Remedy Botched Safety-System Mod, Remit Royalties Diminutive Hawkhill Technologies Urges Audi, BMW
ADKINS, Texas, June 3 -- A botched, safety-compromising dilution of a blinker-operability enhancement developed and patented by Hawkhill Technologies has been implemented this model year in high-end sedans manufactured by Audi AG (a unit of Volkswagen AG, VOWG) and BMW AG.
Both the Hawkhill and Audi/BMW variations are bolstered by the same subtle yet powerful premise: Proactive signaling for freeway-type maneuvers is greatly assisted by blinker systems that can sense brief, tap-like lever presses (see note).
The Audi/BMW variation squanders this premise on "tap-and-forget" signaling consisting of a three-flash burst, period.
A burst-extension option (i.e., sensing/processing logic for on-the-fly-additive taps) and a tap-confirmation chirp aren't included.
The former of these Hawkhill-patented elements greatly increases the types of maneuvers for which the feature can be used. The latter compensates for vagaries in blinker-switch tactiles.
Even stripped of these elements, the Audi/BMW variation has been singled out for special praise by the New York Times, Forbes and others.
The absence of another Hawkhill-patented element, the cancellation tap, is more problematic.
Intuitively, that which is initiated by an upward lever tap (i.e., a burst of right-blinker flashing) should be definitively cancellable by a downward lever tap, and vice versa. Cancellation taps should have no other purpose or effect.
What masquerades as a cancellation tap in the Audi/BMW variation has the dual effect of either halting a burst of right blinker flashing while initiating a burst of left-blinker flashing or vice versa.
The Boston Globe and others have harshly criticized the unwanted opposite-direction signaling inflicted upon them by the Audi/BMW variation.
At high speeds on crowded freeways, misunderstandings engendered by such signaling could easily lead to catastrophic consequences.
"If performance isn't degraded, inventing around a patent is an honorable engineering endeavor," said G. Carroll Brown, Jr., Ph.D., Hawkhill's Executive Principal. "What we're encouraging Audi and BMW to redress are the serious safety detriments that stem from their failure to uphold this standard."
Hawkhill's U.S. Patent is 5,486,809. Hawkhill's enhancement is also the subject of a Technical Paper published a little over five years ago by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
(Note: Tap-like presses don't occur during conventional blinker-lever usage. Logic sensible via comparison to a predefined threshold, they're unparalleled as a trigger for lever-off, set-duration signal bursts.)