Smart Bike Helmet Is A Black Box For Your Brain Case

You’re down, bleeding. The jackass in the Saab that blew through the light and smeared you across his windshield is showing no sign of slowing. Not a good situation unless you’ve got a “smart” bike helmet strapped to your noggin.

One of five winners from Toyota’s recent Ideas For Good competition, the smart helmet consists of a small circuit board, two accelerometers and three gyroscopes that measure the head’s impact force, movement and tilt during a crash. The data is recorded to an SD card for retrieval and playback (say, during a lawsuit). According to one of the helmet’s designers, “We can record what’s going on with the head as its moving, and see how is it moving up to 400 times per second.” Eventually, the team wants to incorporate wireless technology into the rig for hands free ambulance auto-dialling.

The technology won’t be available for a while (the custom circuit boards alone still cost $US800 a piece) but it sure beats the hell out of trying to remember a seven-digit licence plate while concussed. [via Fast Company]