Triumphrat

Prairie Wrench · 12-13-2012, 09:46 PM

Here is a link to an outstanding article by a former RAF fighter pilot on the quirks of human vision as it applies to riding and driving. It helps to explan why driver so often fail to see motorcycles:

http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/raf-p...each-cyclists/

What do you think?

DUCKMAN · 12-13-2012, 09:55 PM

Let's see ...I can sum it a few words...they have their heads up their ass

Johnnystriple · 12-13-2012, 10:30 PM

I tend to ride away from center while topping a hill to avoid drivers crossing the center line on a hill. Also, while fallowing a long line of traffic, I will ride closer to the edge of the road so that people weighting at intersections for the traffic to clear, so that they can pull out, will also see my head light.

Bron-Yr-Aur · 12-13-2012, 10:47 PM

Without all the mumbo-jumbo, I can sum it up a little more concisely: distracted driving. It's not some stupid evolutionary theory. Drivers don't see us because they're not practicing Driving 101. Look in your blind spot before you change lanes. Playing with phones, radios, and just plain old poor habits have contributed to every single close call that I've had on my bike.

jonkster · 12-13-2012, 11:21 PM

The idea of looking but not seeing came home to me yesterday. I have been making a series of time lapse videos (1 frame every 5 minutes) of a plant at work.

Each day we crowd around the monitor to see the previous days 24 hours video.

My co-workers kept saying yesterday to look at one video over and over again. I saw just the plant slowly moving and nothing unusual at all. Interesting but not really different from the others.

They finally had to force me to freeze frame one sequence. Only when one of them in exasperation pointed at the screen and said 'Look! The Red Car!' did I see that each day after I left for home they had been placing and moving a toy red car in the frame (and also moving things on a desk in the background so that inanimate objects were dancing around and changing places).

As soon as I saw it it was so blatantly obvious but I had been so intensely concentrating on what I thought was the main object that I didn't see the clearly obvious shennanigans going on in the video.

I strongly believe we can be genuinely focused and trying hard to look but are let down by our physical limitations to such an extent that sometimes we can simply miss what is right in front of us.

The lesson. I assume that other road users may often be genuinely unaware that I am there and no matter how hard they are 'concentrating' there will be situations when they will just not register seeing me.

That doesn't excuse failure to see caused by inattention or bad attitude but it makes me more cautious in traffic and more tolerant of the mistakes of other road users.