BMW Creates the Tech-Savviest of All Motorcycle Jackets

The safest motorcycle jacket: The BMW air bag jacket

You love riding, and you probably want to continue riding for as long as you can. It’s your escape, your freedom, the one thing that gives you that silence that you’re looking for. But since riding can be a bit risky on the safety scale, that can potentially complicate things. You never know what van will side sweep you (we’re looking at you, Janet), or what accident might be possibly heading your way. And because of that unpredictability, you want to be as safe as possible.

The technology of today continues to impress everyone, and sometimes it can even make people a little uncomfortable. We already have self-driving cars on the road to increase safe driving, so that made me think about increased safety, in general. We’ve seen with the Jarvish Smart Helmet that the motorcycle industry is becoming more advanced in safety abilities, but there has to be more, right?

There is, and it’s idea and functions is a game changer. The Motorrad Street Air by BMW and Alpinestars isn’t just here to be visually appealing. It’s here to save lives.

You’re riding your motorcycle along the road, enjoying your ride, and suddenly everything is happening too fast. You don’t have control of the bike anymore, now there’s a car involved, and you’re hoping that you’ll be able to make it out of the accident and see another day. You have your helmet to protect your head, gloves to protect your hands, and a jacket to protect your upper body. But there’s only so much a jacket can do, right?

That’s the question BMW asked themselves when they created the Motorrad Street Air, a riding jacket with built-in airbags. They realized just how vulnerable your upper body was during an accident, and they decided to take matters into their own hands. It’s a jacket that connects with the Alpinestars airbag system, which uses a complicated algorithm that I won’t even pretend to understand. The important thing is that it works.

Because of the placement of the airbags within the jacket, upon a crash or impact, it will offer protection to your entire upper body. This includes protection to areas like the chest, back, kidneys, and shoulders. The most impressive component about this jacket? It will fully inflate in just 25 milliseconds. That’s less time than it takes you to blink, and if that doesn’t impress you, you’ve got some seriously unbelievable expectations that you need to work on.

It won’t just inflate when you’re in a crash, either. It will inflate upon any impact, which means that it will even offer you safety if an impact happens to you from behind when you’re standing completely still. The jacket works entirely on its own, which means you don’t have to add any expensive sensors on your bike for the jacket to do its job. You’d think that a system this advance involves tons of technology that might not be friendly towards the water, but its water-resistant casing means that’s a problem you no longer have to worry about.

Because you don’t have to sync the jacket up with any implanted sensors on your bike, that means it will work with any ride. Whether you’re moving from a motorcycle to an off-road ride, to an ATV, the jacket knows no difference. It will operate the same on all rides, and that makes your life not just significantly easier, but safer, too.  

Now, try not to cringe when I tell you the price. It comes in around $1,500. We don’t sell it, so try not to shoot the messenger. There are other variations of the jacket from different brands, but when it comes to the technology incorporated and its capabilities, the BMW jacket tends to be a winner. It’s a lot of money, and I understand that your wallet is probably giving you a look that could kill. But when it comes to your safety, there shouldn’t be a price in mind. A jacket like this could be the difference between life and death in any given accident, and personally, I’d want to ride and live for as long as I can. This jacket allows you to put the matter of safety back in your hands, and anything that can accomplish that is a winner in my book.  

If you’re interested in taking a look at the Alpinestars jacket, visit here!

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