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My quest to make motorcycle riding that tad bit safer

• _ea1k 1y ago
  TBH, I'm surprised this isn't already common. It is very similar to what EVs do, due to the relatively high regenerative braking.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • HPsquared 1y ago
    You'd only see it on newer bikes with ABS, they seem likely to have more sensors and "electronics" in the brake system. In that kind of system the deceleration could be inferred from existing speed signals. I wouldn't be surprised if ABS systems already estimate the engine braking torque directly.
    • cj 1y ago
      What is the general consensus on ABS braking in motorcycles? Really curious to hear from anyone who has rode a bike equipped with it. For some reason the idea of a bike interfering with brake controls seems like it could feel unsafe if the system isn't designed really well. Extremely low margin for error when it comes to braking on a 2 wheel vehicle especially in suboptimal conditions. I could see ABS braking being fine for the back tire, but the idea of automatic braking on the front tire would scare me.
      • HPsquared 1y ago
        Front brake is where it's most beneficial as the front wheel is what keeps the bike upright. If you lock the front wheel, especially in a turn, the bike falls over almost instantly. edit: Rear wheel locking gives a bit more time to react. Personally the main safety benefit is for emergency braking in wet conditions. ABS also allows to use full brakes in the wet without worrying so much about falling over. That's the real benefit, real-world it shortens your stopping distance because of that increased confidence in using the brake.
        • keyringlight 1y ago
          Yes, as I understand it ABS catches the occasion where your braking overwhelms the wheel-road friction the wheel locks and starts to skid. If you're before that threshold then it doesn't activate and doesn't negatively affect anything, if you do lock then ABS activating is better than not having it and the remedy is the same as without ABS where you release the brake enough for the wheel to turn again. A skid is the least desirable in terms of control and stopping distance, having ABS lets a driver hit the brakes hard in an emergency with more confidence.
        • tstrimple 1y ago
          > ABS also allows to use full brakes in the wet without worrying so much about falling over. That's the real benefit, real-world it shortens your stopping distance because of that increased confidence in using the brake. I think this point is worth emphasizing. You'll hear from a lot of folks on motorcycle forums that ABS will increase stopping distance. Which is true for great drivers performing threshold braking. How many motorcycle riders actually practice front braking on their non ABS bike until they lock up the front wheel to really learn the limits of themselves and their bike? For most people, you'll be able to use more brakes and stop in a shorter distance in more conditions with ABS while maintaining control of the vehicle.
          • xeromal 1y ago
            I'd consider myself a pretty good rider but I've caught myself once or twice jamming on the brakes when a chaotic accident unfolds in front of me and the lizard brain takes over. I live in LA so lots of traffic and lots of accidents are common and any technology that helps my lizard brain keep me alive in a positive in my book. I recently crashed cornering during a light mist and now I'm on the looking for anything that helps lean slippage. I know you can't fix stupid but still hoping something is out there. My old and busted vstrom needs an upgrade.
      • sgt 1y ago
        Most, if not all, modern motorcycles already come with ABS braking. For many motorcycles it's also adjustable, for example switching off ABS in the rear while retaining it in the front, for those riding offroad and dirt. Many bikes also come with cornering ABS, meaning that if the motorcycle is at an angle, the ABS comes in gradually. Overall ABS is pretty much a "solved" problem right now, on motorcycles 2012+ at the very least. Earlier ABS wasn't that great. I had a BMW F800GS in 2010 and the ABS was horrible on bumpy roads. You basically had no braking if it kicked in.
        • sidewndr46 1y ago
          If you're in Australia where it is mandated, sure. In most of the world, no motorcycles have ABS
          • Reason077 1y ago
            It is mandatory in many countries, not just Australia. Europe, Japan, Brazil, etc, all require ABS on new motorcyles.
            • sidewndr46 1y ago
              "Europe" is not and never has been a country to my knowledge.
              • topsecret 1y ago
                Would you prefer to read a full list of EU member countries instead? As well as Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, ABS is also required in the UK.
              • subscribed 1y ago
                ...but it has mostly harmonized road rules, eg in relation to the ABS on the bigger bikes.
      • sidewndr46 1y ago
        ABS on a motorcycle is pretty great on the roadways. The issue I've heard from people is that it can't be disabled off road on many motorcycles. Most owners just unplugged the sensors entirely as a result, causing the system to indicate failure.
      • floxy 1y ago
        >I could see ABS braking being fine for the back tire, but the idea of automatic braking on the front tire would scare me. Just to be clear, Anti-Lock Braking (ABS) is different than Automated Emergency Braking (AEB). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_emergency_braking_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_emergency_braking_sy...
      • subscribed 1y ago
        I'm very happy with my ABS (2023 F850 GS), especially since its "aggressiveness" depends on the riding mode. Obviously it's tilt- and acceleration-aware, so I'm confide it's safe.
      • tiew9Vii 1y ago
        It works very well. It’s not automatic braking. It’s automatically letting off the brakes for a fraction of a second to prevent locking up, aka anti-lock braking system If it does kick in you get a slight pulsing on the leaver which means unless you are emergency braking, back off. As far as the front goes, you never want the front to lock as you are almost certainly going down. For off-road abs modes normally they turn rear off completely so you can deliberately lock it and decrease the sensitivity on the front but still keep the abs on for the front.
      • bityard 1y ago
        There's no such thing as "consensus" in any hobby, but the general trends are: 1. ABS on motorbikes has been proven to prevent lock-ups and therefore accidents, especially among newer riders who are more likely to grab all the brakes in situations where modulation of brake application is required to prevent an accident. 2. Traditionalists say that ABS keeps new riders from having to learn to correctly modulate the brakes and thus keeps them reliant on ABS forever, and that experienced riders can stop quicker without ABS. (The last point is technically true but it requires a highly-skilled rider and a certain set of conditions.) ABS is bikes IS typically designed very well. (Although I have to take the Internet's word for it since my bike is a 1979 GS850G.)
