The point of this motorcycle is to take over if it spots a potential crash scenario. This kind of passive system is the perfect kind of system for cars as well as motorcycles.<p>Self-driving systems are great for alertness/response time, where as humans are better at vision. So having the self-driving systems take over if the human misses something / becomes unwell is the perfect kind of human augmentation.<p>This is opposed to the Autopilot style, where the car uses it's poorer vision and the human uses their poorer alertness skills to take over if needed.
<i>BMW apparently wants to start by just helping to cut down on the most avoidable accidents.</i><p>The most avoidable accidents are not operator dependent:<p>- the “one party is going straight and the other is turning left at a four way” accident which is so common it has its own acronym: SMIDSY (Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See Ya)<p>- right hook at an intersection<p>That said, if BMW can do things like stabilizing the lean-in when you go into a turn hotter than planned and fail to commit, that might be nice. The solution is “push harder into the turn”, but it’s easy to be scared of this and thus go wide instead.
I would have assumed most motorcycle accidents come from other drivers not seeing the motorcycles. In which case it seems like a helmet with multidirectional cameras and a warning system (eg alerts if you're in another car's blind-spot, or if the car in front of you has stopped rapidly) would have more impact than modifying the motorcycle.
Why buy a self-driving motorcycle?<p>I understand self-driving cars, some people really enjoy the idea of doing things in a moving pod (trains and buses are too lower class for them?), but a BMW motorcycle is something you buy because you like the idea of piloting an engine while being exposed to air and the elements, battling physics and -unless you bought a BMW because you want to show off- owning a vehicle that can be very reliable on extremely rough terrain.