Another question - Air Jackets?

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 10:08:20 +1100

Nearly had that happen on the Mighty Scooter.

Solution was this:
http://www.aerostich.com/grip-lock.html

Ain't cheap but then the bike's worth more than the difference between
that and a cheap disk lock.

Won't be riding away with that fitted!

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 10:44:48 +1100

I don't think "forgetting to disconnect before riding off" is
"probably forget to use it" or analogous to not connecting the jacket.

Not using the lock at all is the disk lock version of forgetting
to connnect.. Not removing before riding off is the disk lock
version of forgetting to detach.

HOw much hassle something's worth is a very individual decision. I
make it one way about full vs open face lids but clearly other people have a
different easer/comfort/vision/safety tradeoff.

(or perceived safety, because the real safety is damn hard to
determine for most things.)

I'd want a very good idea of just what kind of crash this jacket does
well in, and how frequent those are, and when and how they occur.
Because without that info I have no way to decide if the hassle is
worth it.

Until it crosses my "it's a pain but it's worth it" line, I won't
bother with the hassles and expense.

I didn't use to wear a jacket in hot weather because the heat and
discomfort wasn't worth it to me. When light coloured mesh jackets
became available I bought one and I can't recall the last time I rode
without a jacket. "Jacket as safety item" crossed the "it's a pain
but worth it" line when I could get one that wasn't too uncomfortable
to wear.


Any safety device has to be on the right side of "too much like work
for what I think I get out of it", whether it's a lock, an airbag
jacket, or a guard rail around a machine. The "what I get out of it" can
be changed by legislation or by seeing someone saved of course.

Zebee

 

No, if it is a purely manually operated system, which requires a certain
amount of force to be applied to it before it deploys, I cannot imagine
what 'fault' would cause it to deploy without a force being applied to
the trigger mechanism.

Nev..

 

Yeah, call me names. That will make people think this shit you post is
more relevant. Excellent plan. LOL.

Nev..

 

That says it all really.
Broken bones hurt like hell, and prevention of same is a Good Thing
(TM).
Therefore to race out and buy something that promises so much in that
regard would seem like a no-brainer. However, I, like Zebee, would
like to see some evidence of efficacy and would like to know if the
downsides (whatever they might be) are outweighed by benefits, thus
worth tolerating.
That's how I see it, and I agree with Zebee. I await further
information.

 

Hasn't that been your plan all these years Nev ??

 

Good design would be to have two components - the jacket with the air
bag, and an accelerometer trigger like in cars permanently fixed to the
bike. You plug the jacket into the accelerometer.

If you do this it would be impossible for the air bag to deploy while
you are unplugged.

This doesn't seem to be the way the Hit-Air system works, but that
system seems to be offering protection against being blown backwards off
your bike, which is a very unusual type of motorcycle accident.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:01:57 +1100

But which bones?

I suspect that the most common broken bones in motorcycle crashes are
legs and wrists...

Zebee

 

Correct. Supporting evidence here:
http://tinyurl.com/25rmdag

Note that this comes from Los Angeles, where, as the article says, the
wearing of full-face helmets has been mandated. Don't know how the Hells
Angels are coping.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:06:09 +1100

Hurt report says:
" Half of the injuries to the somatic regions were to the ankle-foot,
lower leg, knee, and thigh-upper leg."

(somatic apparently means external. Dunno if ribs are included in
this)

What the summary page I got that from
(http://www.magpie.com/nycmoto/hurt.html) doesn't say is what the
deaths were from. Being the Hurt report I suspect many were head
injuries.

The page you point to says "Less than 10% are spinal cord injuries"
which is still a lot.. and if this jacket triggers then it would
appear to do a fairly good job in preventing those.

http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/reports/atsb174.html says amongst other
things
- chest injuries were uncommon but relatively severe when they occurred
- 44% of motorcyclists had upper limb injuries and 57% had lower limb injuries
- most common injuries overall were fracture of the knee or lower leg
(28%) and fracture of the forearm (17%)

Looks to me like this jacket would do a reasonable job of protecting
you from serious injuries - spinal and chest.

It would do nothing for the most common injuries.

In a long and varied career of falling off motorcycles, I haven't had
any injuries this jacket would help with. Doesn't mean I won't, and
certainly the header off the Ducati could have had a worse outcome
than a head injury, I could have broken my neck.

(That I didn't could be luck or it could be that most people don't.
There is a fundraising drive on at work at the moment for a bloke who
fell off his bicycle and broke his neck and is now a quadriplegic, but
again how common that is I don't know.)

The MAIDS website (http://www.maids-study.eu/) has some data you
have to register to get. One of the downloads is a comparison of
Euro crash data to English (OTS) crash data from serious crashes.
(The comparison report notes that the crash severity differs in the
2 data sets because the English only investigate serious crashes.
The Euros also did more work at each investigation...)

From stuff in the summary (haven't read the full report yet) looks like
the OTS data was from more open road sport crashes compared to the
Euro which had commuters as well.

The summary notes:

"Injuries: significant differences are found between the accidents
in OTS and MAIDS in terms of the injuries recorded. OTS data reports
higher proportions of neck, thorax and abdomen injuries than MAIDS.
MAIDS data shows significantly higher proportions of head and lower
extremity injuries."

So looks like if you are someone who does a lot of sport riding then
this is likely to be more useful to you than a commuter, and possibly
a tourer.

Given that... reckon they'll appear in racing any time soon?

Zebee

 

Do what I did, I made a contraption with a microswitch in series with
the starter switch,now it wont start unless the lock is locked on to the
contraption.

 

<snip>

Interesting.
My only broken bones in a lifetime have been thumb, ribs, sternum. The
one that gave me the most grief for the longest recovery was the
latter, and the easiest to live with during a shorter recovery was the
former.
I guess it all boils down to the old OH&S (grrrr) Risk Assessment
thingie - Likelihood multiplied by consequence equals degree of risk.
Anyway, I still need to know whether wearing an air jacket reduces the
likelihood of chest back and neck damage. If it does, then I will be
the first to try one on.

 

I've only ever broken ribs in 3 bike accidents.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:58:32 +1100

Well.. I dunno how well it would do against penetration injury. If
you get spiked it will likely not help.

I also suspect that if you have anything in a body pocket you'll get
that slammed into you - which happens in a crash now!.

Looks to me like it will help if you slam into something like the
landscape or a car.

Not sure how well it protects the neck, probably about as well as you
can for something that doesn't go all the way around the neck. (Does
it? I can't tell.)

So you;d probably be protected from whiplash type injuries the same as
headrests in cars do, and mostly from rotational ones.

Zebee

 

Hand sheepishly rises from the back of the class...

 

I watched two happen within five mins of each other at the PI campground.
Pack up the tent and all the gear, put on the jacket and helmet, carefully
put the leg over the very top-heavy bike, start the engine, engage gear,
release clutch, ride forward a foot, hit the disclock, fall over, listen to
the laughter. Five minutes later another guy did the same thing. Up to that
point I was considering buying one.

Theo

 

Is one of them called George?

Theo

 

Yup, you've totally misread what I wrote. But hey, you're very good at that.

Theo

 

?? You been watching Martha Stewart George?

Theo

 

Huh?

somatic (s.`mæt?k) adj.
1. of or relating to the soma:somatic cells.
2. of or relating to an animal body or body wall as distinct from the
viscera, limbs, and head.
3. of or relating to the human body as distinct from the mind:a somatic
disease.
[C18: from Greek s matikos concerning the body, from soma the body]

That doesn't tally very well with my Collins. This appears to say the body
excluding the limbs.

Theo