Most of us ordinarily never read the speedo as often as we should. Don't really care about the gear as we ride by feel. Riding bikes is about being cool, being individual. Not being bothered about techno-crap. We know the game. We know we are 4 000 times (UK Figures) more likely to be involved in a serious or fatal accident but that all adds to the cool factor surely? To make HUD's appear yet more pointless surprisingly very few accidents happen on the open road - Only around 20% and in total only around 15% of all motorbike accidents are speed-related. All of this info is easily found in two reports - The Hurt and The Maids. Google them if I've peeked your interest.
While many of you are nodding your head in violent appreciation of the above I'd ask you to consider also the following.......
1/. Statistically you're most likely to get knocked off or involved in a collision in urban area's - Those areas are also the more common areas of speed control - be those by camera's or police-manned radar. hmmmm now lets think this one through..... So in those area's you need to keep your wits about you AND monitor your speed more? If you don't have a HUD that means frequently looking down. The older you get the longer it takes to do this. Accommodation as its called is on average four times longer for a 60 year old than one 21.Every one of us old buggers - 40 and above is starting to show significantly slower accommodation and most don't even realise it. The fact is looking down to read your speedo or gps IS a distraction. As a point of interest The city of Bath in the UK is introducing a Bylaw to make the use of GPS navigation systems illegal within the city - such is their feelings of distraction. So if you apply this to to the UK's accident comparison rates above that computes to 3 200 more likely to be involved in serious accident in urban areas at the same time an increased likelihood of getting nicked. Speed limits are being tightened down. That's a fairly recent development. In Australia certain states will book you for being just 1Kph over. In NZ it's 5Kph and Canada's RCMP are clamping down similarly. For those of you who ride in mph..... 1Kph is 0.6mph and 5Kph is just 3mph. Surely having something to reduce both must be at least worth considering - unless of-course you ride around screaming Banzii at the top of your voice and don't care about your license.
2/. Motorcycle HUD Technology is not just about putting speed, engine revs and gear info into your vision. It's really about centralising data that ultimately will come from multiple sources - not just your bike but programmed data. GPS mapping is the obvious one but other stuff such as Training instructions and Track Day. information giving you more scientific methodes of braking markers, sector timings and also Pit Lane messages. The list goes on. You really need to be thinking out of the box.
3/. It's NOT the data that's distracting but how it is displayed that has potential to distract. We at BIKESYSTEMS have spent huge amounts of time developing the Rule of Three which keeps info concise and clear. Check out both the video's of the old and new to get the idea. athttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1217074232/smallest-flexible-motorcycle-head-up-display-with . When was the last time you saw a Japanese crotch rocket or BMW or fine Italian thoroughbred with instrumentation so clear AND set at infinity so's you don't refocus eliminating the accommodation described in 1 above??
4/. Will BIKEHUD blind you in an accident?? Guy's guy's..... just think about it....... In this highly lucratively litigious world do you really think a guy would put all he has into a project like this and then convince a bunch of other to invest in if it had the capabilities of gouging someone's eye out or block your vision? REALLY!!!! As with all automotive HUD's BIKEHUD is NOT designed to be positioned in your direct field of vision. It is designed to be worn off to one side or below your forward vision. An optimum of 6 - 15 degrees from your horizontal line of site is best. But like everything we do where possible we put a great deal of effort into making BIKEHUD as flexible as possible which means outside of certain legal guidelines you put it where you get the best out of it. Look at both videos you'll see BIKEHUD CLASSIC and ADVENTURE are positioned differently that is to optimise the respective products. Also - take a look at our web site - specifically the video's we have on the independent crash testing we had carried out to ensure in the event of an accident it won't cause injury.
P.S. BIKEHUD CLASSIC only weighs around 30g. Adventure will weigh around 100g. So does NOT affect the overall mass of a crash helmet. It also fits inside helmets so does NOT affect either the streamlining of the helmet nor does it provide pressure-points that could potentially cause injury.
5/. Camera's are important for so many reasons but perhaps the most important one is significantly reducing settlement times. Motorcycle insurance claims are notoriously long-winded and cause significant distress - especially in the cases of disablement or death. Camera's correctly positioned and reliably recording data have been proven to significantly reduce settlement times and in many cases interim payments are often made to ease distress in the short term. BIKEHUD's Black box approach adds in the telemetry so poor Granny Numptie won't be able to protest that you were coming from no - where, engine screaming and panicked her so regardless of what the video says its still your fault! BIKESYSTEMS CPU records both front and rear camera images together with the telemetry. In the event of an accident not only do you have the video but also your speed, gear, whether you were indicating. In all the perfect witness. And on top of that you can see behind you at the press of a button for those really fast overtakes WITHOUT losing focus on the road ahead.
