Safe Speed Forums

[Pedant] The change in stability comes from the fact that the front wheel is rotating and can be turned on an axis at right angles to the axis of rotation. It is quite easy to balance stationary bike provided the front wheel is rotating. You can see that at any (pedal bike) track meeting where the riders warm up on training rollers.[/pedant ]

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

The "hard to turn" throttle is a new idea, the other one (that is favoured over all others) is to just limit the speed by limiting the engine rpm electronically/electromechanically.
As you can imagine, the idea horrified practically all motorcyclists.
The latter idea morphed somewhat when the designers were told (rather strongly) that cutting engine power on a corner would dramatically increase accidents, so the idea was played-about with that a tilt-sensor could be used to sense when the motorcycle was "leaning".
The Lord alone knows what ideas are flavour of the year now.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Seat belts for motorbikes Jom.

When a SMIDSY happens the bike stops and the rider goes forward. The handlebars take the bikers lower legs off so a biker seatbelt, or BS for short, is on the cards.

The other option under discussion is flexile handlebars. "How does that work?", I hear you say. Good question and one I asked of someone in the not-know at Brake, a Mr Frederick Oliver Openhiemer Lederhosen.

What he told me was the harder you accelerate the more the bars bend until you are trying to twist the throttle like those of table football. This difficult angle prevents bikers from using too much power and has the additional benefit of preserving the legs of bikers in a SMIDSY. (It’s obvious really and I don’t know how someone hasn’t come up with it sooner).

Another additional benefit is when you have a fat bloke on the back you can make more room by just bending the bars forward. Depending on how much riding you do with a fat person on the back you can get different grades of handlebar which flex in accordance to the resistor colour code. A black handlebar is quite inflexible but a grey one is like a salami. An average stiff one comes in yellow.

I know this sound implausible but I have insider information from my privileged position in the NHS when I recently treated Cameroon for a head injury. I met him the other day and said “Nice to meet you sir but what’s with the huge angry lump across your forehead?”.

Looking somewhat bemused and putting his hand on his forehead he said to me “But I don’t have a huge angry lump on my forehead”.

It was at that point I revealed the baseball bat I was concealing behind my back...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

OTOH, I know of at least a couple of riders who are still in the land of the living only because they deliberately parted company with their bikes when it became obvious that they were about to hit something solid.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Just kidding Pete, but yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly bud.

The same can, and has, happened with cars. Compulsory seat-belt wearing was foisted upon us but I'm not sure where the evidence, research or proof ever came from, if any, that it does more good than harm

Last year a 'sort of' friend from the biker scene who owns a Harley had an accident. Thinking that she had come off her bike I asked her what happened.

I swear this is true... She had an accident in a car, not her fault, and the seatbelt broke her sternum. She may well have been better off without the belt - or not?

I know the naysayers will say "without the belt her fate would have been worse". I remain open minded about it TBH. As always, on everything, show me the real proof and I’m big enough to do a U-Turn.

I wear a helmet on my m-bike because I have seen the evidence, first hand, and it makes good sense. (Oh, and it's a very obvious illegal infraction).

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I believe in seatbelts for cars, as they probably saved my life about 30 years ago. I was driving along, minding my own business, when some very drunk numpty coming the other way decided to overtake...

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

It is very disturbing to think that discussions about this probably do not have a single biker in the room.

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http://kalvis.com/

There's at least one that I know of in here.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

WARNING - the following ramblings engendered by graball's post are at least off topic, if not down right silly!




Hmmm...

I reckon they could do some research to show that walking into a lamp post at less than 3mph, for example, is less likely to cause injury than doing so at 4mph. In the interests of safety pedestrians should therefore be fitted with speed control devices. Two suggestions for this device are a bungy between the ankles that tightens to restrict the stride or a simple throttle control where a small electric motor tightens a strap around the throat cutting off the motor's, i.e. muscles', air supply.


On a rather more sensible note perhaps some kind of haptic feedback would let a rider keep their eyes on the road rather than the speedo, think of it as an extension of the sat nav stuck on your car's dash beeping to warn you about a camera

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I did give the link to the website which does explain what the issues are - however for clarification.

In the SAFERIDER project the bike will be equipped with a force controlled throttle able to tune the return force through a servo controlled electric motor in order to communicate a speed reduction warning.

In simple terms, it act the same way as the ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) which was produced by MIRA/Leeds University, and was tested by experts who all considered the device to be dangerous.

