infrared
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2013
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Maybe this is not really my business; we all make our own decisions. I have seen a lot of posts lately saying that auxiliary lighting is the way to be seen, by otherwise careless cagers. I'd mostly agree, but when you are cresting a hill, or the sun is low behind you, any lights (or more lights) can make you even harder to see, and extra caution is needed. I have some back-up, for that statement.
From the day I started riding, experienced riders told me to ride like I was invisible. Good advice, although I did not know why, then. Yeah, had a few close calls. I lived . . . About the worst one for me came from the other side of the problem. I was coming from work, driving the big K5 Blazer (not one of the S-10 toys). I stopped at the Stop sign, and looked both ways. One side had a Sun kinda low in the sky, but not blindingly, yet. The cross street was empty, both ways, but just as I let out on the clutch, I spotted something low, fat and dark, about the size of a wharf rat coming my way. It was clocking about 35 mph (55 kph) down the middle of the road. This was a curious-enough sight to make me lock up the brakes, trying to figure out what this thing was. I heard tires squeal, and a motorcycle appeared, right in front of my truck. There was maybe a yard (meter) between my front bumper and the bike, as it went across my path, but I was fully stopped. The rider had dropped the bike, and slid to a stop. Since he was off already, he decided that we needed to talk. I would have gladly crawled under a rock. I apologized from the heart, but it didn't mean much until I said that I ride, myself, and that I really did look, but just did not see him. No blood no foul; he refused my money. He picked up the bike, and rode away. I was very seriously thinking about mailing in my driver's licenses: trucking, car and motorcycle. My eyes and ears are good. I really DID see something coming, maybe the size of a wharf rat, but that bike had been invisible, in every sense of the word. Two days later, I had the address for the DMV, but couldn't find a postage stamp. I had thought hard about things, and still I had no better answer.
NOVA is a PBS (USA) science-oriented TV program, and I'm always game for more education. That night, the show was about Camouflage Techniques. During WWII, Hitler's U-boats had ravaged the USA East Coast waters, and they could dive fast enough to evade most anti-submarine patrols, even by aircraft. The planes were ineffective as a coastal defense, and they knew it. What our warfighters did then was fairly amazing, for their day. The coastal defense squadrons mounted bright aircraft "landing lights" in the engine nacelles, and in a grid across the noses of their aircraft. These lights got to be called "Yehudi Lights." When the attack bomber sighted any surfaced U-boat, the aircrew went to work. The pilot pulled the throttles down to idling speed, and set the pitch of the props for gliding flight, while diving at the U-boat. The tail gunner had the task of taking a light-meter reading (with a common photographer's light-meter) of the sky behind the plane. Then he cranked up rheostats controlling the light array, to a similar value. By trial and error during practice runs, each plane then carried a written table of rheostat values that would "vanish" the plane even in a bright sky, to any lookout on the surface. Film clips of their practice runs were amazing to watch; the approaching bomber just vanished from the sky. With no sight and no sounds to warn the U-boat lookouts, they learned they were under attack when the bombs came down, and the pilots throttled up their engines to get out of gun range. Many U-boats were lost to these "invisible" anti-submarine planes. In another scenario on the show, an armored troop carrier on a ridge line had been fitted with a grid of lights, and just vanished into sky behind it when the lights came on.
All that to say this: The local bike laws here require riding with the headlight on, both night and day. Most "reasonable" people would figure that this requirement makes us much more visible to other drivers, and that is mostly correct. However, when the sky is bright behind you, it can be worse to have the headlight ON, than OFF. Extra lighting really may make things worse. I had looked for crossing traffic at that Stop sign, and there was no visible vehicle coming. That rapid "wharf rat" that I DID see was actually the very bottom of the front tire on that bike, because it was far enough away from the headlight to be seen. No other part of that "vanished" bike had been visible, though. Expect to be truly invisible, with the headlight on, and a bright sky behind you. The "glitter" of the pavement sands had made the ground look as bright as the sky to me, on one very scary afternoon. At least, now I knew how this close-call had happened. I put my driver's license back into my wallet, but now I'm extra careful riding, when the Sun is behind me. For your own consideration, then . . .
From the Web:
https://www.infosources.org/what_is/Yehudi_lights.html
https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/05/invisible-drone/
"During WWII, The US Navy's Project Yehudi used lights mounted on the leading edges of the wings of a torpedo bomber to successfully hide the plane in broad daylight when attacking a submarine. Visual detection range in the tests dropped substantially from 12 to 2 miles. As the plane approached a target, the lights, which pointed forward . . . the output intensity (not color) of the light was set to match the intensity of the sky behind the approaching plane. This effect takes advantage of a physiological phenomenon termed isoluminance where objects of similar intensity can be indistinguishable from one another under certain conditions."
