Although the site I link to below doesn't directly address a motoring issue, what it does show is how easily we can be fooled, and what we think we see isn't necessarily what's actually there;
www.michaelbach.de/ot/
The motoring link question which follows is how can we trust our eyes and what we think we see when we're on the road to make safety critical driving decisions?
I find this one particualrly worrying;
www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_mib/index.html
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I'll believe it when I see it.... what we think we see isn't necessarily what's actually there >>
Schrodinger's Cat
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Amazing, the MIB thing. For a moment one wonders why we don't fail to see other vehicles and pedestrians more often.
But the key is that to experience the illusion you have to stare fixedly at one point. Drivers are scanning in all directions all the time, aren't they? They never drive along staring fixedly at the tail lights of the car in front, do they?
Heh heh.
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That's brilliant!
BUT...Lud, that is just the point, you do not have to stare at it for very long before the dot just disappear. Just a few seconds of staring at someones tail lights and that scooter vanishes! Honest guv, I didn't see him!
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The trouble seems to be that indeed we don't see other road users enough - If you look at the last published dot stats (2007) on causes of accidents you will see amongst about 100 causes that the highest in order of fatalities are
Loss of control 33/19/13/15% fatalities/serious/slight/all accidents
Failed to look properly 22/30/37/35%
Careless/reckless/in a hurry 17/17/17/17%
Travelling too fast for conditions 16/11/10/10%
Failed to judge other person?s path or speed 13/14/20/19%
Exceeding speed limit 13/8/5/6%
i.e. observational/trajectory misjudgements errors appear to be a greater cause of accidents than the dreaded exceeding the speed limit.
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If you look at the last published dot stats (2007) on causes of accidents you will see amongst about 100 causes that the highest in order of fatalities are
SQ
but they lump anything that has even a slight thing to do with the word speed under speeding, i.e. failed to judge third parties speed (even if said party was doing 30mph below speed limit) and too fast for conditions such as 25mph on packed ice......
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 01/05/2009 at 11:20
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>> I'll believe it when I see it.... what we think we see isn't necessarily what's actually there >> Schrodinger's Cat
I wish I hadn't Googled that, my head hurts now. I think I'll stick to electronics.
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Friend of mine had a cat called Schrodinger. He had a Renault 18 at the time I think......
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>...cat called Schrodinger. He had a Renault 18 at the time I think.
After our thread about pressure on on-street parking, I think that's taking the idea of a car for each member of the household a bit too far.
};---)
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>> Schrodinger's Cat >> >> I wish I hadn't Googled that, my head hurts now. I think I'll stick to electronics. >>
Did you see the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [h2g2] entry?
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1073945
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Thanks, that's more understandable than the Wikipedia entry :-) Time for another can of Old Speckled Hen and some more optical illusions.
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you mean to say you can't use Schroedinger wave equations to determine Heisenberg's uncertainty?
Admittedly, its been 20+ years since I studied it.
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I posted that optics link a while ago in response to a thread about hi-viz vests or something. Just because you've got lights on, a reflective jacket and your vehicle is painted a bright colour doesn't mean:
1. The other guy will look
2. He'll consciously recognise your vehicle as a hazard
If we all drove as if we hadn't been seen, there'd be a lot less accidents I think....
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Like a stone in the road - if your eye is on it, you are drawn to it.
That was part of advanced driving course I once completed.
The same course also gave advice about 'figure of 8' vision viewing.
You simply do an imaginary '8' figure with your eyes. This then stops your vision becoming concentrated on one spot - so making that area blind to you.
Works very well when driving at night or in low light conditions.
Try it on the examples given in the initial link - it does work.
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...observational/trajectory misjudgements errors appear to be a greater cause of accidents than the dreaded exceeding the speed limit....
Leaving an on-street car parking space years ago, I managed to reverse into a pedestrian who walked behind the car.
"Didn't you see me?" she asked, getting to her feet.
At which point I was tempted to say: "Of course I did, I knocked you over on purpose."
I didn't say that, I enquired into her wellbeing and apologised.
I'm still annoyed with myself for breaking the golden rule of motoring: Look where you are going.
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Of course none of us have any excuse for reversing into anything really, but on a countless number of occasions I have seen people walk behind a reversing vehicle. It's as if their common sense is completely absent. In my case, my estate car is often laden to the roof resulting in my rear vision being restricted to my wi.... door mirrors. Still people walk directly behind me when I am reverse parking and so on. Maybe they don't even notice.
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Humph,
Spot on - I did think she put all the circumstances in place for the accident to happen, but the bottom line remains my moving car knocked her over.
To change the subject to supermarkets, when I'm reversing out of a space, I'm sure some drivers who are passing the rear of the car deliberately stare straight ahead, as if to reinforce the point they are not going to give way.
They seem oblivious to the possibility that I might be rubbish at reversing (see above), and might keep coming and back straight into them.
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