[HN Gopher] My quest to make motorcycle riding that tad bit safer
___________________________________________________________________
My quest to make motorcycle riding that tad bit safer
Author : mygnu
Score : 197 points
Date : 2025-05-07 11:06 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gill.net.in)
(TXT) w3m dump (gill.net.in)
| snarf21 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| You can infer the gear based on vehicle speed and engine
| speed.
|
| That's how gear indications work on most manual cars too:
| there's no actual sensor telling what gear is selected (other
| than reverse, and sometimes clutch pedal and neutral).
| diggan wrote:
| > You can infer the gear based on vehicle speed and engine
| speed.
|
| Wouldn't that be highly variable based on the vehicle
| itself? Especially considering personal modifications tend
| to be common for motorbikes.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Yes that makes it harder to make a general system. It
| could have a "learning" function to pick this up though.
| echoangle wrote:
| Yes, but you could calibrate it once manually.
|
| > Especially considering personal modifications tend to
| be common for motorbikes.
|
| Including gearbox? The only thing relevant for the
| functionality would be the transmission ratio for each
| gear.
| HPsquared wrote:
| People often change sprockets which changes the final
| drive ratio.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| If you have vehicle speed and engine speed you simply don't
| need to know the gear to know when engine braking is
| happening.
| jollyllama wrote:
| I don't think that would work in cases where rev-matching is
| used.
| dave4270 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Ah okay, I thought I must be missing something. Cool product,
| I hope it does well.
| stavros wrote:
| You should also soft-mount the accelerometer to minimize
| vibration transmission.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| This would also be useful on my 2-door Civic.
| mygnu wrote:
| indeed
| dave4270 wrote:
| 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.
| jsight wrote:
| TBH, I'm surprised this isn't already common. It is very similar
| to what EVs do, due to the relatively high regenerative braking.
| HPsquared wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| If you're in Australia where it is mandated, sure. In
| most of the world, no motorcycles have ABS
| Reason077 wrote:
| It is mandatory in many countries, not just Australia.
| Europe, Japan, Brazil, etc, all require ABS on new
| motorcyles.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| "Europe" is not and never has been a country to my
| knowledge.
| topsecret wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| ...but it has mostly harmonized road rules, eg in
| relation to the ABS on the bigger bikes.
| sgt wrote:
| I'm in South Africa, and most of the popular brands have
| ABS by default, including top sellers like BMW R1300GS,
| Honda Africa Twin, KTM 890. This is big adventure
| country, like Australia. I think the superbikes also have
| ABS now since about 10 years ago.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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/Automated_emergency_braking_s
| y...
| subscribed wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| asdsadasdasd123 wrote:
| Im surprised new cars dont just go off of a gyro decel reading,
| don't modern cars already have a gyro?
| sokoloff wrote:
| An accelerometer would be a far better sensor than a gyro
| here. (You want to measure linear acceleration not angular
| velocity.)
| HPsquared wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Consider adding logic to test if the bulb is open. That would
| be a killer feature for sales.
| sgt wrote:
| With BLE integration and an app showing you great deals on
| bulbs.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| And also ads for unrelated products down at the bottom of
| the page in the app.
| 83 wrote:
| ads are amateur hour - gotta make it a subscription and
| really milk those users.
| sgt wrote:
| Also offer a lifetime subscription, then the API
| disappears after 6 months
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I have a second concern re: posi-tap as a connection method.
| Personally, I would not use a insulation displacement
| connector like that in a high-vibration environment, at least
| not without many many hours of accelerated lifetime testing
| under high vibration load. It's possible they're fine, but at
| the end of the day you're driving a couple of knives partway
| through a wire in a way that's non-inspectable.
|
| For field installs perhaps the low-temp soldering butt
| splices would work well? That would be my go-to in your
| shoes. It does require cutting and stripping wires, which has
| its own issues if done by the layperson, but it does connect
| and encapsulate the joint in a way that should be very robust
| to vibration and to environmental contamination/corrosion.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I think the ideal here would be what good trailer brake
| adapters do in cars that are not factory equipped with a
| trailer light connector: they have an adapter for each car
| model that plugs directly in to the stock wiring harness at
| the taillight. No soldering, no stripping wires, no
| piercing insulation. However, this complicates the product
| because you need an adapter for each bike manufacturer and
| possibly each bike model or even model year.
|
| Another advantage of this is it simplifies installation for
| the bike owner. Just mount the controller and connect the
| plugs.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| You have to run the business case (at the end of the day
| all the work you do has to support this).
|
| What's the NRE/tooling and marginal cost to produce a
| harness variant, and how many units with that variant
| will you sell? Will people buy the device without the
| harness adapter?
