[HN Gopher] Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss...
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Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss a Payment
Author : new_guy
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-12-13 20:09 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jalopnik.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jalopnik.com)
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| OnCrash ( checkSubscriptionStatus() ) { saveLife() }
| COGlory wrote:
| From May this year
| hawkesnest wrote:
| It seems as though missing a payment and losing one's life would
| make them unable to make any future payments as well. Not great.
|
| If the vest did save one's life, they'd probably be eager to
| catch up on payments as a symbolic gesture.
|
| Short-sighted business thinking AND completely unsympathetic.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| maybe the business model should simply be to bill your
| insurance once it deploys
| peatmoss wrote:
| I wear a Helite Turtle 2 airbag vest when I go motorcycling. I
| wear it for three reasons:
|
| - There is a mechanical tether. It is a reliable mechanism that
| is not subject to subscriptions or software of any sort. If I'm
| clipped in, I'm protected.
|
| - Its air pockets are bigger than the "cool" airbag vests that
| are designed to fit under your clothing. Bigger air pockets
| really do translate into better impact protection. AND it has CE
| armor in the back as well, just in case. Below a certain
| threshold of air displacement, you're not much better off than
| armor by itself.
|
| - The air channels run over my shoulders and are designed to
| immobilize my head and neck in the event of a crash.
|
| Fortnine has a video whose rationale matches mine:
| https://youtu.be/N2jZryt607U
|
| The downside of my airbag style is that if I low-side and stay
| with the bike, the airbag won't deploy. That said, in this kind
| of crash, I'm much more worried about abrasions (which is also
| why I wear a one-piece Aerostich suit).
| perihelions wrote:
| [deleted: I failed at reading comprehension. mea culpa]
| theamk wrote:
| This is very disingenuous quote! Here is a longer one:
|
| > Under NO circumstances is our system disabled or rider's cut-
| off if they are mid-flight on a ride, as suggested. We provide
| a 30-day grace period from the time a payment is missed..
|
| So the title is _almost_ correct -- the airbag vest will stop
| working if 2 payments are missed.
| notch656a wrote:
| edit: deleted
| perihelions wrote:
| You're probably right; I've removed my original comment as
| misleading.
|
| I'm embarrassed I failed to parse that quote correctly. (My
| first parse was "30-days grace period" in the common usage of
| the phrase, as "before contractual penalty fees apply". Not
| "before you *die*").
| aaron695 wrote:
| > Only Saves Your Ass If Your Subscription Is Paid Up
|
| Absolutely incorrect as per the article.
|
| Which is over 6 months old. So you can't claim the update is new.
|
| It always Saves Your Ass
|
| If you subscription is not paid it's not clear what happens, but
| it still works fine in an accident.
|
| In a world were people are to lazy to read articles and believe
| silly stuff like a CEO would be happy to go to jail over
| manslaughter, I think we _do_ need companies willing to do this.
|
| People are inherently dumb, as per the Just-world hypothesis we
| need to make companies fit that. It's way to hard to change
| people, we need is a company willing to sell a device that won't
| Saves Your Ass if your credit card fails.
| throwaway03cc89 wrote:
| "...which in turn uses an internet-connected component called the
| In&Box that does all of the complex sensing and math needed to
| know when you're about to eat shit..."
|
| I sure hope that isn't a real-time operation happening "in the
| cloud" while riding. 1) Latency? Crashes happen fast. 2) Spotty
| service on back roads where motorcyclists like to be?
|
| What is needed is a purely offline solution to this purely
| offline problem. Please someone make that and put these fools out
| of business.
| more_corn wrote:
| These people should maybe call a lawyer and ask if this is a good
| idea. The first person who dies because their safety equipment
| was disabled will generate a wrongful death lawsuit to the tune
| of a hundred million dollars.
| sterlind wrote:
| I think the relevant legal question is if a reasonable person
| would be able to conclude that the airbag vest is disabled, and
| that it won't actually activate in a crash. this seems
| incredibly hard - you can't rely on printed instructions, since
| reasonable people don't always read directions, and you could
| have given it to a friend. so it has to be extremely obvious,
| like a buckle that locks only if the system is armed - and even
| then, if someone forces the buckle, it should still be armed,
| since a reasonable person could conclude that the forcing the
| buckle shouldn't affect the airbag.
|
| this is even independent of the subscription thing. like if the
| thing needs a battery and the battery is dead, it needs to be
| extremely obvious it's not going to work. parachutes have this
| kind of problem but a reasonable skydiver has parachute
| training whereas a reasonable biker doesn't have airbag
| training.
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(page generated 2021-12-13 23:02 UTC)