Simply, when the bike gets to a determined speed, the throttle stiffens to prevent it from opening further (to go faster). It is not in strict sense a speed limiter rather a "Force Feedback throttle" and acts through a sensor system (GPRS mapping) so that the device will activate depending on the speed restrictions in place at a specific location.

And by the way I ride a bike.

For further information please see
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=110048992379785

Ahem...

I don't understand why you would say that so soon without knowing your audience, but no matter...

For what it's worth, from me, I hope you stick around.

Kawasaki Tone

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

????

Have you never had an experience in your life whereby you have had to speed up to avoid danger?

If so you are either very lucky or????

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I am by no means an expert, but my little bike has nothing like the stability as my new bike that has ten times the power. I have noticed on my big bike, that one doesn't need to open the throttle to its widest position. It is actually possible to make the bike move at quite small throttle openings. There is also a "dial", which I believe is called a "speedometer". This "dial" is right in front of the riders eyes and is used to tell the rider how many miles or kilometres the motorcycle is doing per hour. The rider can then use this "dial" determine whether or not he/she needs to ride slower to remain legal.

One factor that your average car driver has a bit of trouble getting their heads round is just how jolly quickly even modestly powerful motorbikes can accelerate (I don't know if Speedy has ridden a bike, apologies if you have, it's just a good quote to illustrate a point). Most of the time out on the mean roads of northern England by the time car drivers have figured you're going to overtake you've done it.

To illustrate, using power to weight ratios, and apologies for the old fashioned measurements, but they do make it clear what sort of performance capabilities we are talking here:
2005 Williams F1 carried 1.4lbs per single bhp, Lambo Murcielargo carries 5.1lb per bhp, an Impreza WRX 11lb and a 2ltr Focus around 20lb. A Suzuki V-Strom 650 (a fairly modest tourer) carries 6.1lb for each horse and a Honda CBR1000RR (Honda's flagship sportsbike) carries just 2.5lb.

All this means not only do you not always need to go near full throttle but on the faster sports bikes it's often best not too - if only for the sake of you licence. if we really need such road performance is a very different question.

Over the years a lot of money has been thrown at trying to make motorbikes 'safer' by well meaning boffins. We've had foam lined leg shields, A tank top bracing pad, airbags etc. None have come to fruition and I guess (and hope) neither will this one. The dynamics are very complex and to design and test a system that would work safely would cost millions - who's gonna pay? One accident attributed too the system and not the rider and it would be game-over. Sheesh look at Toyota's fly by wire throttle fun this last year.

Chris

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

Wow, irony/sarcasm/reductio ad absurdum fails even when provided with a precursory hint.

To be clear, your post pointing out the obvious benefits to having an option to increase speed in order to avoid a collision made me consider what the result of applying speed control logic to pedestrians would be.

Yes, not only have I occasionally used acceleration to avoid danger, but often use it to minimise the possibility of a dangerous situation arising. It is one of the key points I have against cameras, you can end up with the choice between leaving yourself in a less than optimally safe position or risking your licence. Average speed cameras are particularly at fault in this respect, vans are worse still.

You did not read my post as saying your post was rambling, silly and off topic I hope.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Leaving aside the dynamics of bikes (of which I know little!) I'd seriously caution any kind of device that the rider could "over-ride" or switch off. This is legislation by the back door. What I fear will happen is that it will be proposed, rejected, then re-submitted for discussion with the option of an over-ride or switch-off. That will then be accepted as a compromise and then when it's in production, we'll start seeeing lawyers wriggling out of compensation claims when they find it was switched off at the time. From there it's a short step to the prosecuting lawyers using it to allude to "reckless" behaviour etc and before you know it - "de-facto legislation by the back door".

Paranoid? Yes, but that doesn't mean they're not out to get me!!!

I did not mean here, but the discussions making the proposals. It is obvious that bikers have contributed to this thread.

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http://kalvis.com/

I was not talking about here, but where the proposals are being drafted.

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http://kalvis.com/

I know you are a biker, that has been clear.

It may be very dangerous, but what I was asking does it really make the motorcycle strictly unstable. In any argument against something, you only weaken it, by overstating it.

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http://kalvis.com/

(oopps point already covererd)

New point.

Quote:

" a force controlled throttle able to tune the return force through a servo controlled electric motor"

Two thoughts occur to me.

1) What happens when the computer goes mad (as they always do eventually!)

2) will the rider be able to "tune" the resistance to their own strength. (throttle stifness that would present me with merely a minor inconveniance would likly be beyond the stenghth of a, say, petite lady biker)

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"