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The disproportionately high number of motorcycle-related traffic accidents may be linked to the way the human brain processes—or fails to process—information, according to new research published in Human Factors, "Allocating Attention to Detect Motorcycles: The Role of Inattentional Blindness." The study examines how the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, or a person's failure to notice an unexpected object located in plain sight, might explain the prevalence of looked-but-failed-to-see (LBFTS) crashes, the most common type of collision involving motorcycles.
According to human factors/ergonomics researchers Kristen Pammer, Stephanie Sabadas, and Stephanie Lentern, LBFTS crashes are particularly troublesome because, despite clear conditions and the lack of other hazards or distractions, drivers will look in the direction of the oncoming motorcycle - and in some cases appear to look directly at the motorcycle - but still pull out into its path.
The study authors suggest training drivers to be more alert for motorcycles.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:57PM (8 children)
The problem is lack of augmented reality and crash proof A pillars
A pillars are the sticks by the windshield that hold your roof to the hood, kinda.
I'm older; my first car had stylish A pillars that were thinner than my heavy steel Sears kids bicycle tubing. My current commuter vehicle has A pillars like a fat ladies thighs (ah Snowcrash, never change). Seriously though, my first commuter car A pillars were less than a quarter as visually blocking than my current commuter car's A pillars.
If I'm trying to survive a rollover crash, obviously I'd live a lot longer in a car that has A pillars that resemble an elephants legs than a car with A pillars that resemble a somewhat understuffed bratwurst.
On the other hand I've had problems where I'm gradually turning and a car gets behind the A pillar at the same exact angular velocity and I kinda block it out because my mind has taught itself to ignore everything happening around the gigantic A pillar, because, obviously, the damn pillar is there 24x7.
I can point my eyes at the giant wide motorcycle-view blocking A pillars, but damn right I'm never going to "see" anything because if I flinched or slammed on the brakes every time I saw a giant A pillar in my visual field I'd never get anywhere.
Augmented reality will fix this. We'll have the visual field of a motorcycle, maybe better. You'll have an A pillar, you'll just have 15 cameras outside synthesizing an image without anything ever blocking it. But until then we gotta mow down cyclists.
Something only older folks will remember is cars with A pillars so narrow you couldn't hide the setting sun behind them by moving your head. Modern cars are like being in the shade of a tree trunk.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:17PM (5 children)
The pillars are alright, IMO. I hate most rear view mirrors. I come up to a stop sign, and a car on my right can be approaching the same intersection. I don't see it until I duck my head, to look under the damned mirror. This is the most dangerous at 4-way and 3-way stops, but anything moving at a matching angular speed can be hidden from me. Those pillars just don't seem a very big deal to me, in comparison.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 06 2018, @04:50PM (4 children)
Huh? It sounds like your seat sits too high. Try leaning it back a bit. Your rearview mirror should be above your main line of vision, not blocking it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 06 2018, @07:26PM (1 child)
Lean it back? You mean, like reclining? Uhhhhhhhh - sorry - NO FUCKING WAY! First, my back would hurt like hell. Second, reclining is for sleeping. Okay, so I'm not going to actually fall asleep, unless I'm driving for to many hours. Still, reclining means relaxing. Relaxing is anathema to paying attention, or staying alert. Putting my seat lower to the floor? I don't think my seat has an adjustment for up and down, but if it did, I'd jack it up higher. To low a seat, and my legs and knees start killing me.
I'll continue to duck my head, to double check that blind spot before I pull out into an intersection.
I could just take the rearview mirror out, and replace my two outside mirrors with better mirrors. Trucks don't have rear view mirrors on their windshields, after all.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:59PM
I don't mean recline all the way back, just enough so your mirror isn't at the same height as your eyes (while making sure your wrists can touch the top of the wheel, otherwise you're leaning too far back). Or lower your seat if that's possible.
If those don't work, it sounds like your car just doesn't fit you very well, and you should get a different one. I'm 6'1" and I don't have these problems in my car.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:14AM (1 child)
I have the same problem. I'm tall, and drive a smaller car. I otherwise fit just fine in the car, but the rear-view mirror is a nice car-sized blind-spot, and can completely obscure a vehicle coming up to an intersection I'm approaching at the same time. I've just had to learn to remember to look around/under the mirror to make sure I'm not missing another car.
My car is older too, newer cars are even worse as the mirror has grown in size as they've added buttons and lights and other crap to it. And the greenhouses now are a more low-slung and slopey (compared to older cars that tend to have them squared off), with the end result that I'm often looking out the very top of the windshield even in cars much larger than the one I have now.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:32PM
I have a ugly as hell Yaris and my wife traded in her Prius for a ugly Sienna. I once drove a sporty-wannabe 90s Saturn which was a pretty nice looking car although it had terrible visibility. Another historical anecdote; Plymouth Horizon / Dodge Omni, ugly as hell, but great visibility. Another ugly car with great visibility: Ford Taurus station wagon.
My wife's old Prius wasn't all that ugly, yet had decent visibility, so compromises do exist.
An interesting technological innovation either via better CAD design or augmented reality would be cars the look nice but have good visibility; you can't buy both at the same time AFAIK.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:44PM
One can make a thin A-pillar that will handle a rollover crash.
One can't do that out of cheap steel, with padding, with a handle, with an airbag, and still keep it attractive.
The sort of material to use is probably a metal-matrix composite. For example, this is what is used for the F/A-18 nose gear. Picture something like a carbon fiber composite, but with nickel instead of epoxy.
Another option is a single-crystal superalloy, as used in jet turbine blades. The tradeoff is a bit different, gaining some types of strength and losing others.
The A-pillars should be asymmetric, so that the driver sees them edge-on. (parts must be distinct for left-driver and right-driver countries) The padding should be minimal. The windows need to attach in a way that doesn't effectively widen the pillar with gaskets. You can't put an airbag in an A-pillar.
Oh, don't forget the other pillars. The driver-side A-pillar is most critical, but they all matter.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:29AM
This exactly. My first four cars were manufactured between 1976-1994, so they not only had thin A-pillars, their windshields & rear windows were steeply sloped so I had a much greater vertical/horizontal viewing space than today's cars offer. I've ended up having more close calls per year in my current car than I did for all of the years of those other cars combined, and 99% of them are due to how obstructed the view is.