      • enragedcacti 1y ago
        There's a great FortNine video showing the pros and cons. The very short of it is that the perfect rider can stop faster without ABS but ABS + good technique can achieve very similar results while drastically reducing the consequences of panic braking. This isn't mentioned in the video, but ABS also enables more aggressive use of linked brake systems, which also improve worst-case safety when a rider panics and uses only one brake or the wrong brake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDbWZiaUeDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDbWZiaUeDY
      • camtarn 1y ago
        Don't know about general consensus, but I'm a big fan. I've had an emergency stop (deer ran out into the road) on a bike not equipped with it, and turns out that in an emergency I will just jam on the brakes and lock the wheels. Luckily I was going straight, and the bike stayed upright.
      • LordHeini 1y ago
        In Europe new motorcycles must have ABS on both wheels since 2017. Its a good thing. While it is possible to stop in less distance without ABS, in real live emergency situations ABS usually is of great help due to the no skill required, additional control. For example if you take the sudden car running in front of you from a side road. You will instinctively pull the brakes hard on a road with unknown slipperiness. Maybe the car then stops in the last second or is really fast so there is space, then you need control to ride around the car. You really don't want your rear wheel locking up and the bike going sideways or doing a stoppie on your front wheel which completely removes any way of obstacle avoidance. The same is true if over breaking in a curve, if you can handle the bike standing up you can brake astonishingly hard in curves. I would not recommend it though it feels really weird being slippery in a curve. On rainy days i do even like traction control. It saved my ass a few times where i accelerated out of a curve a bit to enthusiastically on wet foliage.
  • asdsadasdasd123 1y ago
    Im surprised new cars dont just go off of a gyro decel reading, don't modern cars already have a gyro?
    • sokoloff 1y ago
      An accelerometer would be a far better sensor than a gyro here. (You want to measure linear acceleration not angular velocity.)
• snarf21 1y ago
  I ride motorcyles so found this quite interesting. Instead of a motion sensor, why not simply turn on the brakes whenever you down shift and leave it on until the throttle is engaged?
  • bastawhiz 1y ago
    That requires you to have a bike where the current gear is recognized digitally and the bike has a standard way of getting that data to an external device (or it requires you to put a sensor on the gear lever). For that matter, it requires you to have a bike with a manual transmission. There's lots of electric bikes, bikes with fully automatic transmissions, and bikes that simply don't have the electronics (not to mention a standard way to interface with them). Actually in thinking about it, if you had access (digitally) to the current gear, you probably also have tachometer and velocity data as well through whatever that connection is anyway. On the other hand, a motion sensor works for all bikes and is quite robust.
    • scblock 1y ago
      An existing brake light product, the Billy light from Clearwater, integrates with the BMW canbus to pull the bike's acceleration data and use that as a basis for what this light appears to do.
      • bastawhiz 1y ago
        I can imagine there's enough of a market for BMW accessories that they can make it work, but if you want to address other bikes with the same device, you need a different approach.
        • scblock 1y ago
          Agreed, I was more responding to the idea of tying into existing sensors or motorcycle data as noted above. The light I mentioned is part of a bigger lighting system that works through a CAN interface and has all kinds of control of settings through a somewhat convoluted overlay on existing bike inputs, like press this switch, then these, then turn the wonder wheel to adjust brightness.
• dave4270 1y ago
  This is something I want for all of my street bikes. I roll off the throttle a fair bit before grabbing the brakes on my Ruckus and way earlier on my modified Metropolitan. Always watching the mirrors while doing so. And my 1966 Sears ( made by Gilera ) only has a brake light switch on the rear brake pedal. I'm so conditioned to use the front brakes on a motorcycle that I often forget to tap the rear brake to signal other drivers. I'll be ordering 3 myself if they ship to the US, or getting my buddy in the UK to snag them for me.
• dinkblam 1y ago
  same as with cars - it seems the technology that is actually built in the products is just the annoying / useless ones instead of technology that would be actually useful e.g. to safety
• Etheryte 1y ago
  Out of curiosity, wouldn't an accelerometer alone not work for this purpose? I see you've hooked it up with engine RPM as well, but realistically you want to indicate when you're slowing down, no matter the reason, right? Is there something I'm fundamentally missing here? This is a great idea though, and definitely something that more bikes should come stock with. There's a very clear benefit for safety.
  • mygnu 1y ago
    Thank you for your question, it does not hook with the engine RPM, but I did have an issue with the sample rate syncing with the engine rpm therefore picking up noise, I solved that issue with randomizing the sample interval with pseudo random numbers.
    • Etheryte 1y ago
      Ah okay, I thought I must be missing something. Cool product, I hope it does well.
    • stavros 1y ago
      You should also soft-mount the accelerometer to minimize vibration transmission.
• neuroelectron 1y ago
  This would also be useful on my 2-door Civic.
  • mygnu 1y ago
    indeed
  • dave4270 1y ago
    I was only thinking about bikes, but I lift/downshift in my BRZ all the time. I guess there is much less fear of being mangled by a cel phone user when I'm in the car. Looks like I will be ordering 4 of these.
• HPsquared 1y ago
  It's very important to consider failure modes when adding something like this. You should ensure there's no way the new addition could prevent the brake light from working if the electronics were to fail (either electrically, software glitch, corrosion, bad connection, etc). Because failing to light the brake lights upon braking could directly cause an accident. Secondary perhaps (though still important) is to prevent false positives (brake light illuminating when just driving along normally). That's still bad, but at least other drivers would be suspicious of it and it's more obvious.