|
| OE connectors are hard to get, they're typically not some
| stock Molex or Deutsch dealy-o. I've worked on projects
| where we 3D printed whole connector blocks to try to do
| get mating to OE ECUs. It kinda sucks, and you need a
| whole lot of volume to support that kind of engineering.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Agree, it has to be practical. The better trailer light
| adapters do it but probably not for every obscure older
| car/truck model. And really the whole product idea is
| something that only applies to older low-end bikes.
| Newer/higher end bikes increasingly have this feature
| from the factory.
| K0balt wrote:
| Genie soldering is not preferred for high vibration
| environments. Crimping is considered more reliable. Proper
| strain relief and anti corrosion treatment is key.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| It's not preferred for inline connections, but context is
| important. In a field installation, you can do up a
| solder-type butt splice with a lighter if you really need
| to, whereas crimping requires specialized tools.
| K0balt wrote:
| True enough, but I would take it one farther and say that
| a properly executed hand splice is arguably preferable to
| solder if vibration is a factor. Also, even less tools
| needed, though not everyone carries a little tube of
| conductive grease with their electrical tape. (But they
| should, it makes a decent splice immune to corrosion and
| a solid, "permanent" repair. )
|
| I have had many, many soldered splices fail on
| generators, marine engines, other long running equipment.
|
| They just break where the copper meets the solder joint.
| Copper generally has poor fatigue characteristics,
| depending on the alloy.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I thought electrical wire was generally ~100% Cu.
|
| Some of this also comes down to harness design and how
| it's put back together after the splice. Ideally, the
| exposure of the splice itself to flexing is very low. I
| reckon if it's strain relieved/mechanically fastened well
| and encapsulated, it doesn't really matter what style of
| splice you use.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| 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.
| imglorp wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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?
| netsharc wrote:
| Hard braking on modern cars activate the hazards lights,
| which are the blinkers.
| K0balt wrote:
| Quick flashing or high/low would be the way, but quick
| flashing is very attention getting (with led)
| Reason077 wrote:
| It's a common (mandatory?) feature in Europe. Brake lights
| flash under very hard / emergency brake conditions. The
| flashing is very rapid, definitely gets your attention, and
| couldn't be confused for "letting go" of the brake.
| martin_a wrote:
| Regarding EVs: That's already implemented that way. Once EVs
| start braking more than "expected from roll resistance" the
| braking lights come on.
|
| I think there were also bugs on some Hyundais where they
| wouldn't stop or start or whatever, but I think that was
| sorted. With my Skoda I can see the braking lights go on when
| I change a higher regeneration step.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You'd only be surprised if you were absolutely on someones
| ass. Engine braking is not quite that effective.
|
| In fact this will make traffic worse due to stop n go effect
| from brakelights triggering more brakelights instead of
| coasting.
| munificent wrote:
| For what it's worth, I've driven a manual for the past 25
| years in the US and I haven't noticed any significant
| increase in tailgated even when I decelerate. I'm definitely
| the kind of stick driver who avoids braking and pushes in the
| clutch and lets the vehicle cruise to a lower speed when
| possible.
|
| Granted, it's also a red (small) pick-up truck, so pretty
| visible.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| I guess those situations where you are engine braking and a
| non-tailgating driver doesn't realize he's closing to an unsafe
| distance. Then one of a couple of things could cause a
| collision from this preventably-dangerous situation.
|
| Def not a daily event but not unheard of.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If you drive a manual in a hilly area, or a city with poorly-
| coordinated traffic lights, it can be an extremely frequent
| event.
|
| Not that trying to shed tailgaters or trigger-happy brake
| lights are foolproof. A couple decades ago, my car was
| totaled by a rear-end collision. I was stopped and stuck in
| the traffic at a red light. The at-fault driver popped over a
| little hill with her nose stuck in a map - failing to notice
| me, the other vehicles, or the red light, in time.
| foobarian wrote:
| Tbh I find my manual gearbox car not able to slow very hard
| at all with engine braking. However it's admittedly not a
| Diesel engine.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Having driven (and engine braked) both diesel and gas
| manuals - yes, a diesel is much better at slowing "very
| hard". Beware of doing that if someone is close or
| inattentive behind you.
|
| With either one, any need-to-brake situation gets more
| complex - you need to decide "brake pedal, engine, or
| both?". But I'm not driving manuals because I want
| driving to be super-simple.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Interesting. I found my diesel Mercedes to not have much
| engine braking at all (which I attributed to the lack of
| a throttle plate or any throttling of airflow) as
| compared to similar size and weight gas cars (which have
| a throttle plate in the intake).
| yial wrote:
| I drove a manual with a 4.6l v8 as my daily driver for 8-10
| years.
