Safe Speed Forums

This is also a possibility. That car is parked on a hard standing specifically for the purpose of parking for the housing on the other side of the road and usually has more cars on it, I think there are at least one, maybe two spaces in front of the red car which covers most of not all of the ground I described as "dead"

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

I'm sure you covered it Paul - motion camouflage. The definition according to Wikipedia is here

Bottyburp. You're right, it is frighening, but at least this thread gives some kind of an insight at to one of the reasons why SMIDSY's happen, other than car drivers on the whole just being muppets, and gives us a chance to counter the effect.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Hi Sixy

I know in a bike mag I read a few months ago, they were talking about this very subject. They advocated that, as the biker, when approaching a junction, that you should keep moving across your lane to minimise the effect of this motion camouflage or looming. Personally, when I'm joining a road, I really do look hard before pulling out, and not just a cursory glance...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

That's fair enough and if it were being discussed anywhere else I would be the first in line to cristisize any car driver who claimed that they'd started to move out of a junction and then at the last minute realised to their horror that they'd missed something.

However, I'm prepared to give Gopher the benifit of the doubt here - he's aware that its happening and he's actually doing something about it. Like I said earlier, I think this is a really important and interesting piece of genuine road safety research we're all doing here.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I totally agree! I'm just extremely pleased that Gopher has actually raised it! Until recently (the looming article etc.) I assumed all car drivers were total myopic tw*ts...

Isn't this where vehicles with light on come into it?

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Ditto!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

just total tw*ts?

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Quite possibly

(But I don't think we're allowed to say that here... )

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

:shhh: OK, we'll say no more about it...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

No, 'looming' is the effect that Roger mentioned.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

No, I don't believe it is, and further I don't think the Wiki definition of motion camouflage is adequate either.

We're talking about a 'distraction camouflage' and (as I said) I don't know about a technical term for it.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

But the Wiki definition states that the 'pretedor' ie approaching car hides itself by appearing to remain stationary in relation to a landmark. Do the parked cars simply represent the 'landmarks'?

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Whilst not wanting to make an issue here, can we cool it with the tw*ts comments? I have never posed a serious danger to other motorists (arguments about newly qualified drivers aside), the worst accident I've ever had was the scraping of paint on a bumper a couple of times just after passing my test when finding out how short my car wasn't.

Recognising a danger and doing something about at least understanding it is not the action of a tw*t, as such I suspect there are very few of them on here, also I think we can all agree that tw*ts are not limited to 4 wheels.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Gopher. I'm sure that you realise that it was intended as a joke and certainly wasn't directed at anyone here. From my point of view it certainly wasn't insinuating that 'anyone who fails to see a vehicle approaching is a tw*t' - the issues that you've highlighted have given me some serious food for thought.

I would definately agree that there are also lots of tw*ts on 2 wheels.

Appologies if the comments caused any offence mate.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I may have been a bit touchy, sorry, it was the "benefit of the doubt" comment that riled me, probably for no good reason.

</feelingoffended>

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

[chastised]I too, did not mean any offence to you Gopher[/chastised] -

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Gopher - let me explain myself.



What I was trying to say here was that I agree with bottyburp in that the majority of drivers just don't bother to take the time to look properly in the first place, however....



I don't believe that you, or indeed the majority of members here fit into the above category. You're aware that something's amiss and you're trying to figure out what it is to prevent it from happening in future. The 'benifit of the doubt' comment was supposed to say that, but it obviously didn't work very well .

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Thanks sixy, as I said I was probably over sensitive.

I spent some time last night (well only about 15 minutes) sat down at the junction and basically looked right every 30-40 secs (well once or twice a minute).

Not much to say on size of vehicle, that did not make much difference although the couple of transit size vans did stand out but as far as cars went no. We do not get HGV there because there is a low bridge to the left.

It seems the more subdued coloured cars were slightly less easy to spot, especially when going slow. Cars and vans that were travelling at a higher speed (maybe even inappropriately) were easier to spot.

Not much more to say really, I would conclude for now that subdued coloured cars moving slowly are harder to spot than faster, brighter cars, but I'm sure that's the case in most places, but this road does seem to hide them better.

Cheers

Paul

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair