New Bosch Smart Crash Detection Service Could Save Thousands of Lives
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the risk of dying in an accident is more than 20 times higher for motorcyclists than it is for car drivers.
In spite of this statistic, emergency response services, such as General Motors’ connected OnStar service, are much more commonly integrated into new cars.
Now, Bosch is aiming to make the same technology mainstream for motorcycles with its new service, Help Connect.
A smart crash detection system
Through a motorcycle’s inertial measurement unit, which is already typically fitted in bikes for acceleration and angular velocity measurement, Bosch’s Help Connect service can detect whether a crash has occurred. In the event of an accident, the crash detection service, which is connected to the driver’s smartphone via Bluetooth, connects to the Bosch Service Center for speedy assistance.
The system uses a smartphone’s GPS to allow responders to locate a rider even if no one answers when emergency workers call. Users can also program the service to call personal emergency contacts in the event of an accident.
In a press release, Bosch said its “smartphone-based emergency call solution was developed with insights gleaned from many years of accident research and development.”
The company claims that, by cutting emergency response time by up to half, automatic emergency systems such as Help Connect save thousands of lives. The technology will initially launch in Germany, with the callers able to speak a total of 11 different languages, before the service expands to other markets.