|
| After taking a motorcycle safety course (in which they
| teach applying the brake to trigger the lights when engine
| braking to alert cars behind you )
|
| I did some anecdotal testing / started triggering the brake
| lights when engine braking in the car. While not effective
| for everyone behind me, triggering the brake lights did
| seem to increase the distance people began to slow at, and
| also their following distance increased.
|
| I was once rear ended, while I was completely stopped, with
| a train going by in front of me. Since it was a flat level
| surface I had let me foot off the brake.
|
| I do wonder if I had still had the brake applied if the
| person would have noticed. (However, this is a poor example
| as the driver who rear ended me was an unlicensed 16 year
| old driving illegally ).
|
| While on my motorcycle, I try to always trigger my brake
| lights. I will trigger them rapidly in scenarios where I
| have sufficient stopping distance but I would be doing a
| more aggressive stop in a car as the flashing does seem to
| get more attention.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Well then they can tailgate someone else.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| I like a brake you can choose to tap without engaging proper
| brakes just to flash your lights backwards, instead of worrying
| about more smarts in the vehicle that can stop working or
| whatever.
|
| In best cases this brake gives a bit of feedback when it
| engages the light but not yet engage the actual brake.
|
| You are free to use this technique to signal "back off"
| whenever you're engine braking or before you brake or even when
| you're not even braking but don't like the tailgater
| yial wrote:
| I've found this to be true of most cars- where you can very
| lightly touch the brake where the light will turn on before
| the actual brakes engage / engage in a noticeable way. It's a
| great tool.
|
| Especially important when engine braking down large hills, as
| I notice people don't always seem to realize how rapidly they
| are approaching you if they don't receive a braking signal.
| codybontecou wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| only flashes on heavy braking, normal use is not affected
| jajko wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| US mandated automatic emergency braking starting in 2029.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| my US mazda cx5 center brake light flashes when you press the
| brakes.
| wolrah wrote:
| > my US mazda cx5 center brake light flashes when you press
| the brakes.
|
| That is not a factory feature, it's almost certainly a
| dealer-installed piece of junk like this
| (https://pulseprotects.com/product-info/) which the dealer
| almost certainly charged a stupid amount of money for, and as
| noted it's not actually legal in the US.
|
| Around me the local Hyundai/Kia chain loves to install those,
| and I hate them.
| Muromec wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be illegal enough if dealers are installing
| them
| mschuster91 wrote:
| No one cares, not all states have mandatory inspections,
| and many inspectors just check if the brake light comes
| on when they press the brake pedal which would not reveal
| such an aftermarket device.
|
| The only way to catch something like this would be a road
| driving test by the inspector, and even here in Europe
| this is not required.
| teqsun wrote:
| IIRC in the USA there are features allowed to be
| installed aftermarket that aren't legal to be installed
| as a dealer option (like front side-window tinting)
| toast0 wrote:
| I've got a NHTSA letter bookmarked [1] that says
|
| > According to a document by SafeLite of America, Inc.,
| that you enclosed, its product Safe-T-Stop "will pulse
| [the center high mounted brake light] for approximately 6
| seconds and reactivate if the brakes are reapplied." You
| read S5.5.10(d) of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard
| No. 108 as requiring "that the third brake light must be
| wired to be steady-burning," and that you believe that
| Safe-T-Stop "contravenes this requirement of the standard
| by varying the brightness of the light."
|
| > We confirm your interpretation. S5.5.10(a), (b), and
| (c) list the motor vehicle lamps that may flash when they
| are operated. No stop lamp is among the lamps listed.
| S5.5.10(d) requires all other lamps to be wired to be
| steady burning, thus including all stop lamps. Standard
| No. 108 does not allow a stop lamp that pulses, and a
| vehicle with a stop lamp that pulses does not meet
| Federal requirements.
|
| It's clear that there's not much enforcement, since all
| the dealers I've visited near me install these things by
| default. If you commit to a car that's not yet delivered,
| you can negotiate to exclude these, or you can have them
| remove it (but they'll most likely have cut into the
| factory harness to install it, so the wiring harness has
| been modified, which is a negative IMHO).
|
| Personally, I find these devices to be pretty terrible. I
| would be fine with flashing for high intensity braking,
| but the flashing is attention grabbing by design, and
| it's inappropriate in a lot of situations as it distracts
| from gathering awareness of the surroundings.
|
| [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/20288ztv
| jeffbee wrote:
| As you may be aware, the US is a confederation of states.
| The type of light that flashes several times at the
| initiation of braking is specifically authorized by the
| California Vehicle Code, and perhaps in other states.