  • mygnu 1y ago
    I am considering adding a watchdog logic in the microcontroller that holds a mosfet gate, if there is any signs of failure in logic it would pass through the normal light signal.
    • HPsquared 1y ago
      A lot is also dependent on how it's wired into the vehicle, as in the main electrical failure modes like open circuit, short to ground, stuck at +12V, etc. Need to be careful about where the responsibility (and liability) is.
    • 1970-01-01 1y ago
      Consider adding logic to test if the bulb is open. That would be a killer feature for sales.
      • sgt 1y ago
        With BLE integration and an app showing you great deals on bulbs.
        • sidewndr46 1y ago
          And also ads for unrelated products down at the bottom of the page in the app.
• Workaccount2 1y ago
  The author did a great job actually building the project, doing a layout and custom design rather than just stitching together off the shelf modules. Good work. That being said, in 20 years of riding motorcycles and being an ATGATT (all the gear, all the time) kind of rider, I'm mixed on the need for this. It's something I have thought about doing with a direct hardwire to the throttle, but I can't come up with a situation where I genuinely think it will stop a crash. Maybe if someone is tailgating you, but you should be readily letting them pass rather than relying on their reaction skills anyway. Anything that is sudden and requires a large -dv/dt, you are going to hit your brakes. Engine braking alone is usually used in situations where the road/conditions dictates it, so other drivers are naturally slowing down too. But I suppose it is also an "it can only help" type product.
  • sidewndr46 1y ago
    You're making an assumption that someone tailgating you wants to pass. That isn't really true. A decent percentage of drivers just want to tailgate someone.
    • Workaccount2 1y ago
      Well then they can tailgate someone else.
  • imglorp 1y ago
    EV's with regen braking and manual transmission vehicles are in the same boat: unless they light up when slowing, following drivers will be surprised. The bare standard IMO for all vehicles should not be to light up when brakes are applied but instead any time the vehicle begins decelerating. Adding flashing for a strong stop ~~ >0.75g would be a bonus. Given all the sensors and compute hardware on vehicles -- even bikes -- these days it should just be a software touch. The Technology Connections YT guy has a whole piece analyzing tail lights and I agree with him.
    • krisoft 1y ago
      > Adding flashing for a strong stop ~~ >0.75g would be a bonus. Is that a good idea? A flashing brake light could appear as if the brake was let go, which is the exact opposite of the message you would want to send in that case. Or maybe we are talking about flashing between two different illuminated states?
• codybontecou 1y ago
  "BMW’s dynamic brake light, for example, flashes during emergency braking to alert trailing drivers, greatly enhancing road safety." This isn't obvious to someone who has no idea. I just assumed it's an aftermarket adjustment for people that like flashy vehicles.
  • OJFord 1y ago
    I don't think that matters, isn't the point just that it's more eye-catching than a solid (and much smaller than a car's) light? Any driver should know what a brake light means, I don't think that it's an intentional flash feature is important to know.
    • throwaway290 1y ago
      I don't think you can have it both ways, either all lights are the same OR one is more important and drivers will all think first "is it this or that light? do I hit the brakes? maybe this means he is stopping slowly so I will risk my rear end for no reason?" before they act. I'm sure it isn't going to backfire
  • throwaway290 1y ago
    Many of them flashy lights are just flashy. Some underregulated regions you'll quickly get tired of every car being like a christmas tree trying to one up each other what patterns their stop or turning lights do or how bright they are (and for front lights just how bright they are and how many). This makes it an arms race because the average driver loses sensitivity and then what used to be enough is now too subdued and unsafe (even if technically enough by law). Reminds me of how some regions require ad breaks to have audio not louder than the main production, while others are just straight up loudness wars on your ears There's something to be said for setting a standard and keeping driving competence high and being less annoying to others including pedestrians. (A bike is a slightly different story, it's harder to see how far away is a solo light. But then this is also a culture where half the riders believe that deafening bystanders is important for safety so sometimes hard to sympathize)
• cosmicgadget 1y ago
  This would be a fantastic standard feature for aftermarket tail lights - which used to be nigh-obligatory because OEMs still hadn't adopted LEDs. Throttle position sensor would be another data source, but model-specific.
• bitmasher9 1y ago
  I do very similar things manually already. I engine break and apply very light rear break pressure to trigger my break lights, and let off the rear break and reapply it for the “flashing” effect. Once at a complete stop and in neutral I flash my break lights off/on until the car behind me is at a complete stop. The benefit of this is tool is that it reduces cognitive load while also working in emergency situations where I’m more focused on operating the motorcycle than signaling to others.
• OhNoNotAgain_99 1y ago
  [dead]
• OptionOfT 1y ago
  > BMW’s dynamic brake light, for example, flashes during emergency braking to alert trailing drivers, greatly enhancing road safety. Mind you, that this is not enabled in all countries. In the USA the rear fog lights turn on in addition to the brake lights under heavy braking, as flashing the lights weren't allowed. They remain on until you no longer depress the brakes. Unsure if they're allowed right now, or whether the ones you see are aftermarket mods. For BMW you can change the coding (configuration) relatively easy. There is also a difference in 3 flashes when you touch the brakes, constant flashing while pressing the brakes, or only flashing under having braking. I can't imagine driving in stop&go traffic where all brake lights are constantly flashing.
