Not at night
I disagree
Lights off is the future
You're talking bollox
Haven't a clue about the Austria stuff though
Andres
Cagers, how quaint
I guess you never drive a car ?
but also the very act of doing so might grab their otherwise inattentive brain.
Try this;
take a finger. point it up. now move it towards from your face.
Now hold it at arms length. Move it side to side.it
Now look back at this text and do the same - digit up, towards you and side to side - so it's in peripheral vision.
Which movement is more noticeable?
Sideways.
The finger is your Bike.
Your view is the perspective of a drivers view from a side junction.
it's way easier to note lateral /sideways movement than 'head on'.
That's why some drivers cannot judge the distance of an oncoming Bike or headlight even more so, as it projects its beam ahead of the Bike - confusing the brains means of distance judgement.
Sometimes I'll change my line slightly approaching a junction, just to improve a potential escape route
i thang queue.
A Posts
The A post (window pillar) in a car is a pretty crucial part of its structure; its failing in a collision is a major contribution to front seat driver / passenger head injuries. The modern A post has got stronger and stronger as manufacturers have strived to score well in what they call 'secondary safety', (occupant safety) but as a result, 'primary safety' (avoiding the accident in the first place) has suffered. Research has shown that as A posts have got stronger, they've also got bulkier, and as a result there has also been an increase in offside accidents, especially at junctions. Not good news for us bikers.
The modern A post can create significant blind spots for drivers.The typical blind spot accident scenario that could involve us, will be our self and another vehicle moving towards each other at the same time, probably approaching a junction, and at that, probably on some sort of a curved path. A roundabout would be an ideal scenario: As the car approaches the roundabout, if the circumstances are right, we the motorcyclist, already on the roundabout, can sit in that A post blind spot which then sort of locks on to us, tracking our movement, and making us completely invisible right up to impact.
The sting in the tail is that because we're busy leaning the bike over, our attention is often focused, rightly so, on where we want to go, and it's easy for us to be completely unaware that something is pulling out at the very last second. Both drivers are as blind as each other.
No idea who this is! But thank you very much!
No hard and fast cures to this one. Just try and be aware of cars approaching all your exits. The stationary cars are more likely to have see you. Alarm bells should ring in your head when you spot traffic approaching the roundabout as you are.
Motion camouflage.
A couple of years ago Bike magazine wrote a good article on motion camouflage. So they take the credit! This is the theory..
If you watch a hover fly or a dragon fly, they often move in a mysterious way! They fly perfectly still, hovering, then they abruptly change course a few inches, and hover again. they move in this jerk / still / jerk way. They are hunting, and they're honing in on their prey. As their prey moves, they move, they keep themselves in the same place against they're background, making it hard for the prey to detect its movement. As they do this, they fly towards their prey in a dead straight line. It's not until they're almost on top of their prey, that they 'loom' into view. But by then it's all too late. Munch!!
Ever wondered why emergency vehicles 'fend off' at the scene of an accident on a fast moving road? Arguably, the rear emergency lights are most effective square on, so you would think that by parking in a dead straight line, you would see the rear reds / blues more clearly, and that would be safer. Not so! There are a couple of other benefits to fending off, but the biggest benefit, is that by clearly showing the side on profile of the fend off vehicle, drivers approaching at speed, can instantly tell that it's a stationary vehicle, in a live lane.
Its also common knowledge that when we're travelling on a main road, and we spot a car in a side road waiting to pull out, looking at the wheels (rotating or not) will detect movement much more efficiently than looking at the car itself.
So you get the jist of this idea, it's all to do with how we perceive motion, and if we reverse the prey / hunter role-play we can unexpectedly become the hoverfly and move invisibly along our road.
As we ride down a main road, if the circumstances are right like our back drop and the angle of the main road to an approaching side road, we can find our selves riding on a straight line that extends from a fixed point behind us directly into the eye of a waiting driver in a side road ahead. Our bike will appear motionless, and will not appear to increase in size until the very last second. The driver in the side road is searching for movement on the road, objects moving against a background, and when we're on this straight line path, the car driver may quite simply, just not see us.
This accident is particularly relevant in town. Our eyes tune into our environment and start looking for regular themes. A good example is dusk on the motorway. Every car has it's lights on except one. (Always metalic silver!!) We miss that car in the flow of traffic because now our eyes see headlights... head lights.... gap.... headlights....headlights.... So we change lane, move into the gap and hit the invisible car. In busy urban town, drivers, sitting in a side road, tune into movement... movement....movement.... gap..... BANG!!!
Part of the research into this theory delivers yet another sting in the tail; when the dragonfly does eventually 'loom' into view, the prey momentarily freezes - rabbit in the headlights. Likewise, a car that does pull out in front of us, will simply freeze on the spot as we reveal ourselves.
So what can we do about this one? I can't say I weave down the road trying to break up my backdrop when I see a car in a side road, but knowledge is power and it's good to know why I'm sometimes difficult to see. If I spot the nose of a car in a side road, then just once in a while, I might chose to move out, but deliberately delay that movement until I see the driver looking my way.