| jfim wrote:
| Do you have a reference as to where it's allowed in the
| CVC? FMVSS section 108 table I-c specifies this for the
| stop light:
|
| Steady burning. Must be activated upon application of the
| service brakes. When optically combined with a turn
| signal lamp, the circuit must be such that the stop
| signal cannot be activated if the turn signal lamp is
| flashing. May also be activated by a device designed to
| retard the motion of the vehicle.
| blendergeek wrote:
| California Code, Vehicle Code - VEH SS 25251.5
|
| (a) Any motor vehicle may also be equipped with a system
| in which an amber light is center mounted on the rear of
| a vehicle to communicate a component of deceleration of
| the vehicle, and which light pulses in a controlled
| fashion at a rate which varies exponentially with a
| component of deceleration.
|
| (b) Any motor vehicle may be equipped with two amber
| lamps on the rear of the vehicle which operate
| simultaneously with not more than four flashes within
| four seconds after the accelerator pedal is in the
| deceleration position and which are not lighted at any
| other time. The lamps shall be mounted at the same
| height, with one lamp located on each side of the
| vertical centerline of the vehicle, not higher than the
| bottom of the rear window, or if the vehicle has no rear
| window, not higher than 60 inches. The light output from
| each of the lamps shall not exceed 200 candlepower at any
| angle horizontal or above. The amber lamps may be used
| either separately or in combination with another lamp.
|
| (c) Any stoplamp or supplemental stoplamp required or
| permitted by Section 24603 may be equipped so as to flash
| not more than four times within the first four seconds
| after actuation by application of the brakes.
|
| https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/vehicle-code/veh-
| sect-25251-5/
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I bought the car used. I did not install it, but can not
| claim the previous owner did or did not.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"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 wrote:
| I agree, but the device has built in switch, if you mount it
| upside down, it won't flash
| whalesalad wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| subscribed wrote:
| Agree and currently it's a dealbreaker to me, however I'm
| certain it will become optional in the future iterations.
| mygnu wrote:
| thanks for your comment, the device is self leveling, I live in
| a hilly Scotland, it keeps adjusting itself with the slopes and
| only reacts to sudden changes.
| whalesalad wrote:
| that is good. the rate of decel is more important than a
| strict boolean.
| gizajob wrote:
| The only safe way - just don't.
| nielsole wrote:
| I unsuccessfully built something like this for my bicycle a while
| back: 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 wrote:
| Busch und Muller has some products with brake lights
|
| https://www.bumm.de/en/products/dynamo-
| rucklichter/produkt/3...?
|
| https://www.bumm.de/en/products/e-bike-r%C3%BCcklichter/pare...
| ?
| thecrumb wrote:
| Your site really needs a video :) I've run Hyperlites on my bikes
| forever (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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| US bicycles, that is. In the UK the bicycle brakes are the
| other way around.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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)
| gambiting wrote:
| It's a matter of preference - I'm in the UK and I have my
| brakes the Euro way, front on the left. With most brakes
| swapping around is trivial.
| progman32 wrote:
| I standardize all my two wheeled vehicles to the motorcycle
| layout for this reason. It bothers my push bike friends to an
| amusing degree but it's much safer for me. Plus I feel I have
| greater control of the critical front brake with my most
| dextrous and strong hand.
| bityard wrote:
| I ride both regularly and I don't really have a problem
| switching between them. For me, the overall experience is so
| entirely different between the two, that my brain knows to
| treat them differently. Just like people who own riding lawn
| mowers don't really have difficulties driving their car
| afterward.
|
| (Blipping the throttle accidentally should never cause an
| emergency unless other things are already going wrong: for
| example, if you are riding a bike whose power is way beyond
| your skill level or you are following someone too closely.)
| toast0 wrote:
| > Just like people who own riding lawn mowers don't really
| have difficulties driving their car afterward.
|
| My riding mower is tank-steer (zero turn)... pretty hard to
| use those skills on a car. But steering wheels basically work
| the same on all the equipment I've got with those; some
| easier to turn than others depending on geometry and power
| assist. The pedals are more likely to be different --- the
| mower has a friction lever on a panel to set the throttle /
| engine speed and levers you hold to go forward and back on
| right and left (so this does steering too); the tractor has
| similar throttle level, and then a pedal that you rotate to
| go forward or back with both wheels (all wheels if you put it
| into 4x4) and it has a splitable brake pedal if you want to
| brake on one side or the other.
|
| But yeah; none of that makes it hard to go back and drive a
| car. Other than sometimes it'd be nice to do some tight turns
| at the expense of my tires if I could control each side
| individually.
| liotier wrote:
| 1991, first time riding a motorcycle... After a 15 minutes
| instruction course near the barn from which we extracted the
| 200 cm3 bike, off we were in Idaho's mountains. As a 15 years-
| old French person, the whole experience was exhilarating and it
| wasn't long before I started to relax and open the throttle a
| bit on the dirt track...
