Text 15789, 110 rader
Skriven 2005-11-10 10:23:22 av Roy Witt (1:1/22)
  Kommentar till text 15733 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Fog lights
==================
10 Nov 05 00:33, Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Roy Witt:


 >>>> That works even better for motorcyclists...used to be a lot of
 >>>> motorcyclists hit cars broadside when the driver pulled out in
 >>>> front of them because they weren't seen.

 MvdV>>> If the motor bike runs into the side of the car, it is the fault
 MvdV>>> of the biker; he failed to spot the car in time. When the car
 MvdV>>> driver fails to see the biker, the car would hit the bike
 MvdV>>> broadside.

 >> Wrong. Apparently you've never ridden a motorcycle.

 MvdV> Wrong. It appear *you* are the one who has never ridden a motor
 MvdV> cycle.

LOL! I was riding motorcycles long before you became old enough to know
what they are.

 >> When a driver fails to see the bike coming and pulls out
 >> in front of it, the biker, if he doesn't have time to swerve
 >> out of the vehicles path, will hit the car broadside.

 MvdV> Exactly. If the biker assumes the driver of the car has seen him,
 MvdV> he is toast if his assumption is wrong. So either the biker learns
 MvdV> very quickly to cease making that assumption or he very quickly
 MvdV> ceases to be a survivor.

See 'time', above. Anticipating the vehicle's movement still requires
enough reactionary time to avoid it.

 MvdV> I was lucky to learn soon enough to always approach a crossing
 MvdV> under the assumption that the car driver did not see me. I rode a
 MvdV> bike and survived.

I learned that lesson in 1959, while bouncing off the rear bumper of a car
that was turned in one direction, while signalling a turn in the opposite
direction. Assumed he was going in the direction he was pointed, but he
surprised me and turned left, in front of me. A very rich drunk in a brand
new 1959 Cadillac...if you've ever seen the tailights and fins on that
car, they're really dangerous to people on bikes. I broke the left rear
tailight lense with my knee.

http://home.earthlink.net/~gallery59/cadangR.jpg

 MvdV>>> Anyway, when evaluating statistics like this one should not just
 MvdV>>> count the lives saved among the bikers or the passengers of cars.
 MvdV>>> One should count *every* life, including those of bicyclists and
 MvdV>>> pedestrians.
 >> There must be at least 30 of them...:o)
 MvdV> Yep. ;-)
 MvdV>>> When seat belts became compulsory, the number of death among car
 MvdV>>> drivers and passengers dropped slightly. However, there was an
 MvdV>>> increase of death among pedestrians....
 >> I don't see the correalation.
 MvdV> That you don't see it does mot mean there isn't one.

I mean that I need an explanation of what seat belts has to do with
pedestrian safety.

 >> Seat belts don't have anything to do with pedestrians.
 MvdV> Indirectly they do.

Maybe when they become passengers or drivers.

 >> And it certainly doesn't have anything to do with
 >> a different method of driving.

 MvdV> But is does. See my massage to Frank S.

I saw it, but I didn't think it was relevant. I feel no safer with seat
belts on than I did without them. I have no more confidence that I'll
somehow be saved from injury than I did with out them. Until there's an
opportunity to prove they're safer than not, I only feel inconvenienced by
having to strap myself into the car before I can go anywhere.

 MvdV>>> Yes, sure under adverse conditions having the lights on is a good
 MvdV>>> idea. In broad daylight and clear weather it is nonsense.

 >> Actually just the opposite. On a clear day, it's just as easy
 >> to miss an oncoming car as any other day. With DRLs, the chance
 >> of not seeing the other car is less.

 MvdV> Yeah, but the marginal increased visibility does not automatically
 MvdV> lead to an overall reduction in casualities.

The increased viisbility isn't merely marginal...

 MvdV>>> The chance of running headlong into another car because
 MvdV>>> you do not see him under those conditions is near zero.
 MvdV>>> Can't improve on that by switching the lights on.

 >> Anything that moves will catch the eye, most of the time, if
 >> one is wide awake and aware of the surroundings. Anything that
 >> moves and has lights on, cloudy or bright sunshine day, will
 >> be noticed sooner and more often.

 MvdV> In bright sunshine the enhanced visibility isa marginal. That
 MvdV> marginal enhanced visibility does not necesarily lead to an overall
 MvdV> reduction of casualties. The statistics do not support the theory
 MvdV> that it does.

Wrong...by now you've seen the list of studies, which prove your theory
wrong.


Roy
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