Making You More Visible
The designer Joe Doucet has an interesting design for a motorcycle helmet that makes a lot of sense. While most helmets focus on protecting you when you crash, his design works to actively prevent crashes from occurring. The helmet you see above has built-in lights near the bottom half of the shell. This area is usually white when riding. When you brake, the helmet senses the shift in momentum and speed and turns red, alerting drivers behind and around you.
Joe Doucet said the helmets move the braking indicator higher up so truck, SUV, car and crossover drivers can more easily see it. “Motorcycle lights are very low above the ground compared to other vehicles,” Doucet told Dezeen, “Sotera solves this problem by putting the light at the eye-line of other drivers.”
Doucet’s Sotera motorcycle helmet still provides quality protection. Its shell is a kevlar and polycarbonate, which should endure forces well. Doucet was going to try to sell the helmet at first. Now he decided to not patent his design so other companies can take his design and implement it.
“I opened up the intellectual property to any company who chooses to produce a version of the helmet. Weighing the potential of saving a life against a royalty check is an easy decision to make,” Doucet said.
Whether or not you think Doucet’s design is a smart one, you have to admit that he has admirable intentions. Personally, I think this is a good idea. Having some indicators higher up would certainly help riders be more easily seen, but I wonder if people would wear this kind of helmet.
My G-max helmet has a built in running and/or strobe light built into it.
You can also buy a module that works in conjunction with bikes brake light.
What do you think of that helmet, Frank? I’m about to start testing the MD01 version and curious about what someone who’s had a GMax for a while thinks of its performance?