  • mygnu 1y ago
    only flashes on heavy braking, normal use is not affected
    • jajko 1y ago
      I dont understand why exactly this isnt mandatory for past 2 decades in regulated markets like EU. Over easter I had the displeasure of driving cca 1500km road with family and we experienced quite a few 130kmh -> full stop without warning situations that one barely manages even when breaking full and heavily relies on all others doing the same. In one of the situations a car right in front of us didnt manage and hit already-crashed cars in front of it in billiard style, plastics and glass flying everywhere, luckily nobody was injured but cars were in pieces. Second case next day - again full stop out of blue, ahead, we & after us managed within 3-4m of each other, but cars after that didnt, again billiard that travelled all the way up to us (we ended up with few scratches on back spoiler, I moved our car a bit ahead when I heard big bangs behind, avoiding bigger damage to us). One only has a split second to realize how quickly that car ahead is closing in in such scenarios if you dont have other info. Could save hundreds of lives each year easily and easy to implement.
      • HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
        US mandated automatic emergency braking starting in 2029.
• Reason077 1y ago
  > “Moreover, during intense braking scenarios, it flashes proportionately to the braking intensity.” In Europe, a lot of modern cars have a similar feature. When braking particular hard (eg: a sudden emergency stop from highway speeds) the brake lights will flash rapidly to warn drivers behind you. It’s a very good safety feature, IMO. But not legal in North America?
  • mygnu 1y ago
    I agree, but the device has built in switch, if you mount it upside down, it won't flash
  • briandear 1y ago
    I had that on my Suburban in Texas. Not sure where it is illegal, but my car had that as a dealer option.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• whalesalad 1y ago
  I actually think it is lame when engine braking activates the brake light. There are two distinct behaviors: slowing down gently, with engine braking, and slowing down intensely with physical brake application. When I am engine braking like going down a long hill I do not want to flag the drivers behind me that I am braking ... I just want to use the compression of the engine to regulate my speed. Anyone who lives in a mountainous area will tell you this. Seeing solid brake lights going down the hill is a red flag / skill issue. Some manufacturers have begun to add artificial brake lights during engine braking though and I find it disingenuous.
  • yial 1y ago
    I’m trying to understand this comment - are you saying that there’s an advantage to drivers behind you not thinking you’re braking? As in - you don’t want them to think you’re coming to a complete stop when you’re regulating your speed? Or are you saying that you don’t want them to think you have a skill issue ? I live in a semi mountainous area, where people driving automatics ride their brakes most of the way down the mountains. (Relatively small mountains, elevations ranging from 1,900-2,700 with the surrounding area around 1,000-1,100 elevation. So not the same necessity of engine braking as somewhere out west where the elevation is 3-6k average with mountains up to 12-14k).
    • whalesalad 1y ago
      engine braking is not braking - is what I am trying to imply holding your speed or decellerating mildly is not the same as braking. if i gear down into a higher rpm and hold my speed, or perhaps decel ever so slightly - its not worth alerting the driver behind you. most people over-react to brake lights and will see your brakes as "I should apply brakes too" when in this particularly case, they should not. I can't think of a single circumstance where compression braking should cause a brake light to illuminate. the rate of decelleration is so small compared to even a gentle tap of the brakes, that it will merely confuse drivers behind you.
      • yial 1y ago
• gizajob 1y ago
  The only safe way - just don’t.
• nielsole 1y ago
  I unsuccessfully built something like this for my bicycle a while back: https://niels-ole.com/bike/maker/2020/02/20/bicycle-light https://niels-ole.com/bike/maker/2020/02/20/bicycle-light > It turned out that when I accelerate strongly, I pull the bike back, at some point in the rotation of the pedals. This is rightfully detected as a sudden deceleration of the bicycle. I guess on a much heavier motorcycle the deceleration of the motorcycle is actually a meaningful indicator of the combination driver+motorcycle slowing down.
  • azepoi 1y ago
    Busch und Müller has some products with brake lights https://www.bumm.de/en/products/dynamo-rucklichter/produkt/323-5altv.html https://www.bumm.de/en/products/dynamo-rucklichter/produkt/3...? https://www.bumm.de/en/products/e-bike-r%C3%BCcklichter/parent/323.html https://www.bumm.de/en/products/e-bike-r%C3%BCcklichter/pare...?
• thecrumb 1y ago
  Your site really needs a video :) I've run Hyperlites on my bikes forever (https://hyperlites.com/ https://hyperlites.com/). I like them as they don't interfere with the original brake light, and provide additional lights higher up on the bike.
• criddell 1y ago
  I believe these would be illegal in Ontario. The section 62 of the Highway Traffic Act says this: > Intermittent red light restricted > (14) Subject to subsections (14.1), (15) and (17.1), no person shall use a lamp, other than turning signal lamps or the vehicular hazard warning signal lamps commonly known as four way flashers, that produces intermittent flashes of red light. There is an exemption for bicycles but not motorcycles.
• Glyptodon 1y ago
  My motorcycle pet peeve is that if you ride bicycles routinely the control differences between bikes and motorcycles become potentially dangerous, especially while riding the motorcycle. I'm not sure how to align their controls more, but if your bike has a rotary handle shifter and one day on the motorcycle you "shift" with the throttle, it's not going to go well. There are a number of other possible control goofs you can do that aren't great.
  • tiew9Vii 1y ago
    I regularly swap between a scooter and motorcycle, owning both. The big difference being left hand leaver on a motorcycle is the clutch, rear brake is right foot, on a scooter, no clutch so the left hand leaver is the rear break. When I first got the scooter I was expecting the obvious accidental muscle memory confusion with the left leaver when swapping vehicles. For some reason it just never happened, never accidentally gone for the clutch on the scooter and never accidentally gone for the rear brake on the bike.
    • vzaliva 1y ago
      Another problem is that on most bycicles right leaver is the REAR brake, while on motoryclces it FRONT. It make difference when braking in turns. I was actually considering swapping my bike brakes left to right but it turns out one of the cables is too short. :(
      • jeffbee 1y ago
        US bicycles, that is. In the UK the bicycle brakes are the other way around.