|
| As an avid mountain bike cyclist back in France, I hung to what
| seemed familiar - which worked well enough until the first
| sharp bend came... It came way too fast, I panicked, cycling
| reflexes took over, I shifted my weight back and pressed both
| handle levers hard - getting the (to a cyclist) very unexpected
| result of both disengaging the clutch and thus losing all
| engine braking while locking the front wheel hard (why did they
| put the front break where the rear, which helps me control
| slides, is supposed to be ?)... I was catapulted, followed by
| the bike... Nothing broken - just bruises, rashes and the
| flattened ego of a lucky idiot.
|
| As a daily cyclist, being a motorcycle passenger on big engines
| always terrifies me: I'm on two wheels, with bicycle-like
| positions and trajectories... But everything happens
| monstrously too fast, my instincts for braking and acceleration
| are all out of calibration, so I always feel that we cannot
| possibly survive the next turn !
|
| So, yes - I recommend not mixing bicycling and motorcycling.
| braunshedd wrote:
| 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
| wildzzz wrote:
| I saw one of these last week and just assumed it was tied into
| the brake lights but it was always on.
| wildzzz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| If you read the article then you will see that the
| accelerometer is a feature that makes it safer. Apparently,
| motorcycles can brake even if you don't use the brake, and
| then you really want the lights to turn on.
| bartread wrote:
| That is a great tip. Thank you! I wonder if they'll ship to the
| UK?
| topsecret wrote:
| Yes, they will:
|
| > Where do you ship to?
|
| > Basically to every European country (-including Norway,
| Switzerland and the United Kingdom), but in fact we accept
| and ship orders worldwide. However some markets might not be
| setup for automated checkout. If you are experiencing
| difficulty for shipping to a certain country, contact us so
| that we can manually create a draft order for you to review
| and complete.
|
| https://www.brakefreetech.eu/pages/support
| subscribed wrote:
| I've seen several of these on the few riders down here, so I
| guess yes, one way or another.
|
| Also a helmet cam does wonders for wannabe-tailgaters
| SequoiaHope wrote:
| I helped Alex invent that product! I built the first prototype
| that helped him get funding and hand assembled some of the
| first PCB designs. My (old) name is on the patent.
|
| I'm glad to see this was already posted. I wear mine when I
| ride my 1500w ebike around and I feel so much safer with it.
| It's really bright too!
| amelius wrote:
| That's cool. What principles is it based on and was it
| difficult to clean up the signals to get a reliable input?
| haiku2077 wrote:
| I got one for my birthday! What a great product. It does
| exactly what it says it does, and has no more complexity than
| required.
| beloch wrote:
| Motorcycle fatality rates have been trending upwards, not
| downwards[1]. Brake lights on helmets may illuminate one of the
| culprits: An ever increasing number of American trucks with
| poor visibility. Sitting on a bike, you're even shorter than a
| pedestrian and more likely to be completely out of sight.
| Perhaps its time to start regulating for better visibility, as
| Europe has done.
|
| [1]https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-
| motorcyc...
| lelandfe wrote:
| I recently had to frantically wave at a driver about to turn
| right over a child in the crosswalk. He literally could not
| see them from his vantage point in his giant SUV.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Some "militant" urban cycling commuters do things like attach
| a pool noodle horizontally and vertically to create space and
| visibility. I'd probably hazard a guess that avoiding highway
| miles also lowers your risk profile substantially.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Freeway driving tends to be the safest driving, in any
| vehicle. This is because speed deltas are typically low,
| and there are no cross-streets or stopping.
|
| https://safetrec.berkeley.edu/2023-safetrec-traffic-
| safety-f... (Ctrl+F "Crash Location of Motorcycle Fatal
| Crashes")
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Complex thing to analyze, no?
|
| Most Americans use freeways, and most do not use
| motorcycles. It's always hard to compare a rare thing to
| a common thing, it always has surprising problems. It's
| like when people on Reddit worry about radon in their
| basement, but the incidence rate of whatever cancer it
| was associated with is so low anyway.
|
| What about agency? "Don't worry about kids choking on
| Legos, kids don't die from choking on Legos" - but that's
| because parents well informed and really vigilant about
| it, compared to say batteries. Motor riders avoid
| freeways.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. There
| are plenty of statistics available showing that freeway
| driving is the safest driving vehicles do. There's not as
| much available for motorcycles specifically, which is why
| I dug up a relevant link and shared it. It seems to hold
| true for MCs too (and I have no reason to suspect it
| wouldn't.)
| alamortsubite wrote:
| I think the confusion may be that you commented on
| freeway safety, whereas the comment you replied to
| discussed highway safety. Freeways are limited access
| highways; not all highways are freeways.
