The evolution of motorcycle gave a huge opportunity to those light pocketed bunch of people who couldn’t afford a car. It gave an opportunity to feel gliding, rolling, to sit still and still move. A larger than life experience that slowly grew the two wheeler automobile world.

  With increase in automobile numbers there is increase in the risk of life. Unlike a car, motorcycle/bike is more dangerous and prone to fall. Of course, thanks to gravity that is on nature’s payroll. But ease in riding comes with various challenges along like balance, wind blast force, weather which makes a four wheeler a handier automobile.

In a car

Generally, a car suffers from a crushed front bay when it meets an accident, e.g. during head on collision. This front bay is made such that the moment it runs into something hard, the whole bay gets squeezed. No, this is not because brands use a low strength material to build parts but by getting squeezed, this portion absorbs the strong force transferred by the front object. This force gets clogged up from reaching the driver.

 Driver also has a seat belt that avoids him/er from getting thrown at the steering wheel or out of the car. These features are good but not enough to save a driver. Airbag is one pre-eminent safety feature that nearly completes the safety system. The whole idea is to keep the driver in one piece. There are two types of safety 1)Active and 2)Passive.                    

🚲Active Safety

Active safety are electronically assisted features like anti-lock braking system(ABS),traction control, stability control which are active most of the time.

🚲Passive Safety

Passive safety activates the moment an accident occurs. Automobile structure, seat belt and airbags are passive safety. The existence of these components is felt only in a crash.

 

In a bike

Riding requires one basic skill called balancing as it cannot balance itself on two wheels by its own like a car which has four wheels to do so. In a severe frontal collision, front end of the bike gets temporarily locked to object face to which the bike has collided. This makes rear end to pop a stoppie(raising the rear wheel in air). The structure is not designed to squeeze itself like a car due to the movable front fork that breaks in many severe crashes. Rider gets flipped off and twirls forward in air simultaneously hitting that object hard.

This could cause severe injuries or even cost his/er life. Motorcycle accidents have taken so many lives worldwide. In 2017, a total of 5172 motorcyclists died in crashes according to NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION (NHTSA). This is 27 times more than car occupant deaths.

WHO?

Airbag is a vehicle safety system having a nylon cushion bag that inflates as soon as something gets smashed into the bumper which avoids occupant from hard impact. Airbag was successfully tested on automobile by John.W.Hetrick( U.S.A) in 1952 and Walter Linderer(Germany) in 1953. It was tested on a car due to large cabin space for the system assembly. The bag was filled with compressed air which was either released by a spring or the driver itself as soon as the bumper hit any object. General Motors (GM) started producing cars for government use only. Chevrolet Impala was a division of GM, rolled out many sedans out of the factory. Later, Oldsmobile which was again a division of GM produced a car named Tornado that had an airbag system and available for domestic use.

 Motorcycle/bike doesn’t have enough room for such a system which is why no automaker took interest in it. It was until long touring on bike got famous making tourer motorcycle to come into existence. After many years, two wheeler family got its first airbag equipped bike. World’s largest two motorcycle manufacturer Honda released the famous tourer “GL1800 Gold Wing” with all car features in 2006.  

 

Location?

A car has this system assembled inside the centre padding of steering wheel. Similarly, airbag system is housed inside the small dashboard pad in a bike. The pad has “AIRBAG” written on it. Some concept bikes have the system fitted in front fender along with dashboard to improve overall results. Obviously the size of front fender in such bikes is large.

 

The goal is to avoid rider from getting thrown forward. Technically, the kinetic energy of rider due to the momentum achieved by him/er at the instantaneous time of collision is reduced by absorbing some energy by cushioning effect of the airbag.   

Parts?

🚴Crash sensor

There are more than one sensor located near the front fork of the bike and play a role of force detector. This is the first part of bike that comes in contact with the object being crashed to. So the inception of airbag deployment starts with this section of bike. Crash sensors are set to a pre-defined impact force value.

🚴Electronic control module or ECU

ECU is basically a small computer chip or brain of the system. It determines whether to deploy airbag or not.

🚴Airbag module

Airbag module provides shelter to the unit. Large V-shaped bag is neatly folded and attached to frame by a rope inside the module. This is done to avoid airbag from carrying forward when the rider falls on it. Module also has inflator and ECU inside it.

🚴Inflator

Sheltered inside airbag module, inflator is a small cylinder that stores nitrogen gas inside it and sends it to fill airbag.

All the components are connected to each other and closely monitored by ECU.

 

Deployment?

The moment a bike crashes to an object with just 0.015secs passed, sensors have detected the force. Signals have gone to ECU which has confirmed the force exceeds the pre-set value. Electric signal sent to the inflator made it produce nitrogen gas which has transferred it to the airbag. Deployment process has begun where the airbag is now getting inflated simultaneously. With 0.060secs passed, inflated airbag has started absorbing kinetic energy of the rider who is getting thrown forward. With 0.1secs passed, airbag continues to absorb kinetic energy and simultaneously ejects the gas out through small holes provided on the side bottom. Actually, it is not the inflation but the deflation process that saves a rider. With 0.15secs passed, airbag system has successfully absorbed the kinetic energy of the rider and saved a live. It didn’t even take a second to complete as observed and showed how quick it reacts to such situations.

The cons of this system are 1)it couldn’t be installed in all the bikes that is why hardly two or three models have it, 2)Lacks effectiveness in side collision. So, does this mean that we have arrived where we had started? Well...NOPE!!! You might have heard this famous phrase – “where there is a will, there is a way!”

Makers thought if all bikes cannot be fitted with an airbag system then why not fit airbag system on the rider itself. Anyways the ultimate goal was to save rider. A special riding suit with an installed airbag system is called Air bag vest. It was developed for MotoGP racers who clock a top speed that exceeds 300km/h in every race. It was later brought out in the public domain after being a successful feature. It has ECU and inflator inside the aerodynamic hump. The airbag is installed inside the suit that surrounds the rider starting from shoulders to chest and back area.

       

This shields the shoulder and collarbones the moment airbag is deployed and restrains them from oscillating when she/he gets thrown off the bike. The suit is made of high quality leather that is tear resistant and shares the purpose with an airbag. It also has shoulder and elbow slider with nylon slider pad and titanium plates on the surface of it.

Plates help from serious injuries when rider hits the ground hard. Rider may skid for a while after landing to the ground in a high speed crash and this is when slider saves the rider from the rough road surface. Airbag is not connected anywhere to the bike but for precise functioning, it has a GPS system which monitors bike speed and recognizes danger. Rider distance from the bike along with the speed is telemetered so that airbag deploys before rider hits the ground. This infact helps in perfect deployment of airbag. It is a better feature irrespective of the direction in which a rider falls whether she/he high sides or low side with continuous rolling. Brands like Dainese and Alpinestar etc make such suits.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA), more than 44,000 lives were saved by airbags. It has definitely made high speed riding safer to much extent saving tons of lives. 

Riding sensibly and well in the speed limits along with these safety features will definitely prove a complete protection package. Well said by someone, “ITS BETTER TO BE LATE THAN NEVER!!!!”