        • bluGill 1y ago
          The UK and Us drive on different sides of the roads and are taught to user different arms for signals as a result. If I'm going to turn I need to both slow down by using the brakes and signal to others. thus I want the rear brakes (even thought front can stop faster I don't want to risk losing traction on that wheel in traffic)
• braunshedd 1y ago
  When I was commuting daily in the SF fog, I discovered that putting on of these [1] on my helmet did wonders to keep cars further off my tail. It moves the brake light up to eye level for people in SUVs and also triggers on engine braking. Wish it were cheaper, but was a worthwhile investment for me. Also, consider looking into airbag vests if you ride regularly. Also expensive but (supposedly) make a huge difference in crash outcomes. [1] https://www.brakefreetech.com/products/brake-free https://www.brakefreetech.com/products/brake-free
  • wildzzz 1y ago
    I saw one of these last week and just assumed it was tied into the brake lights but it was always on.
    • wildzzz 1y ago
      Oh, now I see that it's just based on an accelerometer. Marketing it as "wireless" seems to suggest that it is monitoring the brake lights rather than "automatically" flashing based on motion.
      • gambiting 1y ago
        Tbf, even cars put the brake lights on based purely on deceleration nowadays in addition to triggering when the brake pedal is pressed. It's covered by legislation in both EU and US, since BEVS and PHEVs can have very aggressive regen braking, and the legislation basically says if your rate of deceleration is above X, then lights need to be on even if the brake pedal hasn't been pressed.
        • jamiek88 1y ago
          Yes and my Kia ev6 needed a software update to do that. I had a couple incidents where people were surprised by my deceleration before the update. Now in regen the brake lights come on above a certain harvest level.
        • Cthulhu_ 1y ago
• Corny0102 1y ago
  I use https://www.neutrinoblackbox.com/ https://www.neutrinoblackbox.com/ for same with great success. I tapped my brake line electronics and the app lets me set up the sensitivity for when decelerating brightens them up. Also a lot of other fun features you can read about on their site.
• sahil_sharma0 1y ago
  This was a great read — love how it blends real-world frustration with a builder’s mindset. The insight about how little attention goes into motorcycle specific safety tech is spot on. The market tends to over-index on cars, but the stakes for motorcyclists are arguably higher per mile. Would love to see more open source or modular frameworks emerge in this space something others could build on top of, regionally or by use-case. Curious if you explored anything around passive detection (weather, terrain, phone telemetry) or if most of your work focused on rider input and behavior?
• bilsbie 1y ago
  EV’s need this too! I’m noticing my Tesla isn’t doing a great job turning on the brake lights during one pedal driving. It seems to need pretty hard deceleration before they come on.
• mygnu 1y ago
  Thank you all for your questions and support, since this is blowing up a bit, I have a discount 'HN30' 30% off, if anyone is interested
• gbolcer 1y ago
  That's actually brilliant. Same issue w/ some sports cars too or even cars coasting in slow stop and go traffic when coming up from behind from high speed traffic.
• w10-1 1y ago
  It's a nice story. Some statistics might help motivate concern. E.g., The disproportionate risk per mile for motorcycling is chilling. But in California "rear end" as a category appears to be only about 15% of all MC accidents, and even then the category doesn't distinguish being hit from hitting. I suspect a lot of the effort here is marketing, so you might extract extra value (and do more good) with a complementary product. A big benefit might come from controllable red light and warning bell for the rider when you're more than 15% over speed limit. Speed is the biggest risk by far, and also the risk you can control (since no brake light can defend against the inattentive driver). It's way too easy to not realize how fast you're going. Indeed, for that you could also factor in stopping distances. Starting out with lighter, nimble bikes, I got in real trouble with the 650+ lb monsters that dither about stopping. Those would get a lower threshold. And you'd apply a higher threshold for open road vs. traffic, etc. Then build out a UI workflow and logging, and it might grow into an interesting intelligent copilot product line addressing all the pilot-controllable factors. As a motorcyclist, it's really on you to save your own bacon.
• WalterBright 1y ago
  The issue with brake lights is they are binary on/off. It would likely be better if the brightness would vary by how hard the braking is. Like getting brighter and brighter and then rapidly flashing.
  • kjkjadksj 1y ago
    If the binary isn’t working then you are following too close and no method is truly safe
    • WalterBright 1y ago
      > If the binary isn’t working then you are following too close There isn't always have a choice. If you open a gap in traffic, another car will simply change lanes into it. > no method is truly safe That's not a reason for not making things safer.
  • garaetjjte 1y ago
    Brightness would be hard to discern in the sun. Cars have center stop light strip, it would be cool if amount of illuminated segments would be proportional to deceleration. Probably not legal though.
    • WalterBright 1y ago
      > Brightness would be hard to discern in the sun Nothing is perfect.
  • kayodelycaon 1y ago
    Every car would have to have the same brightness for their brake lights for this to work well. At night, cars in the US have their brake lights partially illuminated as running lights. On some cars these are so bright that it looks like they're actively braking.