Cheers,
Infrared
From the day I started riding, experienced riders told me to ride like I was invisible. Good advice, although I did not know why, then. Yeah, had a few close calls. I lived . . . About the worst one for me came from the other side of the problem. I was coming from work, driving the big K5 Blazer (not one of the S-10 toys). I stopped at the Stop sign, and looked both ways. One side had a Sun kinda low in the sky, but not blindingly, yet. The cross street was empty, both ways, but just as I let out on the clutch, I spotted something low, fat and dark, about the size of a wharf rat coming my way. It was clocking about 35 mph (55 kph) down the middle of the road. This was a curious-enough sight to make me lock up the brakes, trying to figure out what this thing was. I heard tires squeal, and a motorcycle appeared, right in front of my truck. There was maybe a yard (meter) between my front bumper and the bike, as it went across my path, but I was fully stopped. The rider had dropped the bike, and slid to a stop. Since he was off already, he decided that we needed to talk. I would have gladly crawled under a rock. I apologized from the heart, but it didn't mean much until I said that I ride, myself, and that I really did look, but just did not see him. No blood no foul; he refused my money. He picked up the bike, and rode away. I was very seriously thinking about mailing in my driver's licenses: trucking, car and motorcycle. My eyes and ears are good. I really DID see something coming, maybe the size of a wharf rat, but that bike had been invisible, in every sense of the word. Two days later, I had the address for the DMV, but couldn't find a postage stamp. I had thought hard about things, and still I had no better answer.
NOVA is a PBS (USA) science-oriented TV program, and I'm always game for more education. That night, the show was about Camouflage Techniques. During WWII, Hitler's U-boats had ravaged the USA East Coast waters, and they could dive fast enough to evade most anti-submarine patrols, even by aircraft. The planes were ineffective as a coastal defense, and they knew it. What our warfighters did then was fairly amazing, for their day. The coastal defense squadrons mounted bright aircraft "landing lights" in the engine nacelles, and in a grid across the noses of their aircraft. These lights got to be called "Yehudi Lights." When the attack bomber sighted any surfaced U-boat, the aircrew went to work. The pilot pulled the throttles down to idling speed, and set the pitch of the props for gliding flight, while diving at the U-boat. The tail gunner had the task of taking a light-meter reading (with a common photographer's light-meter) of the sky behind the plane. Then he cranked up rheostats controlling the light array, to a similar value. By trial and error during practice runs, each plane then carried a written table of rheostat values that would "vanish" the plane even in a bright sky, to any lookout on the surface. Film clips of their practice runs were amazing to watch; the approaching bomber just vanished from the sky. With no sight and no sounds to warn the U-boat lookouts, they learned they were under attack when the bombs came down, and the pilots throttled up their engines to get out of gun range. Many U-boats were lost to these "invisible" anti-submarine planes. In another scenario on the show, an armored troop carrier on a ridge line had been fitted with a grid of lights, and just vanished into sky behind it when the lights came on.
All that to say this: The local bike laws here require riding with the headlight on, both night and day. Most "reasonable" people would figure that this requirement makes us much more visible to other drivers, and that is mostly correct. However, when the sky is bright behind you, it can be worse to have the headlight ON, than OFF. Extra lighting really may make things worse. I had looked for crossing traffic at that Stop sign, and there was no visible vehicle coming. That rapid "wharf rat" that I DID see was actually the very bottom of the front tire on that bike, because it was far enough away from the headlight to be seen. No other part of that "vanished" bike had been visible, though. Expect to be truly invisible, with the headlight on, and a bright sky behind you. The "glitter" of the pavement sands had made the ground look as bright as the sky to me, on one very scary afternoon. At least, now I knew how this close-call had happened. I put my driver's license back into my wallet, but now I'm extra careful riding, when the Sun is behind me. For your own consideration, then . . .
From the Web:
https://www.infosources.org/what_is/Yehudi_lights.html
https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/05/invisible-drone/
"During WWII, The US Navy's Project Yehudi used lights mounted on the leading edges of the wings of a torpedo bomber to successfully hide the plane in broad daylight when attacking a submarine. Visual detection range in the tests dropped substantially from 12 to 2 miles. As the plane approached a target, the lights, which pointed forward . . . the output intensity (not color) of the light was set to match the intensity of the sky behind the approaching plane. This effect takes advantage of a physiological phenomenon termed isoluminance where objects of similar intensity can be indistinguishable from one another under certain conditions."
Cheers,
Infrared