| Kozmik1 wrote:
| I had not heard of/seen the pool noodle idea - looks like a
| simple and effective way to draw attention to cycling
| safety.
|
| Here's a video of the NYC Pool Noodle Bike Ride: https://ww
| w.youtube.com/watch?v=97YJOQRQ4Ds&ab_channel=Stree...
| barbazoo wrote:
| Fatality rates are actually pretty flat I would say if you
| look at the relative numbers.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| When I am sitting on my motorcycle I am taller than most
| people's sitting position in their trucks. While filtering I
| can look down into their vehicles and see what they're doing
| on their phones.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| At first glance I want to strongly disagree, but who am I
| to argue with your experience.
|
| What bike do you ride, and what vehicles are you calling
| trucks? Specifically.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| An F750GS and a DRZ400SM are my main bikes (out of an
| entire garage full of stuff). For trucks I'm talking
| about F-150s and similar.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Do those two bikes have a higher / more upright riding
| position that a typical sportbike?
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Sportbikes are lower, but they're not typical. Sportbikes
| sales trended way down over the past decade, with models
| being discontinued entirely in some regions. Current
| sporty-style bikes are generally more upright seating and
| share engines and platforms with non-sport models. Dual
| sport/off road bikes have trended upwards, even for
| riders who never go off pavement, because they're cheap
| to run and very practical as general purpose motorcycles.
| More recently, there's been a trend towards large touring
| bikes as well.
|
| https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/motorcycle-
| industry-q1...
| nandomrumber wrote:
| I see, thanks for the info. I'm licensed but haven't
| owned a bike in years.
|
| Do we have stats on whether more sports bike riders are
| involved in crashes that bikes with better visibility?
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Not really. Outside of a few groups at places like
| Virginia Tech, motorcycle safety studies don't get much
| funding. Too niche.
|
| You can use insurance rates as a loose proxy- sportbikes
| are between one and three orders of magnitude more
| expensive to insure than adventure bikes, touring bikes
| or cruisers. But I suspect that has more to do with the
| average age of the riders.
| toyg wrote:
| And bike power. Sportsbikes are often road-legal versions
| of actual racing bikes, with all that it entails. If a
| third of cars on the road were tuned-down Ferraris and
| McLarens, you bet they'd crash left right and center.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Weirdly, an adventure bike with higher horsepower will
| have cheaper insurance than a race replica with less
| horsepower.
| taneq wrote:
| Yes. The DRZ especially is a dirt bike which is
| noticeably higher set than a supersports. You pay for it
| a bit in on-road manoeuvrability though.
| rounce wrote:
| Hello fellow dizzer enjoyer
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| Kind of meta, but you deserve recognition for this
| demonstration of self-awareness. You expressed skepticism
| _politely_ , then asked specific questions instead of
| making assumptions. Sometimes HN gives me hope for the
| rest of the internet.
| godelski wrote:
| What's interesting is fatality rates are increasing but
| injury rates are decreasing.
|
| Seems like something else might be at play. If it is more
| SUVs and Pickups then I think a brake light helmet would do a
| lot considering the danger those cars present is being harder
| to see those below them. But if it is something else, then
| maybe not as good of a solution.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Vehicles with a tall, flat face are more likely to kill
| instead of injure, from my recall of previous discussions
| on HN. That's been a trend in vehicle design for a few
| years now.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Fortnine did a video on Grilles That Kill:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU
|
| They're hideous too.
| cogman10 wrote:
| We desperately need vehicle safety regulations which
| consider pedestrians and cyclists.
|
| Trucks in particular are apparently being purposed built
| to kill.
| kelnos wrote:
| That seems unfortunately unsurprising. With shorter
| vehicles (sedans), when you get hit (as a pedestrian,
| bicyclist, motorcyclist), you are more likely to be pushed
| over the hood of the car. But with a taller vehicle (truck,
| SUV), you're more likely to either be propelled forward
| after hitting the high, flat face of the grille, or get
| pulled and dragged under the vehicle.
|
| While going over the hood is going to hurt, and can kill
| you, the other options are _much_ more likely to kill you.
| dabinat wrote:
| There was a news story this week in my area about a car
| driver who intentionally side-swiped a motorcyclist. The
| police said what normally kills motorcyclists is that they
| get thrown and then they hit something solid like a barrier
| or another car. This guy got lucky that there was an exit
| nearby and he just slid down the exit lane with minor
| injuries.
