How Global Designers Handle Getting 'Doored' & Other Vehicle Safety Challenges

The following excerpt is the third in four-part transportation design safety series

GREENVILLE, S.C., Dec. 4 -- Ever been "doored"? Even know what it is? You do if you are riding a bicycle, motorcycle, or skateboard and pass a parked car, truck or SUV as one of the vehicle's doors is being opened in your path.

In the greater scheme of 44,000 traffic fatalities a year, being "doored" may seem a minor issue. But it points to the depth and breadth of issues involved in sharing the road, a fact underscored by recent statistics indicating that motorcycle rider and pedestrian fatalities increased on American roads in 2005.

"We've seen a substantial, exponential increase in motorcycle deaths," Mary Peters, the new Secretary of Transportation, recently told her hometown newspaper, the Arizona Republic. Peters is particularly interested in motorcycle safety. She and her husband are riders who are taking two of their Harleys to Washington, D.C. with them as she begins her service on the President's Cabinet.

"Sharing the Road," is the theme for the 2007 Michelin Challenge Design(TM) (MCD) (www.michelinchallengedesign.com), a year-long transportation design event that culminates at the North American International Auto Show (January 13-21, 2007) at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit. This year's entrants -- over 260 of them from around the world -- addressed cars and other light vehicles, semi trucks and passenger buses as well as road users on two wheels and two feet.

Bob Miron, Michelin's director of technical marketing, notes some of the design solutions selected by this year's eight-member jury -- an expert panel of renowned designers, transportation industry educators and safety experts -- addressed being "doored."

"The xV concept from Marin Myftiu of Albania features a locking system that prevents a door from being opened for a few seconds after the vehicle is turned off when an object approaches within the door's span," said Miron, "while the Concept WL created by Hyun Joon Park of South Korea has doors that rotate vertically rather than hinge outward."

"Sharing the road is a very big deal for the motorcyclist," noted MCD juror Greg Brew, a former Fiat and BMW auto designer who since 2004 has been director of industrial design for Polaris Industries, maker of snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and Victory motorcycles. Brew noted that motorcycle and other two-wheel riders are more exposed to potential injury than those in an enclosed vehicle and as such have to take personal responsibility for their protective gear, rather than relying on airbags or other vehicle-based systems.

"You look at an ATV or a motorcycle and the technology is so visible," Brew added of a seemingly unique relationship between safety and design faced by those creating two-wheel vehicles. "Any technology that affects the bike is going to immediately affect the design," said Brew. "It's not hidden away under the hood."