contribute to road collisions by decreasing visibility distance and target detectability, especially in older drivers (Ni, Bian, Guindon & Andersen, 2012) and others with reduced contrast sensitivity. In addition, fog has more subtle perceptual effects that are equally important. These include misjudgments of speed and distance and the narrowing of visual attention. During the day, fog operates much like the atmospheric effects described above, lowering contrast through extinction and scatter. In this case, however, the particles are a suspension of very fine water droplets in the air. Extinction and contrast loss depend on the distance of the object and on size and density of the moisture droplets suspended in the atmosphere. Since the droplets are bigger than wavelengths in the visible spectrum, there is no color selectivity. This is why yellow fog lights do not provide improved visibility over white lights. Lastly, visibility may also be a function of sun altitude and viewer orientation with respect to the sun. At night, light beams, such as car headlamps, complicate fog effects. There are extinction and air light effects in both directions—when the light goes from source to object and then when it is reflected back to the eye. Fog weakens the headlamp’s effectiveness by scattering the light …show more content…
Moving objects appear slower. First, fog lowers the apparent speed of other objects in the visual field by reducing contrast. Low contrast objects appear to move slower (e.g., Anstis, 2003; Green, 1993; Snowden, Stimpson, and Ruddle, 1998; Stone and Thompson, 1992), so discrimination between moving and stationary objects is more difficult. Imagine a person driving along a freeway and seeing a faint car. It will be very difficult to detect that it has stopped because the lower contrast impairs speed judgments. Moreover, the driver has an expectation that cars do not stop on freeways. The driver may then fail to realize that the car ahead is stopped until it is too
Final Paper Assignment Driving While Stupid, a Miami Herald column written by humorist Dave Barry, was written with the intent to make readers aware of the bad driving habits of today’s motorists. Dave started off his column by mentioning that he wanted to tell the reader of something he saw while driving on the I-95 Interstate in Miami, Florida. Before he did so, however, he felt compelled to provide proof that Miami drivers are the worst drivers in the world.
The answer lies within a phycological phenomena, Sigmund
Gregg Easterbrook, a fellow of the Brookings Institution and author of The Progress Paradox, argues in his article “Road Kill,” that people in the United States are not paying attention to a major killer: our roads. In his essay, Easterbrook explains the lack of attention to the threat of road accidents, even comparing it to 9/11, which has become a serious threat to Americans on the road, and even worldwide. Many Americans dismiss the problem, even though it is huge even if it is not perceived as a huge threat like terrorism. Some causes of the rise in accident casualties proposed by Easterbrook are distracted driving and the rapid increase of horsepower. Easterbrook proposes multiple solutions to the problem, such as increased legislation on distracted driving and reducing horsepower in cars (A1-4).
So what can happen if drivers are not totally focused? According to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), almost 6,000 deaths, over 500,000
During Beau Lotto's Ted Talk, Optical Illusions Show How we See, he discusses how the eyes detect light differently than how it actually is. His purpose for having the speech is to teach about that subject. He explains how what we see isn’t just based off of the color of an object but the illumination given off by it as well as other objects around it. So, our sensory information is essentially meaningless. We can see a physically identical object, but if it is interrupted by another form of illumination, how we see can be completely changed.
A distracted driver would travel the length of a football field when driving sixty miles per hour (Hollister, 2013). The length and amount of time could cause a horrific accident. Traffic safety researchers at Virginia Tech also recognized that those who participate in the act of texting and driving will be twenty-three times more likely to crash (Johnson, 2012). Everyone can see the evidence that distracted driving exists, specifically texting and driving. The people need to recognize it.
Imagine driving the entire length of a football field at a speed of 55 miles per hour with your eyes closed. That is the equivalent of sending or reading a text that takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds. While it may seem very minor to take your focus off of the road for only a matter of seconds, the consequences of distracted driving can result in devastating injuries or possibly even death. Distracted driving can range anywhere from texting, eating, putting on makeup, or even daydreaming. When a person is distracted while driving, it can not only harm themself, it also puts the other people in the car and other vehicles and pedestrians around them in danger.
Heavy rain or snow can cause them to lose control due to the street and cars no longer able to be seen clearly. They begin to lose control from trying to stay on the road, leading to an accident. Since older people have worse vision than younger people, they have a more difficult time driving through the rain or snow. Elderly drivers may also decide to avoid driving during the bad weather conditions, but weather is spontaneous. If bad weather suddenly occurs while they’re driving, they will not be able to stop and immediately lead to panic.
Therefore, overall avoiding speeding and driving too fast reduces the chances for a fatality to
When a person takes their eyes off of the road, anything can happen in just one second. Speeding makes things worse because humans have less time to react when the vehicle is going a high speed rate. The most common distractions include radio, cell phones, and passengers. There is a system that is called the Smith System, which has five steps about being safe on the road. The longer it takes to stop the vehicle is longer than it takes to speed up the vehicle.
Or the driver can just be patient and wait until there is a spot to pullover and use their phones there. There are so many reasons to not be on a cell phone while driving, life or death being the most important reason, but still people continue to use their cellphones while driving. Why? Because they are addicted. People today are so reliant on their phones, they cannot bear to be without them for even a second.
And the real problem that causes these horrific accidents is the difference in speed rather than speed itself. As you have probably experienced, while some folks on the highway may go fast than the
An end to drunk driving When driving a vehicle, thinking about the effects it will have on others might be the last thing on a person 's mind. Getting into an accident can be horrific, especially if the cause is drunk driving. Drunk drivers put lives at risk, as they can swerve uncontrollably and crash into innocent bystanders or other drivers. Automobile accidents occur daily, whether it is from a distracted driver, drunk driver or a sudden crash. However, drunk driving accidents and deaths related to them are totally preventable.
The problems caused by speed limits on the highways can not only be solved by looking at the many mistakes in thinking that people have about speed but by looking at the many advantages of no speed limits on
• Delays, which may result in tardy advent for employment, meetings, and edification, resulting in lost business, disciplinary action or other personal losses. • Inability to forecast peregrinate time accurately, leading to drivers allocating more time to peregrinate "just in case", and less time on productive activities. • Wasted fuel incrementing air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions owing to incremented idling, expedition and braking. • Wear and tear on conveyances as a result of idling in traffic and frequent expedition and braking, leading to more frequent repairs and supersessions. • Stressed and frustrated motorists, emboldening road rage and reduced health of motorists • Emergencies: blocked traffic may interfere with the passage of emergency conveyances peregrinating to their destinations where they are exigently