| markbnj wrote:
| As an almost-daily motorcyclist with 15k miles on my current
| machine (Suzuki DL650), I absolutely agree that the increased
| proportion of pickup trucks on the road increases the risks
| for riders, however I suspect it is mainly because the
| larger, heavier vehicles aggravate the effects of a general
| deterioration in driving skills and attitudes. One thing
| about riding a motorcycle is that you are, unless you have a
| death wish, an active and observant participant in what you
| are doing, which alone separates you from a seeming majority
| of those driving cars and trucks. You become much more aware
| of what others on the road are doing, and what they are
| doing, in large numbers, is acting like twits.
|
| Driving crazily fast in residential areas, rolling through
| stop signs, blowing off yellow and even red lights, ignoring
| turn signals, aggressively tailgating cars, trucks, even
| motorcyclists like myself, tapping away at their phones and
| steering with their knees. I think I see just about every
| variation of all of these things at least several times a
| week, to the extent that I have thought about the idea of
| creating some kind of org or foundation or even just a blog
| to advocate a return to taking driving seriously. I don't
| have a lot of confidence that I could make a difference
| though. I suspect a lot of the problem is simply many more
| cars on infrastructure that we haven't put enough money into
| for decades, but I'm no expert.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| It's a really complicated issue, but you might find some of
| stuff related to Strong Towns, 15 minute cities, and sorta
| general modern urbanist things interesting. If we had
| better transit, more connected communities etc, people who
| are less interested in driving and driving well would have
| other options than hours long commutes.
| betterThanTexas wrote:
| > I don't have a lot of confidence that I could make a
| difference though.
|
| My recent conclusion is that efforts are worth it even if
| we're pessimistic about outcome. Often times it is hard to
| get positive feedback from people you're helping to
| consider their own behavior even if they don't acknowledge
| you.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Perhaps its time to start regulating for better visibility
|
| I argue we should start with the A-pillar. It's not just the
| big fat American trucks. Every car that is allowed to roll
| onto the streets is required to have a certain amount of
| airbag and the push for this seems to have really bad side
| effects on aspects of safety for everyone _not_ inside the
| vehicle.
|
| Look at the visibility difference in a 1980s pickup truck and
| compare it to 2024 model year _anything_ and you would likely
| feel claustrophobic pretty quickly.
| spacemark wrote:
| >Sitting on a bike, you're even shorter than a pedestrian and
| more likely to be completely out of sight.
|
| Not true at all except for the lowest-sitting cruisers. Most
| bikes put you eye level with an SUV driver and taller bikes
| above.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Retroreflective tape on your helmet is also pretty good, and
| much cheaper.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I ride a bicycle, and I deliberately mount the rear light
| directly at the eye level of typical sedans and SUVs. It's not
| connected to the brakes, but I find that having the light pulse
| is enough.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Are you on a penny farthing? A tallbike?
|
| I've got the rear flasher on my road bike tucked as high
| under the seat as it can get, but even with a large frame
| bike and relaxed commuting (non-aero) posture I'm shorter
| than the hood lots of full-size SUVs and pickups, much less
| the seat.
|
| I agree with the other commenter that a 360 cam on top of the
| helmet has been the most important thing for deterring
| tailgating and road rage. I've added reflective tape on the
| frame, the blinking blinking lights under the seat, a
| headlight on the handlebars and a headlamp with front white
| and rear red light, and my backpack has a nearly fluorescent
| neon green cover. Those all help reduce the "Oops, didn't see
| you there while looking at my phone" close calls, but do
| nothing to reduce intentional harassment - that's the
| function of the camera.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Sorry if I was unclear. I have two rear lights. The first
| one is mounted on the seat post near the eye level of
| sedans. The second one is mounted at the bottom of the
| helmet near the eye level of large SUVs.
| smadge wrote:
| If you have a hub generator system, they sell rear lights
| with controllers which detect changes in the frequency of the
| wheel rotation and start pulsing when you decelerate.
| david-gpu wrote:
| That is so cool! Do you know of any brands/models?
| ramses0 wrote:
| Take a look into Lumos bike helmets:
| https://ridelumos.com/products/remotes-and-mounts
|
| They started via a kickstarter in 2015:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=lumos+helmet+history
|
| ...they kindof "always" had reliability issues w/ detecting
| braking accurately, I think switching between the handlebar
| remote/sensor or phone sensors. It's an existing product with a
| direct analogue to your project goal, and minimally you could
| trawl for contacts within customer reviews or online reports to
| get some ideas about the good/bad in this problem space.
|
| Beware of patents (as relevant), but it's a noble and useful
| project and goal.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I wonder if that's the one the author refers to when they say,
| "I purchased one of the few similar products on the market. To
| my surprise, it relied solely on a basic tilt switch, rattling
| excessively during rides despite claims of "advanced
| technology."
