Today, there are over 8 million registered motorcycles in the United States. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the annual number of motorcyclist fatalities increased 144 percent from 1997 to 2007. In 2017, 92,000 motorcycle injuries occured and nearly 5,000 deaths resulted. Along with this, motorcycle deaths were 28 times more frequent than any other fatal motor vehicle accident in 2017. Merging from one lane to another is the main cause for these devastating fatal accidents.
Our Solution
MergeMaster was created to reduce the number of injuries and deaths due to lane merging related accidents on the road. It utilizes proximity sensors to alert motorcyclists when there is a car coming up in one of their blind spots so that they don’t make a deadly mistake. In order to come up with this solution, we asked ourselves: WHAT IF we could make merging less dangerous? WHAT IF we could produce a new technology that saved lives? We brainstormed as a team and came up with MergeMaster, a motorcycle helmet that warns its owner through both audio and visual cues when a vehicle is approaching from the left or right before they merge.