SUMMARY – we tend to assume that the eye acts like a camera but because a motorcycle is within the driver’s field of view, there’s no guarantee that the driver will actually see it… clear, colour and focused vision only occurs across a tiny zone… the vast majority of incoming visual data falls into the fuzzy, colourless peripheral vision… it’s our brains that give us the illusion of full-colour vision over a wide area… given the tiny ‘foveal zone’ the concept of  making ‘eye contact’ seems of doubtful value…

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – many early studies implicated poor saliency and poor sensory conspicuity as the reason for ‘looked but failed to see’ errors… the narrow frontal shape of a motorcycle makes it harder to spot than a car… many studies have focused on finding ways of making motorcyclists ‘more conspicuous’… but despite collision statistics remain largely unchanged… this suggests that it may not be a lack of conspicuity that is the likely explanation for car drivers missing motorcycles… but it’s become accepted as fact rather than asking if the theory is actually whether the hypothesis is correct. 

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

PAGE SUMMARY – motorcycles are small and easily hidden… the motorcycle can be concealed by the vehicle itself or by objects outside the car… the A pillars either side of the windscreen have steadily got thicker to provide better crash protection… a ‘framing effect’ means we avoid looking at the edges of the windscreen… when two vehicles are moving towards an intersection and due to arrive at the same time, the ‘bearing’ between the two vehicles stays constant… if one vehicle is hidden when the bearing remains constant, it will remain hidden… even though the rider can see the vehicle, the driver may not see the bike…

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IMPORTANT:

The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

PAGE SUMMARY – for decades, riders have been told that motorcycle crashes at junctions are the result of drivers ‘failing to look’ or ‘not looking properly’… but official crash reports are largely subjective as they reflect the opinion of the reporting officer… there are more reasons for LBFTS collisions than ‘the driver didn’t look’ or ‘look properly’… the crash rate involving motorcycles and drivers using a phone is almost certainly much lower than most of us would believe… in terms of OPPORTUNITY to commit a ROWV, very few of the opportunities result in the error… the vast majority of drivers must ‘look properly’ for bikes.

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THIS PAGE HAS MOVED

IMPORTANT:

The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

[NOTE: In the following pages I shall use extracts from research papers and books which make points of interest. To help you track the references back to those papers, I use the standard system known as a ‘citation’ which gives credit to the author(s) and the original paper. The expression ‘et al’ means that more than one person was responsible for the research.]

THIS PAGE HAS MOVED

IMPORTANT:

The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491