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I have a smiley face rendered in retroreflective tape on the
| back of mine. I figure it's both bright and triggers the very
| sensitive human visual system for detecting faces. It's hard to
| say how much it helps, especially since I put it on basically
| the same time I started riding at all, but I don't _often_ have
| people tailgating me. ed: and it was only a couple bucks, that
| 's nice.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Nice idea! Cars owner sometime use a "children inside"
| sticker. Won't work for a solo bike obviously but wonder if
| some other messages might be effective like "Dad of
| toddlers", "I might be a cop", "vulnerable human"... the
| smiley is easier to read through.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| heh, or you could join an OMC (outlaw motorcycle club) and
| get patched up * for an implied 'i will literally kill you
| if you get close to me'
|
| * don't do this
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Ha, I have heard a couple motorcyclists sincerely
| recommend open-carrying a gun to scare off murderous
| asshole drivers (which, to be clear, absolutely exist).
| Neither of those options are on my to-do list though. :)
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| IMO, there are very few circumstances where "more guns"
| is an improvement. I don't think introducing guns to
| motorvehicle altercations is one of them.
| kelnos wrote:
| I have a negative visceral reaction to the "baby on board"
| stickers on cars. It feels really entitled; to me it says,
| "be extra careful with me, because my small child is more
| deserving of safety than other people".
| subscribed wrote:
| That's unnecessary.
|
| Think more like "I can be really distracted and suddenly
| swerve because my toddler threw their drink at me".
|
| Like with L-plate drivers. Be very careful, don't hate,
| they're just danger to themselves and everyone else
| around. They're not entitled, they're warning.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Then there's the guy in the "armed cyclist" jersey who goes
| on a cross-country ride every year.
| globular-toast wrote:
| When I was into road cycling I find having a banana sticking
| out my rear jersey pocket would make drivers treat me better.
| I later saw a study that drivers think cyclists are less
| human, so my theory is it reminded them that I am, in fact,
| just a person using the road.
|
| Alas, even the banana stopped working, though. Road cycling
| is horrible now. Too many cars.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Riding with a pannier does wonders to reduce close passes.
| The more drivers see you as a person on a bicycle rather
| than as a vehicle, the better.
|
| Another reason may be that they are more concerned about
| scratching their paint than they are about your well-being.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Californian motorcycle commuters are on another level in terms
| of risk imo. People are lane splitting at like 30mph over the
| speed of the rest of the traffic and absolutely no one checks
| for bikers before merging. It is a miracle more people don't
| die on the 5 or the 101 every day.
| throwup238 wrote:
| No kidding. The only time I've ever seen motorcycle accidents
| is on the 10 and 101. Highways in California in general are
| ridiculous; I'm constantly amazed driving on the 110 that
| more people don't get killed at the on-ramps with blind
| curves and everyone going 20 mph over the speed limit.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Does it use an accelerometer to turn on?
|
| Is it safe in case of an accident? The helmet is quite round,
| and the not round shape may be a problem.
| Corny0102 wrote:
| I use 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| If the binary isn't working then you are following too close
| and no method is truly safe
| WalterBright wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > Brightness would be hard to discern in the sun
|
| Nothing is perfect.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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)
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| It's not the first per say. https://admorelighting.com/
|
| Their owners manual for their braking light bar lists Patent #
| 10,363,865, but I don't know if this applies 1 to 1.
| Animats wrote:
| _" 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| A legal mandate should be made to require this on all motorbikes.
| kazinator wrote:
| 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.
| sublimefire wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Shame on the author. I clicked the "cats" link in the header only
| to find out it's short for categories. Boo.
| byte-bolter wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bmink wrote:
| Age is another differentiator. Take young men out of the
| equation and you get a much better picture.
|
| Another interesting stat is that the majority of motorcycle
| crashes are single vehicle accidents, ie. the rider going down
| by themselves. While this can be equipment failure, in most
| cases this will be crashing due to riding too fast or above
| skill level.
|
| So yes, riding very carefully at safe speeds and avoiding
| dangerous situations (I choose my routes to avoid situations
| where drivers are likely to be in their phone -- mostly
| freeways and freeway-like streets in cities) will make bikes a
| lot more safe.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| There are so many ways to die on a motorcycle that are outside
| of your control. Someone could not be paying attention, make a
| mistake, not see you, be drunk, etc.
|
| I knew someone at a previous company that was here one day then
| gone the next due to a non-highway accident caused by someone
| else IIRC.
|
| It's sort of like being friends with someone who plays low-
| chance russian roulette for fun in their free time.
| earnestinger wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Unfortunately for bystanders, but fortunately for drivers,
| noise is one of the strongest way for motorcycles to signal
| themselves to cars.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Factory motorcycles aren't that loud. Most of the ones you
| notice are modified.
| wonder_er wrote:
| 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
| toyg wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| post_break wrote:
| 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.
| interstice wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
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