NO AIRBAG ON A BIKE? THEN WEAR ONE
Quick-inflate jackets, vests and suits enhance safety for motorcycle riders
The greatest automotive safety advance of the past 30 years is, without doubt, the airbag. Instead of smacking one’s head into a cranium-contusing windshield or, worse yet, a torso-crushing steering wheel, passengers in the modern automobile are now coddled — that’s a relative term, to be sure — in the pillow-like embrace of an air cushion. Yes, the seatbelt saved more lives, but the airbag lets people walk away from otherwise crippling crashes (often) unscathed.
We motorcyclists aren’t so lucky. We ride completely exposed to the elements sans automotive-like safety cage, and motorcycle manufacturers have yet to adopt airbag technology. Oh, one forward-thinking manufacturer (Honda) introduced one model (its fully loaded Gold Wing land yacht) that has a supplemental restraint system built into its framework. But that was a decade ago and no one else has since followed suit.
It’s not like there’s something special about motorcycles that makes airbags any less effective. Watching a slo-mo video of a Gold Wing T-boning a car amidships — in the controlled environment of a test lab, of course — is to understand a) exactly why we motorcyclists are so vulnerable in car-bike collisions and b) to revel in how something seemingly so simple could prevent so much grotesque injury.
As to why more manufacturers don’t build airbags into their motorcycles, I’ll admit to being mystified. The best I can come up with is that said airbags have to be built into a bike’s upper gas-tank area and the extra bulkiness would dramatically alter most motorcycles’ styling. Shallow that may be, but in the decade since Honda introduced the industry’s first supplemental air restraint, there’s been precious little talk of a second.
Since airbags aren’t coming (any time soon, at least) to motorcycles, we motorcyclists will have to go to the airbag. In other words, if motorcycle manufacturers won’t build airbags into their products, then we’ll just have to carry — actually, wear — them ourselves. And, indeed, in recent years, a few forward thinking motorcycle-clothing manufacturers have been building airbags right into their riding jackets and leather suits. Yes, you read that right; airbags built right into your clothing.
Garnering the lion’s share of the publicity in this regard have been bike-clothing giants Alpinestars and Dainese, both of whom offer full racing suits as well as riding jackets (Dainese can be found worldwide; unfortunately, Alpinestars’ Tech-Air system is not currently available in Canada and the U.S.). Smaller firms, such as France’s Helite, offer a more modest range of jackets, but counter by offering airbag vests as standalone outerwear. Whatever the case, you can now walk into any motorcycle store and order a wearable airbag for less than $800 (though a full-boat Dainese D-air racing suit will set you back some $3,000).
How effective are these airbags? Let me give you two examples, the first technocratic, the other personal. The standards currently used to judge the effectiveness of motorcycle armour fall under something called Conformite Europeenne, the CE markings that motorcyclists are told to look for in the most protective of their clothing. Current CE standards, for instance, for shoulder armour — padding inserted into the shoulder area of jackets and suits — allow for no more than 35 kilo-Newtons of force to be transmitted to the humerus and clavicle.
I won’t bother detailing the specifics of what a kilo-Newton is (or how the laboratory test is conducted) other than to say this: 35 kN is enough to break the bones in your shoulder but not quite shatter them. Above 35 kN of impact, bones start to shatter and recovery is, shall we say, complicated. In other words, basic armour does offer some protection compared with hitting the tarmac (or a car) sans padding, but it’s not a whole helluva lot.
Dainese, meanwhile, claims that the D-air suit I mentioned earlier transmits just two of those kilo-Newton things. That, says the company, is a reduction in impact to your shoulder (motorcyclists are particularly prone to broken and separated shoulders when they fall off their steeds) of more than 95 per cent. In other words, an airbag suit can take what might otherwise have been a catastrophic injury and reduce it to mere bruising.
On a more personal note, I’ve recently been testing a new jacket by Helite, a small manufacturer that specializes in airbag garments (for skiers and snowmobilers as well as motorcyclists). Although the Helite jacket uses a very basic tether cord triggering mechanism — Dainese’s D-air uses a computer and gyroscope built right into the suit to trigger its airbag — its protection is no less impressive. Because Helite doesn’t publish official figures, I decided to test its protective abilities with myself as lab rat, my brilliant idea being to take one airbag jacket, yank its tether cord and then let editor-in-chief, Neil Vorano (who won a disconcertingly popular lottery) beat me upside the back with a baseball bat.
And … I felt nothing. Or, more accurately, I felt no pain. Oh, the force of the blows made me lose my balance, but there was none of the localized pressure that causes injury. Indeed, even with vengeance in his heart (he, after all, has to edit my rudimentary writings), our resident Sultan of Swat couldn’t muster enough energy to cause me any pain at all.
That may not be scientific, but I don’t think we need strain gauge and pressure transducers to understand that a bat taken to a bare back is not going to be a healthy experience.
That’s the reason the Helite “Vented” jacket is now my go-to garment when riding my motorcycle on the street and why I don a Dainese D-Air suit every time I take to the track. In my now almost 50 years of motorcycling, I have never felt so protected as when I know I’m hooked up to a high-pressure airbag.
Airbags, as I said, have been the greatest automotive safety advance of the past 30 years. They have the potential to have an even greater impact on motorcyclist injury prevention.