International Dealer News 184 May/June 2025 IDN 184 May/June 2025 | Page 26

THE BRADLEY REPORT
THE BRADLEY REPORT

Car ADAS systems still struggling to detect motorcycles

By Ben Purvis
Radar and camera-based ' advanced driver assistance systems '( ADAS) are commonplace on modern cars and becoming mandatory on new models in the EU under the latest New Vehicle General Safety Regulation( GSR2)- but testing in the USA shows that these systems still struggle to ' see ' motorcycles despite recent improvements. One of the elements of these driver assistance systems is Autonomous Emergency Braking( AEB), which is designed to detect obstacles and automatically apply the brakes if the driver fails to do so. While these systems are shown to be effective in reducing rear-end crashes by as much as 50 %, tests by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety( IIHS) in the USA on 30 new cars showed that a substantial percentage didn ' t react in time to prevent rear-end crashes when approaching a stationary motorcycle dummy. Of the 30 cars and SUVs tested, seven were given a ' poor ' rating and hit the motorcycle dummy even at the lowest testing speed of 50 km / h, with some barely slowing at all. And even stepping up to the cars rated as ' acceptable ', all hit the stationary bike when the testing speed was increased to 70 km / h, albeit reacting enough to reduce their speeds before impact. The results do represent an improvement over the previous IIHS tests, carried out in April 2024, when just one out of ten vehicles tested achieved a ' good ' rating. In the new test, 16 of the 30 cars were rated as ' good ', preventing or substantially mitigating crashes at up to 70 km / h. The EU ' s GSR2 rules have required new cars in the European market to be fitted with AEB since July 2024, as well as socalled ' Intelligent Speed Assist '( ISA) that warns if you ' re speeding( but can be switched off), Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning( DDAW) intended to detect how tired a driver is, and Emergency Lane Keeping Systems( ELKS) intended to keep cars between the white lines.
From July 2026, there will be additional requirements including more driver distraction technology and enhanced AEB specifically intended to work better when it comes to detecting small targets like cyclists and pedestrians. That should also spark further improvements in detecting motorcycles, but there are inevitable concerns that drivers may become increasingly reliant on these automated systems. At the moment there ' s little to no indication that motorcycles themselves will be forced to incorporate ridingassist technology, but the growing number of bikes fitted with radars and the rapidly improving state of the technology means it could become a consideration in the future.

Honda CB1300 ends production with special Edition final models By Ben Purvis

CB1300 Super Bol d ' Or
Honda ' s CB1300 Super Four, and its faired sister model the CB1300 Super Bol d ' Or are staples of the company ' s range in Japan, but are finally being discontinued more than 30 years after the original version made its debut. It ' s been more than a decade since the CB1300 models disappeared from European markets back in 2013, but the machines are iconic in their Japanese homeland. The model traces its heritage back to the CB1000
Super Four ' Project Big-1 ' that launched back in 1992, which grew to become the CB1300 in 1998 and has been only incrementally tweaked since then. To mark the end of the CB1300 ' s life, Honda has introduced four ' Final Edition ' models: the CB1300 Super Four Final Edition, CB1300 Super Bol d ' Or Final Edition, and higher-spec ' SP ' versions of each featuring Ohlins suspension instead of the standard Showa parts and Brembo
front calipers instead of Nissins. In total, Honda plans to make 3400 examples of the bikes, all to be sold in Japan. The base versions are to be offered in just one colour, graphite black, while the SP variants get white-and-red paintwork that ' s been a constant though the model ' s life. Each Final Edition gains a sticker on the tank confirming its status but no other specification changes over the full-production versions that came before.
That means they have the same 1284 cc four-cylinder engine, with double overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder, putting out a peak of 83 kW( 113 hp) at a modest 7,750 rpm – numbers that reflect the age of the design in a world where many companies make big naked bikes approaching the 200 hp mark.