9 ms·

Invisible Bike Helmet Inflates Before Impact

54 points by iamelgringo 16y ago

nkassis 16y ago
Pretty cool, I wonder if it could make the diff between doing a high speed banking turn and falling.
- imd 16y ago
  Helmets don't stop you from falling.
  - TallGuyShort 16y ago
    They don't stop you from getting hit by cars, either. That's not his point.
Das_Bruce 16y ago
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.
aberkowitz 16y ago
A helmet doesn't have to be fashionable to prevent serious brain injury.
- sgibat 16y ago
  But more people would wear something that is fashionable so it's worth creating.
jpr 16y ago
Great, more ammo for the helmet-nazis.
sliverstorm 16y ago
It may protect you from impact, but what about your head sliding across the pavement?
bearwithclaws 16y ago
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.
Yaggo 16y ago
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.
nprincigalli 16y ago
Reminds me of this I saw on a documentary when I was a kid: airbag-based ballistic protection: http://ip.com/patent/US6412391 http://ip.com/patent/US6412391
elliottkember 16y ago
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.
- cstuder 16y ago
  Some countries experienced a reduction of bike usage after introducing mandatory helmets. This is quite a popular argument against such laws. Personally I've bought a helmet the day after my first bike accident and am wearing it constantly since then (While on the bike, that is.) Unfortunately it's going to be quite costly to let everybody experience an accident in order to teach them wearing helmets.
  - jules 16y ago
    I've been in tens of accidents and don't wear a helmet. A helmet wouldn't have helped me in any of those accidents.
- plamenv 16y ago
  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.
edwtjo 16y ago
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.
- diN0bot 16y ago
  that's why i wear my (normal) bike helmet whenever i get into a car.
  - edwtjo 16y ago
    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.
fab13n 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
  - arbitrarywords 16y ago
    It's contentious. It's suggested they may prevent certain injuries (fracture) but exacerbate others (rotational/shearing). So wearing a helmet may prevent a large number of lesser injuries at the cost of causing a smaller number of more permanently damaging ones (although this a problem people are working on) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/17/2985631.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/17/2985631.htm http://members.pcug.org.au/~psvansch/crag/h-i-mech.htm http://members.pcug.org.au/~psvansch/crag/h-i-mech.htm
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    There's plenty of advocacy sites if you google for them. A very nutshell summary is that the minor benefits are accompanied by minor drawbacks. For example you'll not get much benefit if dragged under a 16-wheeler and research shows that drivers will come closer when overtaking someone wearing a helmet. A major problem though is that well-meaning types want to legally enforce helmets in the name of safety. An immediate impact of this would be to reduce cycling amongst those who think helmets are a nuisance or uncool (as well as another reason for cops to hassle the poor/minorities for breaking laws that they won't bother the better off about). It's fairly well documented that more cyclists/cycling means safer cycling so anything that discourages cycling makes the remaining cyclists less safe.
hop 16y ago
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 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.
- varjag 16y ago
  The same problem was with early car airbags. The issue is long resolved.
  - gjm11 16y ago
    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.)
    - varjag 16y ago
      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 16y ago
praptak 16y ago
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.
VladRussian 16y ago
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
dazzawazza 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
hifoo 16y ago
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.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
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.

54 points by iamelgringo 16y ago

nkassis 16y ago

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

imd 16y ago
Helmets don't stop you from falling.
- TallGuyShort 16y ago
  They don't stop you from getting hit by cars, either. That's not his point.

Das_Bruce 16y ago

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.

aberkowitz 16y ago

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

sgibat 16y ago
But more people would wear something that is fashionable so it's worth creating.

jpr 16y ago

Great, more ammo for the helmet-nazis.

sliverstorm 16y ago

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

bearwithclaws 16y ago

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.

Yaggo 16y ago

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.

nprincigalli 16y ago

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

elliottkember 16y ago

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.

cstuder 16y ago
Some countries experienced a reduction of bike usage after introducing mandatory helmets. This is quite a popular argument against such laws. Personally I've bought a helmet the day after my first bike accident and am wearing it constantly since then (While on the bike, that is.) Unfortunately it's going to be quite costly to let everybody experience an accident in order to teach them wearing helmets.
- jules 16y ago
  I've been in tens of accidents and don't wear a helmet. A helmet wouldn't have helped me in any of those accidents.
plamenv 16y ago
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.

edwtjo 16y ago

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.

diN0bot 16y ago
that's why i wear my (normal) bike helmet whenever i get into a car.
- edwtjo 16y ago
  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.

fab13n 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.
- arbitrarywords 16y ago
  It's contentious. It's suggested they may prevent certain injuries (fracture) but exacerbate others (rotational/shearing). So wearing a helmet may prevent a large number of lesser injuries at the cost of causing a smaller number of more permanently damaging ones (although this a problem people are working on) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/17/2985631.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/17/2985631.htm http://members.pcug.org.au/~psvansch/crag/h-i-mech.htm http://members.pcug.org.au/~psvansch/crag/h-i-mech.htm
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  There's plenty of advocacy sites if you google for them. A very nutshell summary is that the minor benefits are accompanied by minor drawbacks. For example you'll not get much benefit if dragged under a 16-wheeler and research shows that drivers will come closer when overtaking someone wearing a helmet. A major problem though is that well-meaning types want to legally enforce helmets in the name of safety. An immediate impact of this would be to reduce cycling amongst those who think helmets are a nuisance or uncool (as well as another reason for cops to hassle the poor/minorities for breaking laws that they won't bother the better off about). It's fairly well documented that more cyclists/cycling means safer cycling so anything that discourages cycling makes the remaining cyclists less safe.

hop 16y ago

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 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.

varjag 16y ago
The same problem was with early car airbags. The issue is long resolved.
- gjm11 16y ago
  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.)
  - varjag 16y ago
    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 16y ago

praptak 16y ago

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.

VladRussian 16y ago

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

dazzawazza 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.

hifoo 16y ago

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.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

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.