• K0balt 1y ago
  Really nice project. If you are thinking commercial you may want to look into IP issues to see if there are active patents (probably expired by now?) As far as design choices, based on my journeys in similar types of projects: (just my$.02, not a critique) USB will be a significant point of failure. The connector has voltage present and electrochemical activity will destroy the connector over time unless you can keep it in a clean, low humidity environment. Consider a different connector or a wireless SOC to eliminate this point of failure and make a completely potted unit possible. If you use usb, make sure there is no voltage normally present, even from the data connections, and you have a good watertight plug for the access port. Everything gets wet on bikes. Everything. nRF52840 or ESP32C3 would be my go to choices here, but there are a lot of excellent candidates. BLE is probably the protocol you will want to use. This will facilitate making a simple app to do firmware updates and feature adjustments. Consider eliminating the need for RPM input. This will be a significant point of failure and your greatest installation headache across different motorcycles. As a failsafe, control the lamp output pass-through with a pulled-up mosfet of at least 50a capacity (you won’t ever see this high current, but it protects from bulb changing short circuits and other unknowns) An Infineon BTS5016-2EKA or its low side equivalent is probably a great choice, and gives you both of the switches you need in one package, for less than $3, with full protection features. ( I assume you will need one to interrupt existing signaling and one to light where’s there is no activation from the brake switches) The main thing is the lamp must light with regular inputs even if the circuit loses power or the chip gets a hole drilled in it. If it comes on when it shouldn’t, that is also bad, but not as bad. Idk what sensor you are using, but consider the icm20948, it’s not too expensive ($3-4) and it has onboard sensor fusion. Only downside is it’s 1.8v, but if you use the nRf52840 that’s not an issue. Even so, level conversion isn’t too big a deal. Sensor fusion will greatly simplify understanding what’s going on. Since power consumption is not critical I would consider using an ML algorithm on the sensor data to detect hazard conditions, lie downs, etc and filter out steep uphill/downhill false activation/failure to activate. You could collect the data easily and train a simple model with off the shelf tools designed specifically for doing that kind of thing with MCUs. I forget the name but it’s commonly used for voice action or gesture training. You might want to train on a few bikes though, especially ones with different vibration frequencies. Now you can add a subscription model for premium flashing features and “enhanced AI” with in-app GPT4 access to an interactive tour guide and a “best rides” feature customized to your riding style and search history! Business could pay-to play, and insurance companies, motorcycle manufacturers, and tire sellers would love that personally identifiable riding data! (Please, don’t)
• Animats 1y ago
  "Committed to empowering users, I developed a subsequent version incorporating a USB port. Currently, I’m finalizing user-friendly software utilities, enabling riders to easily update BrakeBright firmware, customize features, and personalize the system to match individual riding styles and preferences." A brake light that requires system administration?
• sema4hacker 1y ago
  I rode a Honda 350 for seven years starting with the Oil Crisis, before bike headlights even turned on automatically, although I kept mine lit. The biggest problem was other drivers not noticing me coming on or from the side, because compared to cars bikes were and still are rare on the road. They'd turn as I was passing their blind spot, or pull out in front of me from a cross street, etc. Seemed like I'd have a close call about once per week, but I don't recall ever having a threat of being hit from behind.
• marze 1y ago
  A legal mandate should be made to require this on all motorbikes.
• kazinator 1y ago
  Engine braking with an internal combustion engine generates a vacuum in the intake manifold, because the throttle is closed while the pistons suck air. (Performance cars sometimes have vacuum gauges to measure this. Aftermarket ones can be installed.) A brake light could be rigged to activate past a certain a vacuum threshold. (There would be some false positives that are possibly not worth caring about.) For all the engineering described in the article, I'm surprised it doesn't mention this possibility, if only to give reasons why it was discarded. (Maybe it's a bad solution; I have no ide!) It seems that a vacuum-driven brake light could possibly have an advantage of kicking in faster than a motion detector, because it could trigger as soon as the revs are dropping with the throttle closed, before the clutch engages to actually connect the engine braking to the wheel. I.e. blip-throttle before downshift -> vacuum kicking in / light comes on -> downshift completes, actual braking begins.
  • camtarn 1y ago
    It's an interesting idea. When talking about triggering over a certain threshold before the clutch is engaged, I'm guessing you mean detecting the hand throttle being let go particularly quickly after a downshift blip? I don't have any real evidence for this, but based on how I think I use the throttle when riding, I feel like this would have a very high false positive rate unless you're deliberately using the throttle very gently in normal riding; or a high false negative rate if you tune it so it only activates on really aggressive throttle blips. It would probably be more reliable to just trigger off high vacuum once the clutch has engaged. Also, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think my bike has any vacuum tubing you could tap into - it doesn't have a vacuum brake servo like a car. So you'd have to drill into the intake manifold to mount a sensor.
• sublimefire 1y ago
  Good example how to push forward and do the thing. Otherwise, is it me or the info on the product page is a bit dry. No size specs, no instructions, not enough pics. It is like the last step to convert is not fully complete yet. One of the issues usually is to make sure the part is compatible with the bike as otherwise you need to spend money to get it and then “try it”. The suggestion with tge pictures how to put it would be useful as well.
• victorstanciu 1y ago
  Shame on the author. I clicked the "cats" link in the header only to find out it's short for categories. Boo.
• byte-bolter 1y ago
  I crashed recently after someone in front applied break too hard and too late. Couldn’t walk for two weeks—something like BrakeBright would’ve been a gamechanger. How do you prevent false triggers on bumpy roads though?
• AndrewSwift 1y ago
  I wondered once if it would be possible to ride a motorcycle safely if I drove carefully (everyone I know who rides has been in at least one serious accident). I thought: I could look at the data, but I see so many motorcyclists driving dangerously that the data wouldn't teach me much. So then I thought: I bet if I look at the accident rate for women riders it would be interesting. I found that in the UK, male riders have seven times the accident rate of female riders. So I guess how you ride does make a huge difference.
  • razemio 1y ago
    This sadly does not say anything because the kilometers driven is unknown in this statistic, right? So it could be that female drivers do not drive that many kilometers compared to males, which results in less accidents. Also, is this accidents total men / women? Then it would not even take into account, that there are significant more male riders.
    • kelnos 1y ago
      GP didn't specify, but IIRC vehicle incident rates are usually specified in terms of distance driven/ridden, so the stats they were looking at may have already taken that into account.
      • toyg 1y ago
        In my experience the number of female riders is so small, that from a statistical point of view it becomes almost irrelevant. Women also tend to ride smaller bikes, for obvious reasons.
