One of the drawbacks of riding in the rain wearing a motorcycle helmet with a visor is that the rider’s vision is cut-down considerably by rain drops accumulating on the visor. British inventor Adam Aarons thinks he may have the answer to the problem with Rainpal. In a Motorcycle News report, Aarons has designed a wiper system that attaches to the helmet, with a wiper blade sweeping across the visor, providing 140 degrees of sweep.

A 100 ml fluid reservoir allows the rider to squirt water, letting the wiper blade remove dirt. The tiny resorvoir is powered by a rechargeable battery that can be swapped out, good for about two hours of squirting. “Cars now have all sorts of safety technology, but riders are still waiting for something as basic as the windscreen wiper. There are riders in countries like the UK and, to be honest, they can’t see where they’re going,” said Aarons.

Rainpal weighs about 150 grammes and is operated wirelessly using a wristwatch like control that straps to the handlebars. The system has been tested to 160 km/h and Aarons says it comes with a two-year warranty.

The project is currently being crowd-funded, with a target of 97,000 pounds sterling (RM570,000). Rainpal is offered at between 49.99 pounds sterling (RM293) and 69.99 pounds sterling (RM410) for early pre-production orders. While Aarons is confident the crowd-funding for Rainpal will succeed, he has guaranteed that all orders will be honoured if Rainpal goes into production, even if the crowd-funding target is not met.