-
• #2
wheels close your left eye -
shouldn't information from the other eye 'fill in the gaps'? If not, I certainly agree truckies should have their eyes ripped out, and re-enginneered a little more sensibly, and replaced (maybe).
-
Sounds pretty reasonable, but if you move your eyes head – at all – the blindspot shifts. Which means that if the person is doing their job (checking mirrors, looking around) then this should never be an issue.
Incidentally, how many other people have just sat moving their thumbs about at arms length while others in the vicinity look at them as if they were mad? ;p
Good thread!
-
im worried because i cant find my blind spot.
-
darwin must like us
-
Sano Sounds pretty reasonable, but if you move your eyes head – at all – the blindspot shifts. Which means that if the person is doing their job (checking mirrors, looking around) then this should never be an issue.
Yes, I thought about that, I am working on the idea of a fairly average truck driver who simply stares ahead and doesn't bother to look around too much relying on his peripheral vision.
I am less concerned about the ones who check correctly before maneuvering.
Incidentally, how many other people have just sat moving their thumbs about at arms length while others in the vicinity look at them as if they were mad? ;p
Good thread!
LOL ! :)
You should have seen my girlfriend when she got home and found my 'truck' set up. :D
-
Check this out, there is an interesting little test to show this on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)
I think it is very hard to stop your eyes from scanning and filling in the blind spots, although LSD and other drugs do play around with the part of your brain that "fills in the blanks" in your vision.
-
chris crash im worried because i cant find my blind spot.
Try this:
Book/magazine (basically a line of type) hold around 8 inches from your face.
Close left eye, fix right eye on the left most part of that line of type (the first letter).
Slowly move a finger from left to right along that line - you should see the tip of your finger disappear around 4 inches across, carry on and it will reappear on the other side of the blind spot.
Slowly !
Make it obvious, draw a little face on your fingernail :)
-
JDB Check this out, there is an interesting little test to show this on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)
I think it is very hard to stop your eyes from scanning and filling in the blind spots, although LSD and other drugs do play around with the part of your brain that "fills in the blanks" in your vision.
That's a much better test version ! Cheers :)
Try JDBs version, works much better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_%28vision%29
-
Velocipede [quote]wheels close your left eye -
shouldn't information from the other eye 'fill in the gaps'? [/quote]
Yes, partially it does, but the area is mainly 'filled' in by your brain, it kind of imagines the image as complete (or something like that) - but this completed image does not contain what is actually in that area (because of course you cannot see it).
-
ha the wikipedia one worked... freeky.
-
any one try the flash test? Icouldn't make it work
-
I'll concede my blind spot does exist.
-
I've also noticed the blind spot phenomenon amongst pedestrians in a particular setting. Many times, when I see a fairly unassertive ped waiting to cross at a zebra, and traffic just carrying on regardless, I do the decent thing: drift a little more into the centre of my lane and slow down to a stop, therefore stopping any traffic in the lane behind me as well.
Sometimes, if it's a couple of lanes in each direction, it takes a little while longer for traffic in the other lane to follow my lead and stop as well. Usually, when this eventually happens, the ped starts to cross the zebra, whilst staring right through me, and giving hand signals/head nods to thank any car drivers involved.
This bugs me immensely, as I immediately start considering the fact that the ped probably 'notices' cyclists the minute they commit a minor misdemeanour ie. the ped is prejudiced, and only attends to behaviours that reinforce their mental set.
This brings us back to sensory phenomena like the blind spot. It's physiological, but very susceptible to psycho-sensory interference from idiosyncracies of perception/attention. So although certain lorry drivers don't physically see you, there's also a strong possibility of them not wanting to see you either.
-
BringMeMyFix This brings us back to sensory phenomena like the blind spot. It's physiological, but very susceptible to psycho-sensory interference from idiosyncracies of perception/attention. So although certain lorry drivers don't physically see you, there's also a strong possibility of them not wanting to see you either.
Yes, yes and yes ! :)
Velocipede
Sano
chris_crash
|³|MA3K
JDB
BringMeMyFix
hael-
Post a reply
About
Killing Time/cyclists.
Posted by
@wheels
I have lots of time the kill at the moment as some of you might have noticed from my increasingly worthless postings.
So to kill some time I was playing around with some ideas to do with, amongst other vaguely relevant cycling safety(ish) things, saccading eyes, blind spots and dead cyclists.
We have all read the reports here and over on places like Movingtargetzine.com (do you put a full stop if a website address ends a sentence?)
9 cyclists killed in London 2007 by goods vehicles.
Another London cyclist under a left-turning lorry
Effri and Chewy run over by lorries in the same day
. . . . and so on.
I was looking at the blind spot we all have in our vision - for those of you who don't know where this is - there is basically a 'hole' in your field of view (well actually two, one on each eye) a spot where you can see absolutely nothing, not a small black spot or blurry area but a sizable circle to the outside of each eye that is devoid of vision - you tend not to notice it because most of the time (and this might seem obvious) you can't see it - like I say it is not black, dark, light or blurry - it is just an area of nothingness. (it is where the optic nerve meets your retina). There might be a proper term for it, but I don't know what that might be so I will just call it the 'blind spot'
If you close one eye - let's for arguments sake say your left eye - and view the world only with your right eye (this is done only for the purposes of illustrating where the blind spot is - it is always there regardless of whether the other eye is closed or not) - the area would look something like this illustration below - you can see above, below, right and left of the blind spot but not within it's area.
Now obviously I can't draw an area of nothingness so I have painted it grey. But of you want to see a real one have a look here.
http://www.mdsupport.org/map/map.html
[EDIT:] Try JDBs version, works much better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_%28vision%29
Or put your thumb out in front of you at arms length - close your left eye - fix your right eye on something in the distance (a light switch or any other stationary object) - and whilst keeping your right eye fixed on the object slowly move your thumb to the right - at some point your thumb will disappear - carry on slowly moving it right- it will then reemerge on the other side of your blind spot.
Ok, with me so far, we have a big hole on the left and right of our vision which we can see around but never within.
I wondered if this might sit in an unfavorable place when you are sat in a lorry with regards to a vehicle with such a small head on profile as a bike.
This is the part where I do my highly speculative and very unscientific test. Not having a lorry to hand I set up a chair, a mirror and a bike, roughly in the positions you might find in a typical truck/bike bone cruncher scenario, staring straight ahead and using various household implements to track my blind spot, I was surprised to find that my bike could be made to completely disappear fairly easily from the point of view of the truck driver (me on a chair).
Of course, as pointed out above, this would not be visible to the driver as the area is not dark or blurry but simply 'gone' with nothing to alert you of the missing area (how many of us notice the two missing areas in our field of view).
Of course there are endless variables to factor in, but as a basic idea I came to the conclusion that we just might not be (figuratively) invisible to truck drivers, but, in part at least, actually invisible ?
Whadyathink ?