Driver Awareness

[vifferman]

Erm.... what's wrong with suits riding bikes then?? Do I have to forgo a decent education to be considered a "real" biker then?

Or at least pretend to be a drongo.
It helps too if you get some grease-flavoured nail polish, swear a lot, and wear a lot of black.

[Pixie]

It's especially noticeable how car drivers pull to the left when you come up behind them.



Geoff

It's because they don't like the burning sensation on the back of their heads

[Ixion]

Erm.... what's wrong with suits riding bikes then?? Do I have to forgo a decent education to be considered a "real" biker then?

But you actually RIDE the bike, not pose on it. Nothing wrong with suits RIDING, it's the posing thing that is bad.

[Pixie]

Motion camouflage

Biologists at Queen Mary College have proved that motion camouflage is used by Hoverflies and Dragonflies as part of their predatory flight path. Research is now suggesting that this principle could be behind the SMIDSY (sorry mate I didn't see you) accidents when a car pulls out in front of a bike.

'Motion Camouflage' confuses the visual cortex that uses edge detection to alert us to the presence of movement. If no edge movement is detected, then no alert is triggered. Apparently, a busy urban scene made up of many static blocks of shape and colour hides the motorcyclist who is travelling in a straight course directly in line with the driver's focal line. This is because the 'edging is staying constant. A deviation in the rider's course breaks the pattern and creates an edge to be detected and therefore an alert triggered in the driver's brain.

The pattern is also broken when the rider is close enough to the driver to suddenly appear a lot larger, and this is called the 'Looming Effect'. Because the visual cortex has suddenly detected 'edge' movement it alerts the brain and the surprise momentarily freezes the driver's or hapless insect's brain while it decides what to do. The insect gets eaten and the driver stops in the way of the motorcyclist.