    • Spooky23 1y ago
      That’s the worst stat. By trip would be much better. Motorcyclists on average ride less than 3,000 miles a year, cars are 4-6x that. 90% of accidents are within 10 miles of the riders home.
    • AndrewSwift 1y ago
      It was deaths/km ridden.
• earnestinger 1y ago
  If only somebody would make motorcycles less noisy.. I dream of the day where there are neither mosquitos nor motorcycle noise. Two most annoying things during the summer.
  • KolmogorovComp 1y ago
    Unfortunately for bystanders, but fortunately for drivers, noise is one of the strongest way for motorcycles to signal themselves to cars.
    • jeroenhd 1y ago
      Cars can't hear motorcycles until it's too late: https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a35952569/loud-pipes-do-not-save-lives/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a35952569/loud-p...
  • dntrkv 1y ago
    Factory motorcycles aren't that loud. Most of the ones you notice are modified.
  • mcmoor 1y ago
    Current electric motorcycles can already be pretty silent, to the detriment of pedestrians. Some have added artificial noises because of this, like ones already used in cars.
  • jeroenhd 1y ago
    There's an annoyingly persistent group of motorcycle enthusiasts that enjoys making as much noise as possible. They actively dislike electric motorcycles because they're not obnoxiously loud. Then there are also the people that think they need to be loud to be noticed. That has been debunked, but that doesn't stop people from feeling a false sense of safety and sabotaging their vehicle's sound deadening regardless. There are plenty of rules regarding the noise these things are allowed to make, but until law enforcement actually enforces those laws, nothing will change. That's with the unreasonably high legal noise limit.
  • 1y ago
• wonder_er 1y ago
  Ooooh what a title In 2019 I was a bicycling a lot, and really wanted to get something with a motor, so I could be a bit faster/farther/not so sweaty with my trips. I had access to a car but rarely used it. I really don't like many inherent safety issues with motorcycles and never seriously considered obtaining one, but kept wanting a two-wheeled vehicle with a motor. I'd ridden a 50cc scooter in 2019 for a few days, and it was fine then, but I never considered one seriously since. Eventually, in 2020 it was an emergency room doctor who suggested I look at 'real scooters' instead of the 50cc things. So I did, eventually I ended up owning a 170cc scooter/moped thing, and it feels infinitely safer than a motorcycle, and a bicycle. I've done 20,000 miles on scooters since then, probably, all over the world, including Denver to Canada and back once. Cheaper lighter more efficient, than motorcycles. more stable, lower center of mass, better wind protection, useful storage options, too, compared to motorcycles and bicycles. I ride mine year round, no issues. I wrote a page trying to capture some of the upsides, but it's hard to get the tone right on the internet: https://josh.works/scootering https://josh.works/scootering
  • toyg 1y ago
    Scooters are great in the city, but they are kinda boring when it comes to touring or hitting the twisties. My dad's 200cc Vespa is just about interesting enough to ride on hills, but anything below that is just yawn.
  • dntrkv 1y ago
    > Scooters are vastly safer than motorcycles Why make such a definitive claim with zero evidence to back it up? The justifications in that section are nonsense and seem to boil down to a skill issue on your part. Sure, around the city a scooter makes sense for a lot of people, though I believe they provide a false sense of security. The lower barrier to entry also lowers the "perceived" risk. Feeling safer !== safer Personally, I feel much safer on one of my motorcycles than a scooter. But that's because I am extremely comfortable on a motorcycle and can make it do exactly what I want, when I want.
  • enragedcacti 1y ago
    Any marginal safety benefit you're getting from riding a scooter is being completely erased by the disregard for basic road safety principles shown in the footage.
• post_break 1y ago
  I sold my bike and gave up riding because it was just too dangerous. It's not just that people don't see you, they're not even looking anymore, they're on their phones.
  • mc3301 1y ago
    We need an app that turns off drivers' phones when they are within 100m of a motorcyclist.
• interstice 1y ago
  I like this! Have thought of it for both bikes and cars, I drive manual and occasionally just downchange coming up to lights or off motorways. Also used to have a zx636 and bought an LED brake light that flashed obnoxiously when triggered (F1 style), I like to think the safety it added offset how annoyed I was probably making everyone behind me.
• ElijahLynn 1y ago
  Where's the quest to make motorcycles a huge bit quieter? I am so fed up with all the loud motorcycles in my city. Seems pretty arrogant of people with loud vehicles to think that we all want to hear them.
  • AdrianB1 1y ago
    This is an old problem that was solved and not solved. Most motorcycles in the past 25 years are decently quiet, unless you rev it up at night and everyone will hear it. But it is the same with the cars. At the same time, there is a significant number of motorcycles with non-street legal mufflers that add some decibels, you hear those even during the day at low revs. I have 2 bikes, both stock exhaust, both quiet. The older one with the Euro 3 and larger engine is more quiet than the one that is Euro 5 and has a small engine, but none is loud enough to wake anyone at night if I come home at that time. At the same time, a couple of neighbors with fancy Akrapovic cans will wake up the entire street every time they pass by.
    • henearkr 1y ago
      Alternatively, just switch to electric bikes maybe? So that, even if they want to try and be noisy, they cannot really? (except with loud music maybe, but that's completely different, wayyyy less stressful for people around, and it's already possible so that would not add a new problem)
  • odiroot 1y ago
    If anything modern motorcycles are sometimes a bit too quiet. The stock exhausts make them sound like cars when idling. And low-revving engines can barely cut through the traffic noise.
    • henearkr 1y ago
      Ok the kind of narrative you are pushing should definitely be banned along with the noisy machines themselves. As some have said in the comments, it has been debunked numerous times in studies. With the same reasoning as yours, I'll have a 500W HiFi with speakers and subwoofers on me, shouting annoying and loud noise continuously while I walk in the streets? To be noticed when I cross as a pedestrian or on my bicycle? Or, like, people could just careful? Around me people drive carefully and they don't hurt cyclists or electric bikes.
