Dguard – the world’s first eCall system for motorcycles

German electronics giant digades is rolling out the world’s first eCall system for motorcycles across Europe. If you’ve not heard of eCall technology before – it’s a European initiative that aims to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in collisions anywhere in the EU.

The dguard eCall system utilises advanced sensor technology to detect a crash and contact the emergency services in a matter of seconds. The sensor is a sophisticated bit of kit and works a bit like a magnetic field, detecting a rider’s presence, or lack of it, on the bike. The emergency services are given an automated spoken message, with the GPS coordinates of the accident. If the injured rider is wearing a Bluetooth headset and is able to speak, then the dguard will connect the emergency call directly.

There’s a Deutsch Mobile Sim built into the module – on a roaming data contract, so it’ll connect to whichever provider is offering the strongest signal (which should minimise the risk of being caught out in a dead spot, without signal).

It functions throughout Europe, with the exception of the Netherlands – due to a law which does not currently permit automated calls to be made to emergency services, and it’s capable of automatically communicating in 18 individual languages.

It also comes with a handlebar mounted SOS button, which allows a rider to call the emergency services for another person. Importantly, an inadvertently placed emergency call can be stopped within 15 seconds by pressing the button twice (or more).

To ensure that the dguard can reliably distinguish an accident, digades undertook three years of research and development – doing over 50,000 miles of testing in multiple countries. Themanufacturer also had to ensure that their device would continue to operate even under the most extreme conditions – and undertook crash tests at speeds of 60mph. Theunit is housed in an aramid case which is capable of withstanding 300G of force, so digades is confident it’s capable of withstanding a crash at higher speeds too.

It costs £499 including installation and two years’ SIM subscription – and you’ll get a module, a sensor, a button and an app for full configuration of the system. For more information, visit: www.bikeittrade.com