Safety Sphere inflatable suit
As car occupant safety accelerates in leaps and bounds, motorcycle rider safety has barely evolved... Until now. Behold the Safety Sphere...The idea of integrated airbag safety technology into motorcycle leathers is nothing new, Dainese has been developing its own airbag system for several years now.
An inventive designer in Canada, Rejean Neron, has proposed taking the idea of a protective suit with inflatable sections to the next level, by completely enveloping the rider in a two meter protective sphere.
Watch the video at the bottom of this page for an insight into how the motorcycle safety technology, called the Safety Sphere, could work.
Neron proposes that many motorists are afraid of riding a scooter or motorcycle for fear of crashing, where this suit would eliminate such reservations. Ultimately Neron would like to see motorcycles as the main form of transport in cities of the future, as a way to reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion.
As bizarre as the idea is, in theory it could potentially save lives and at the least reduce the severity of injuries incurred in a crash. The suit inflates in 0.05 seconds, or five hundredths of a second, when it detects the rider has been thrown from the motorcycle, which would ostensibly protect the rider from impact injuries. The suit only works when the rider comes off the motorcycle however.
The Safety Sphere is made from two separate layers of parachute-like material, and is hooked up to a battery that can will set off an reservoir of nitrocellulose, which inflates the suit with explosive speed.
"The outer layer is made up of a highly resistant parachute type material," says Neron. "The inner layer is made up of a thin, moderately elastic synthetic material. In a collision situation, the passengers are thrown from the motorcycle, the cord connecting them to the motorcycle seat disconnects, the electrical voltage plummets, and the electronic circuit processor inside the belt buckle housing of each occupant connects the 9 volt battery to an electric igniter in the back housing of their respective suits."
Work on the Safety Sphere has taken up Neron's time for the past few years, and he is currently looking for investors to get the design to production. If it did find funding and became available, would you consider using one? Leave your comments in the section below.
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