My quest to make motorcycle riding that tad bit safer

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

Very much depends on the style of motorcycle. Sitting on my dual-sport BMW F650GS[1] I can see well over sedans on the road and this is with a slightly lowered version of it.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_G650GS

>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.

The vast majority of motorcycle crashes are due to excessive speed and inexperience of the rider. Also a car turning into the lane and failing to see the oncoming bike causes many, many accidents.

I ride in Spain, and I don’t know anything about “better visibility” requirements” compared to the U.S. — out here there are giant trucks everywhere: delivery vehicles, industrial trucks, and even Ford Raptors. My close calls have almost always been exclusively with small VW Golf and the SEAT equivalents — distracted, young drivers are (anecdotally) the biggest culprits.

Also in the U.S., you’ll have some 18 year old kid on an R1 that has no business being on an R1, often killing themselves because they think they are Fabio Quateraro at 2am.

I could be wrong, but I’m not seeing data suggesting that “big trucks” in the U.S. are causing more motorcycle deaths. When I drove a Suburban in the U.S., my visibility was far better than when I had a Maserati car. Being able to see over cars allowed me to see more easily when a moto was approaching from the front or rear.

If you want to improve moto safety in the U.S., you need harsher laws against distracted driving, you also need potentially a graduated motorcycle license system like they do in Europe so you don’t have rookies running 1000cc bikes when ten minutes of riding experience.

Trucks are not really the problem.

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.

That's cool. What principles is it based on and was it difficult to clean up the signals to get a reliable input?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Consider adding logic to test if the bulb is open. That would be a killer feature for sales.

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Well then they can tailgate someone else.

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.

> 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.

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.

An accelerometer would be a far better sensor than a gyro here. (You want to measure linear acceleration not angular velocity.)

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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.

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.

It was deaths/km ridden.

> 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.

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. :(