Motorcycles Need Some Smart Tech Too

Motorcycles are dangerous, no doubt. Per mile traveled, people on motorbikes are nearly 30 times more likely to die in a crash than people in motorcars. It only makes sense to make sure that motorcycles are included in this technological revolution to increase the safety and efficiency of transportation. 

Some cities have started to include motorcycles in their testing for autonomous and connected vehicle research; For example, the Transportation Research Center in Ohio has been a testing ground for prototypes of cars and motorcycles for years. A state-of-the-art hub called the SMART Center, run by Ohio State University plans to expand and invest millions for an expansion, as well as business infrastructure and safety improvements.

Unfortunately, this development is nowhere close to the amounts of effort needed to stress the need for the inclusion of motorcycles in vehicle-to-vehicle communications technology. An Israeli company has caught on, and is working on a bike-to-vehicle system that uses short-range communication technology to exchange location, speed, heading, braking mode, and other information with nearby vehicles sporting similar hardware.

With so much happening in transportation technology recently, it's almost impossible to not be caught up in it. From the Hyperloop to autonomous cars, there is a constant buzz going around, and is almost always a viable topic for small talk, everyone's interested in it. However, whenever somebody mentions a smart vehicle, everybody imagines a car. But, why not a motorcycle?

It's understandable that most technological advances would be made for the more popular option that is the everyday commuter's sedan. The basic technology has been developed and already been in testing for a while now, it only seems obvious the next step would be to use this technology to increase the safety of all vehicles, not only motorcars.