The science of being seen
As the nights draw in, this article by Greg Garner focuses on how to make yourself visible to other road users.
Following reports conducted both in the UK (Booth Report 1989) and America (Hurt Report 1981 California), safety messages to Bikers have often featured the need for Bikers to wear Hi-Viz and use their lights during the day, but this isn’t as straight forward an answer as it may seem.
Motorcycle Accidents in Depth Study 2000 (MAiDS)
(Conducted over 3 years, 921 accidents from 5 countries)
54% accidents at a junction
Cars most frequent collision partner (60%)
72% accidents in urban areas
In 50% Car driver was to blame
Over 70% of errors involved driver’s failure to SEE the Biker!
There are 2 main reasons for this:
Ineffective conspicuity strategies by us!
We (the Bikers) are not always careful or aware of how we are presenting ourselves to others, we are not ‘helping’ drivers to see us despite our hi-viz efforts on occasion!
Faulty search strategies by them!
Drivers often don’t see us due to human failings associated with recognition of moving objects and sometimes due to lack of caution at junctions.
Ineffective conspicuity strategies
Choice of colours.
Often those who mean well but are less informed assume bright colours are good and will always get you seen. Similarly they assume that dark colours are bad, but it is often the contrast between the moving object and its background that has the effect of making the object seen or not!
It is important that what is seen is easily and quickly recognisable.
A casual observer may feel that the Biker in the picture on the right is easily identified due to the bright contrasting colours, but in the same way that the one on the left merges into the background, so does this one.
Use of headlights
Daytime headlights/dipped beam are designed to not dazzle and point downwards so the effect is limited. This can lead to invisibility issues dependant on bright backgrounds or refracted light conditions. They MAY work but the message is simple do not ASSUME they will work!
Similarly lights at night can also cause the bike and rider to be lost in the clutter of background light.
Faulty search strategies
“The conspicuity problem appears to be partly associated with car drivers learning visual strategies that are not very effective at detecting motorcycles.” Ref: ‘Motorcycle Safety – A Scoping Study, Transport Research Laboratory 2003.
Drivers are affected by the following 3 factors:
Motion Camouflage
Tigers approach a target, whilst appearing to remain stationary from the perspective of the target, by remaining on a fixed line with a landmark in their background. i.e. the tiger is not moving ACROSS the background but coming STRAIGHT out of the back ground, the lack of lateral movement making it so much harder to detect until the last moment!
The same effect occurs when a Biker is approaching a car waiting to pull out of a side road. The Motion Camouflage phenomenon leads to this last second appearance of movement which is known as LOOMING.
Looming
Other than sideways movement, the only other way the eye spots a moving object is when it ‘LOOMS’ into view, the problem is that the Looming only occurs when the object is very close, i.e it suddenly gets bigger when it is often too late to change your mind about pulling out and the driver’s fight, flight or freeze response is activated. This makes the reaction of the driver unpredictable.
Search patterns
From quite early on in their lessons, drivers are taught to ‘look for the gap’ in most situations, not what may be in the gap. If the Biker is not obviously present, then they will often be missed in the 0.5 seconds that the average driver looks in their direction!
A study carried out by Chris Burgess at Exeter University found that when driving, the actual driving was found to be the 4th or 5th thing on the driver’s mind!
This also links to SACCADIC masking. This is the phenomenon in visual perception where the brain selectively blocks visual processing during eye movements in such a way that neither the motion of the eye not the gap in visual perception is visible to the viewer.”
To put this in a more relatable way, the human brain does not have the added technology of adjustable ‘frames per second’ shutter speed of a video camera.
If we move our head and/or eyes quickly side to side, our vision would be blurred, therefore what the brain does is take a series of stills, then uses past experiences to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately for motorcyclists, we can easily fit within one of those gaps in vision.
So, what can we do to be seen to be safe?
Think about the environment you will be riding in and what conspicuity strategy YOU will need to be seen:
Solid blocks of colour – these will offer a recognisable silhouette, avoid wearing tabards, as unlike a full jacket, they are not visible from the side. Pink is a colour that stands out against most backgrounds!
Your Line – introduce some gentle lateral movement into your line as you approach a junction, easing out to the left or right of your lane (as appropriate) may be enough sideways movement to overcome the ‘tiger’ type approach that causes us real problems regards motion camouflage and looming.
Your horn – the correct use of the horn if you are in doubt that you have been seen, consider covering the horn early on the approach to danger and don’t be shy in using it.
Advanced Riders
As a ‘Thinking Rider’ consider the tools you have available:
Information
See the potential danger of the situation early, through extended observations and scanning.
Note the driver’s body language and where they are looking.
Note the body language of the vehicle, does it begin to move. or even fail to stop?
Know what else is in the surrounding area.
Do you have alternative options should they pull out?
Is it safer to let them pull out?
Sound your horn to draw attention to your presence.
Position
Can you adopt an early position to aid your vision.
Can you position away from the danger.
Move your road position to make yourself seen.
Speed
Are you at a speed where you can stop safely on your own side of the road in the distance you can see to be clear? (i.e. where they may pull out from).
Or ease back and allow them to pull out.
Gear
Be in a responsive gear.
Acceleration
Use of the throttle to assist in either stopping through engine braking or accelerating to get out of trouble if the option exists.
Created in conjunction with Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service.