you information about their intent (it's not like anyone signals). It also means no splitting at 80 when they're doing 15 (yes, I have seen the bikes that do it, but that doesn't make it "reasonable", although it is sometimes "evolution in action").
You also learn to watch out for situations that create "holes" in traffic, particularly when it is slowing or speeding up, and avoid being between the hole and someone looking to fill it. In fact, the situations when being between a cage and a gap when NOT lane splitting concern me more than when I'm splitting because the cages' freedom of movement provides more opportunity for them to try to kill me.
The real danger to motorcyclists in stop-and-go traffic is that the driver behind almost never actually sees you and will (nearly always) stop just before his bumper hits the car ahead of him, regardless of the presence of the motorcycle between. We lose a few riders, including law enforcement officers on their "work" bikes, to that every year in Southern California.