• AdrianB1 1y ago
  20 years riding bikes and I never knew I have this problem. Even now I don't have it. It sounds like a nice gimmick but not a solution to a real problem, at least not for European traffic where bikes are reasonably fine and where the top cause of motorcycle fatalities is riding way too fast.
• bigiain 1y ago
  I've been a motorcyclist for over 30 years. I pretty much live by this: “If you've put yourself in a position where someone has to see you in order for you to be safe - to see you, and to give a fuck - you've already blown it.” ― Neal Stephenson, Zodiac
  • Dansvidania 1y ago
    I have ridden motorcycles for 20 years and could not agree more. Defensive riding, assume distraction and reckless drivers, perhaps even willingness to bump into you “accidentally on purpose”. I have actually experienced the latter.
• gregorvand 1y ago
  Great idea. I thought about this when I rented an electric Renault car, and found that in regenerative braking mode… brake lights do not come on when lifting the foot off the accelerator. A friend in a car behind said he found it confusing and wondered what I was doing. Such a bizarre design flaw not to have brake lights come on when this happens.
• wonder_er 1y ago
  the biggest way to make a motorcycle safer, IMO, is remove the need for shifting. Lower the center of gravity, reduce the weight, increase the wind protection, make the riding stance really comfortable. Make it easily accommodate a backpack, or a passenger, or both. And you have a scooter! They're unconventional in the greater usa, but wildly fun. Generally, it seems like one can entertain the best parts of a bicycle, feet, and a car, and a motorcycle, all in one. I wrote a bit of an ode to scooters, here: https://josh.works/scootering https://josh.works/scootering I wish more of my friends rode scooters! https://josh.works/scootering https://josh.works/scootering
  • potamic 1y ago
    I've always felt safer in motorcycles compared to scooters. Something about the handling in scooters doesn't feel reassuring. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's more apparent when you ride on patchy, broken roads. It's much easier riding over bumps, zigzagging to avoid potholes on a motorcycle. Of course, I'm comparing motorcycles and scooters of similar weight. Riding a litre class machine is a different dimension altogether.
• ericcumbee 1y ago
  I feel like I see more motorcycles doing stupid things on the roadway than I used to.
• jo-m 1y ago
  Road bike tail lights have had IMU controlled brake light functionality for years. Even fairly cheap ones from Aliexpress. Example: https://youtu.be/iH-dYDkd_U0?t=123 https://youtu.be/iH-dYDkd_U0?t=123
• odiroot 1y ago
  This could help but the most dangerous situations I experienced myself were, when someone was coming from the side (perpendicular), especially on T-junctions. Classic "sorry mate I didn't see you" case. Not sure smart braking light in the back would help much here.
• bilbo-b-baggins 1y ago
  I have a garage full of motos (currently 9, probably half of which are relevant) if you want someone to help test your product.
• lqet 1y ago
  I live in a mountainous area that attracts huge amount of motorcyclists on weekends. Most of the fatal accidents I recall in the last years (usually around a dozen per year) were caused by right of way violations by cars, by excessive speeding of the cyclists, or by risky overtakes. I am not sure how a brake light would help there. Also, serious off-topic question to the motorcycle enthusiasts here: how do you cope with the fact that your weekend leisure ride is often a massive noise disturbance for hundreds of people and animals?
  • pnut 1y ago
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/noise-camera-technology-roadside-trial https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/noise-camera-tech... The UK is trialling noise pollution cameras that mail fines to your home, same as for speeding. It's an externality whose days are numbered.
    • sergiotapia 1y ago
      Sickening use of tech. Living in a true surveillance state
      • rossng 1y ago
        Easy to say when you don't live next to a road frequented by drivers with ridiculous modified exhausts.
        • SilkRoadie 1y ago
          MOTs already have a decibel limit. I don't understand how these vehicles can be road worthy considering how loud they are. This technology feels like an engineers solution to a trivial legal issue.
          • badmintonbaseba 1y ago
            Isn't the issue that some people work around MOT decibel limits? After all they only need to pass the decibel limit on the MOT test, and not on the road in regular use. The engineering solution approach doesn't seem to be fundamentally different to speed cameras.
• deleted 1y ago
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• Arch-TK 1y ago
  Brake lights should be activated whenever the vehicle is significantly slowing down regardless of whether the brakes are being used or not. And this should be standard across _all_ vehicles, not just motorcycles. I would say brakes should also override any automated method too, just in case of malfunction. This is just (I am not trying to trivialise the incredible amount of effort required to take a hardware project, even a simple one, to market) an LIS3DH wired to some brake lights. Every single road-vehicle could easily have this technology.
  • d_k_f 1y ago
    I'm with you, and at least here in Germany this is already the law, though it is only required if your deceleration rate is greater or equal to 1.3m/s² (it is allowed starting at a rate of 0.7 m/s²). There are already voices against this, as the recuperation functionality of electric vehicles can repeatedly trigger this feature if the driver lets go of the gas pedal for a short time.
    • illiac786 1y ago
      I don’t understand the voices against it: even if it’s recuperating, the car _is_ decelerating, which is why it triggers (and it should). What’s the problem according to them?
      • mech9879876 1y ago
        The threshold can be a problem- you don't want the threshold to be too low, or else the brake lights come on when even slight deceleration is occurring. This would give an annoyingly too-common signal that would possibly be disregarded/ not be an effective form of visual communication.
        • illiac786 1y ago
          Ok, the threshold should be correctly set, but recuperation doesn’t change the threshold, it just makes it very visible when the threshold is too low…