Cardo crash detection credited with saving rider’s life

Motorcycle intercoms can make long and short rides a whole lot more tolerable. Be that for music, podcasts, navigation, or simply keeping in touch with your riding companions. The last twenty years have seen Bluetooth headsets go from a niche gadget for early adopters to a must-have piece of tech for millions of riders.

But it is only in the last year or two that intercoms have shifted from being merely a boredom alleviation device, turning them into something much more important. The most recent big push in motorcycle Bluetooth technology is crash protection. And with less than a month of 2026 behind us, Cardo’s crash detection system is already being touted as a lifesaver.

You may also like to read our Cardo Packtalk Pro review.

The rider in question is Dustin Hayes, who was riding his bike in Arizona when he suffered a crash. What happened to cause the crash isn’t known, and to be honest, it’s beside the point of this article. It’s what happened afterwards that matters.

Dustin was using a Cardo Bluetooth headset, Cardo being one of the leading brands to incorporate a crash detection and alert feature into a number of its products. The system worked just as advertised, sending Dustin’s wife, Brooke, a text message alert, along with a dropped pin on a map. Brooke took off to the location, and it was here that she found Dustin.

Proving just how vital the technology is, Dustin had gone over a roadside fence and was now invisible to the passing cars. Had it not been for the Cardo alerting his wife, it could have been not until the next day that he was found, or even longer.

For Dustin and his family, he’s alive, but not out of the woods yet. According to the GoFundMe page set up by Brooke, he is in an induced coma and on a ventilator. On top of that, he has spinal injuries, a broken rib, a left arm that was torn from the socket and it is broken in multiple areas, as well a left leg that. For Dustin, the road to recovery is going to be long, but at least he is on that road.

I’m writing this from a personal perspective, as well as a spectator. My cousin crashed his R1 in the mid-2000s, looping it and landing in a deep roadside ditch with the bike pinning him down. He’s paralysed following the crash and swapped the bikes for a wheelchair. Here’s the thing, though. The group he was riding with couldn’t spot him in the ditch. Had Cardo’s crash detection and alert system been around back then, he could have been found faster, and he might have received medical extraction sooner.

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