smidsy - maybe they really didnt see you
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 11:58 am
Like many other bikers I have had a SMIDSY - shorthand for an accident where the car driver says " Sorry Mate I Didn't See You". And like many bikers I have thought *****!!!!! idiot wasnt bothering to look. So it was very interesting to read a magazine article that explained why car drivers might well not have seen us despite looking. And for those who dont ride bikes, this applies to cars as well.
The article was in the IAM magazine ( cue - sneers) written by an RAF pilot named John Sullivan. Thanks John - I hope you dont mind me repeating what I think is an important piece of writing.
I summarise because the article was long:
1/ Your peripheral vision isn't good - just 20 degrees away from your sight line our visual acuity is 90% reduced
2/ When we move our head and eyes to scan a scene, approaching a roundabout for example, our eyes are incapable of moving smoothly across that scene and seeing everything. Instead they move in a series of jumps called saccades with very short pauses in between and its only in these pauses that the brain processes an image. During the jumps your brain blocks the images which is why you never see the same blurred picture when moving your head that you might see looking steadily out of a train window.
3/ Unless you have locked on to a moving object your eyes are incapable of moving smoothly across a scene. They jump and pause. Experiments have shown that its even impossible to see a flash of light if it occurs during one of these jumps / saccades. Your brain blanks it.
4/ What this means when driving is that if you move your head left and right to look for oncoming traffic you cannot guarantee that you have seen all the traffic that is there. Its entirely possible for you to have missed a vehicle during one of the saccades, and more likely for this to happen if that vehicle has a small cross section like a bike or cycle. The faster you move your head the more likely a miss.
5/ what makes this worse is that research has shown that we tend not to look near the edges of a framed scene ie the edges of the windscreen, leading to an even bigger saccade past the windscreen pillar and a greater chance of missing something altogether.
If you have read this far then you might be interested in what you might do to minimise this issue.
1/ Slow down as you approach a roundabout, not for any pious reason but because changing speed generates relative movement against a vehicle you might be on a collision course with and makes you more likely to see it. I guess the same would apply to speeding up but the IAM would never dare recommend this!
2/ Look right and left methodically focussing each time on 3 different spots - close middle distance and far. This helps over ride the natural limitations of your brain.
3/ Look left and right twice - doubles your chances and avoids the edge of windscreen effect.
4/ Passing a junction look at the head of the driver at the junction. If it stops and centres on you he has seen you - if it sweeps past, he hasnt.
45% of all motorcycling accident occur at T or staggered junctions. Many might be SMIDSY accidents and the driver really might not have seen you.
The article was in the IAM magazine ( cue - sneers) written by an RAF pilot named John Sullivan. Thanks John - I hope you dont mind me repeating what I think is an important piece of writing.
I summarise because the article was long:
1/ Your peripheral vision isn't good - just 20 degrees away from your sight line our visual acuity is 90% reduced
2/ When we move our head and eyes to scan a scene, approaching a roundabout for example, our eyes are incapable of moving smoothly across that scene and seeing everything. Instead they move in a series of jumps called saccades with very short pauses in between and its only in these pauses that the brain processes an image. During the jumps your brain blocks the images which is why you never see the same blurred picture when moving your head that you might see looking steadily out of a train window.
3/ Unless you have locked on to a moving object your eyes are incapable of moving smoothly across a scene. They jump and pause. Experiments have shown that its even impossible to see a flash of light if it occurs during one of these jumps / saccades. Your brain blanks it.
4/ What this means when driving is that if you move your head left and right to look for oncoming traffic you cannot guarantee that you have seen all the traffic that is there. Its entirely possible for you to have missed a vehicle during one of the saccades, and more likely for this to happen if that vehicle has a small cross section like a bike or cycle. The faster you move your head the more likely a miss.
5/ what makes this worse is that research has shown that we tend not to look near the edges of a framed scene ie the edges of the windscreen, leading to an even bigger saccade past the windscreen pillar and a greater chance of missing something altogether.
If you have read this far then you might be interested in what you might do to minimise this issue.
1/ Slow down as you approach a roundabout, not for any pious reason but because changing speed generates relative movement against a vehicle you might be on a collision course with and makes you more likely to see it. I guess the same would apply to speeding up but the IAM would never dare recommend this!
2/ Look right and left methodically focussing each time on 3 different spots - close middle distance and far. This helps over ride the natural limitations of your brain.
3/ Look left and right twice - doubles your chances and avoids the edge of windscreen effect.
4/ Passing a junction look at the head of the driver at the junction. If it stops and centres on you he has seen you - if it sweeps past, he hasnt.
45% of all motorcycling accident occur at T or staggered junctions. Many might be SMIDSY accidents and the driver really might not have seen you.