Side view assist tech from Bosch

November 2015

Sensors | Radar technology | Motorcycle | Safety
 

We've got it into our heads that we've seen this gizmo before someplace, but we can't remember where. Or when. A more basic device was used in the 1957 Robert Mitchum movie, The Enemy Below in which Mitchum is a US destroyer captain playing potentially lethal cat-and-mouse "games" with submarine commander Curt Jurgens. We might have seen it there. Or maybe it was simply in one of those occasional press releases that comes down the wire and gets accidentally deleted.

It happens.

Except that this new system by Bosch has more to do with the enemy at your side, notably vehicles that creep into your blind spots while your attention is distracted by, say, a particularly foxy female (or whatever) and lurks there waiting for you to carelessly/blithely change lanes or hang a sudden left.

The device works via four ultrasonic sensors; one on each corner of your bike. The onboard computer thingy registers passing objects, but rejects those that are stationary, or those coming up ahead. Instead, it calculates which objects are slow moving on your rear quarters and flashes a warning in your side mirror.

If you pass a car reversing into a spot, it won't trigger an alarm.

If you pass a car appearing out of a side turning it won't trigger an alarm.

If anything comes up quickly, it won't trigger an alarm.

If you're moving slower than 25kph or faster than 80kph it won't work.

The system is designed for urban biking rather than country lane cruising. But, as life-saving as it might be in the right circumstances, we can see all kinds of problems. Not least situations where there's a busy bus lane on your left, or a busy filter lane. That could perhaps lead to distraction and irritation. And how will it function/annoy with a particularly active pillion, or in group riding? Or when you've got vehicles creeping up on either side? And if you deactivate it in such circumstances, might you then forget it's off and subsequently make a manoeuvre expecting a warning? And what if you begin to rely on it and become lazy with your rear view checks?

So okay, all such technology can be misused and carries a risk. And Bosch, which has 360,000 associates worldwide and annually turns over 49 billion Euros, has probably looked at it from more angles that we've ever measured. Nevertheless, we'd take a lot of convincing before we'd fit this system to one of our bikes even though we're not blind, or deaf to the benefits.

There are not pricing details yet, nor information about a launch date. But we'll be listening out for both. You might want to do the same.

—  Girl Happy