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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."
www.hondanews.eu
It seems like a bad idea. If 95% of vehicles have it people will become lax in watching for those 5% that don't. Why not just pay attention with your vision orbs?
Man, you really need that seminar!
...please dont hit me!"
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This could be very good for the safety of motorcyclists if widely deployed. Many motorcycle accidents involve cars pulling out in front of motorcycles and the car driver saying that they didn't see the motorcycle.
My only concern is for privacy. The broadcast message should not include the VIN or any other unique identifier that could be used for tracking.
More at the Honda Site. It seems to use a Car-to-Car protocol that is in development.
All this kit though looks like it would add significant cost to a motorcycle. :(
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
The article link goes to an ad-plastered blog that tells you nothing more than the summary.
Honda made some thing that uses GPS to figure out when you're going to meet another vehicle, and then uses technology from the Intelligent Car Initiative (European Commission) to wirelessly transfer info between vehicles in the 5.9GHz range. It appears to use ad-hoc and repeater-type infrastructure, although the stuff I found is a little unclear on the ad-hoc.
The car driver gets some kind of warning, although it's unclear exactly what. The motorcycle driver is wearing a HUD that gives him a visual and audio warning. It's clever, but I find the whole CAR 2 CAR project (which this is part of) to be much more interesting.
Some real links:
http://www.hondanews.eu/en/index.pmode/modul|detail|0|1010,DEFAULT|21|text|1/index.pmode
http://www.car-to-car.org/fileadmin/gfx/inhalte/IP-08-1240_EN.pdf
The government can't save you.
Looking at the Car-to-car site, it says it is based on 802.11 networking with something like wireless mesh routing. This means that they will have Wifi-like MAC addresses, which means cars will be uniquely identifiable and thus, trackable. :(
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
It should warn when the motorcyclist is doing something asinine, which many in my state seem to do.
<kitt-voice>
Michael, you are not wearing a helmet.
Michael, perhaps driving between rows of cars is not the best method of saving time?
Michael, do you know what "yield" means?
Michael, zooming down the highway at 80mph isn't very safe.
Michael, watch out for that dangerous inters - *Connection severed*
</kitt-voice>
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
I've been riding motorcycles for 26 years (more miles riding than driving cars) and my body of experience tells me this: it doesn't matter how many fancy gadgets they come up with, the average automobile driver just plain isn't looking for and doesn't see motorcyclists. The only way I have been able to preserve my life and retain all my original body parts is by assuming they're all actively trying to kill me, and protect myself accordingly.
I removed the exhaust baffles so cars know I'm filtering :) Harleys have had this technology for decades!
...cars will be uniquely identifiable and thus, trackable. :(
I'm curious to how one would track vehicles to avoid collisions without, um, tracking vehicles.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Exactly. As a rider myself I would be wary of such a system. I'd worry that it would split my concentration and that I wouldn't be as focused on every curb cut and side street as a potential threat.
On the other hand, I wouldn't mind it if oncoming cars were alerted to my presence before they come flying out of a side street (or merge into my lane on the highway if possible).
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Yea just what I need when cornering on my bike.
"Sir, you realise if you go 1 more meter to you left you are road kill, sir can i warn you about the truck you are about to hit. CAR on the left pulling out. AHHHHH You are going down the middle of the road!!! we are surrounded, we are all going to die. AHHH! oh please noooo I don't want to die."
...would just be to equip our motorcycles with RPG launchers for those idiot cagers who pull out in front of us. They'll only do it once.
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...
>I wouldn't be as focused on every curb cut and side street as a potential threat.
That is exactly was airline pilot said when TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) was mandated. Today, most of them would feel naked flying without it.
It just another tool to be integrated into your scan and could prove to be a life saving feature when approaching a blind intersection on an unlit country road at night.
No, that would be a false negative. False positive would be detecting a car when there is none.
Something like this MAY have helped when I got collected by a 4WD (truck) with a bullbar last year while riding home from work. Here I was on a bright red sports bike, headlights on, stopped at an intersection behind a row of cars. BAM, right in to the back of me and pushed me into the back of the car in front like a pinball.
He swore he didn't see me. Granted, he was DUI, but a little alert telling him that he was approaching something at 60kph that was going to break when he hit it would have been useful. And less painful. For me, anyway.
I intend to live forever, or die trying. - Groucho Marx
If he was so drunk he didn't see stopped cars in front of him, what makes you think ANYTHING else would have gotten his attention?
Infuriate left and right
Or just do what I do when riding *or* driving - stop short (we call that Assured Clear Distance in the law enforcement business), watch your mirrors like a hawk and go to the right when you see the dumbass coming up on you like a freight train. I figure let him hit the guy in front of me, there's more metal between the guy in front of me and the crash than me, and if not there is at least less metal between my head and the guy trying to ass pack me.
Illiterate? Write for free help!
Glider pilots developed a low cost collision avoidance system called FLARM.
The small-size, low-cost, low-power device FLARM broadcasts its own position and speed vector (as obtained with an integrated GPS) over a license-free ISM band radio transmission. At the same time it listens to other devices based on the same standard. Intelligent motion prediction algorithms predict short-term conflicts and warn the pilot accordingly by acoustical and visual means. FLARM incorporates a high-precision WAAS 16-channel GPS receiver and an integrated low-power radio transceiver.
See www.FLARM.com
Motorcycle: Hey you! Car! Look out for me, I'm right over here!!
Car: Wha..? I can't see you. Who the hell is this?
Motorcycle: I'm right here! Can't you see me?!
Car: I think I can.... oh I can s... *BLAM*
except that the pennies will also be subject to the wind resistance of whatever speed you're traveling, so it'll be backwards throw + air acceleration. even so you're not looking to break windscreens - that's when people start suing and getting really pissed off.
i would think that scratches in the clearcoat or maybe a chip will be enough to make most people back off.
GPS> "Motorcycle coming around bend in 3, 2, 1. Bonus points available !!"
Requiem for the American Dream