> Not convinced? Okay, go to a mirror and look repeatedly from your right eye to your left eye. Can you see your eyes moving? You cannot. Now have a friend or partner do the same thing while you watch them. You will see their eyes moving quite markedly. The reason you couldn’t see your own eyes move is because your brain shuts down the image for the instant that your eyes are moving. Experiments have shown that it is impossible to see even a flash of light if it occurs within a saccade.
When you have your phone in selfie mode, the latency is low enough that it can feel like a mirror. When you move, you see yourself in the camera app move. But if you do the above experiment, you can definitely catch your eyes moving. Then you can shut the screen off and do the above experiment using the screen as a mirror and you cannot. It's a neat demonstration of the latency.
This was eye opening (pun not intended) and make me a bit worried as a recreational cyclist - many of my clothes are dark and it seems worth investing in brighter ones.
As a driver, I found that using BGE setting of the side mirrors (it's wider out, slightly overlapping with rearview mirror), coupled with keeping an eye on the road gives me a much better situational awareness, and prevents the need to turn my head in many cases - "Nope, there's a car in my blind spot, not changing lanes yet". It's a minor convenience but really helps with fatigue of the neck muscles, and keep my eyes forward, so I can react if anything happens in front of me. I've been driving BGE for nearly 10 years now, and I feel a lot safer that way. It takes some getting used to not seeing the side of the car, so if you consider doing it, I'd recommend getting used to it on a chill road, before getting on the highway.
Just to be clear, you still have to look over before you do change lanes. It's just that you don't have to look as often to figure out that you can't change lanes yet.
This is in contrast to what the article from NHTSA says:
"With this new setting, it is no longer necessary to turn and look into the blindzones."
... which is in contrast to what the original article quite emphatically says:
"... move your head or you're dead ..."
I like the novel mirror arrangement and will try it but I hope people will follow the advice of the fighter pilot, and not NHTSA, and continue to move their heads.
I tried the different angle a couple of years ago because it seemed like the smart thing to do—increase the number of things I see.
I found that my blind spots were reduced but not eliminated. It’s scary to think that somebody on the road might stop looking over after adjusting their mirrors.
One solution that I have more faith in is the little convex “blind-spot mirrors.” Those actually seem to cover everything in the blind spot and then some more (at least on the driver side).
If you can replace your car's driver's side mirror with aspheric european mirror, do so. (Assuming you're in the US).
I had the euro glass on my Golf, and the ability to see more than just a massive grille filling up your entire mirror glass on the driver's side is a godsend. I can actually see a car 2 lanes over moving into the same lane I'm trying to move into, using just my mirrors.
I've used this mirror adjustment method forever, and it really does eliminate blind spots, especially given correct mirrors. It depends on the car, though -- our Tesla 3 has pretty bad blind spots in the peripheral area because the glass doesn't adjust far enough out, and they haven't started selling the car in Europe yet, so you can't get the correct glass for it.
It seems to me like angling the mirror further outward could be done with mirrors (or cameras) installed inside the car. The advantage of the outside mirror is that you can see the side of the car.
So if you prefer to drive with BGE mirrors, wouldn't you be better off leaving the outer mirrors so you can see along your side, and a bit to the rear, and install auxiliary outward-angled mirrors on the dashboard inside the car?
I know in one of our cars that the B-column is absolutely huge, and even swiveling my head is not enough to check the left blind spot, because that B-column is fat enough to hide a car. I have to check an auxiliary convex mirror before changing lanes left. That's mounted on the wing mirror, but I would have preferred it to be on the dash, because it eats up a lot of space on the regular mirror, and is still rather small in its own right.
I don't remember if it was 1/3 or 2/3 (a lot anyways) of motorcycle accidents were caused by another car driver, and mostly due that they didn't see the motorcycle so a high-visibility jacket (yellow/orange with reflective stripes) is a must imho.
I'm not going to wear a dorky-looking yellow vest even if it does make me safer, but it is very useful to assume that I am always effectively invisible. If you expect that drivers will constantly cut you off, pull out in front of you, and even merge directly into your lane, motorcycles are nimble enough that you can generally see the problem coming and react in time to avoid catastrophe when it inevitably happens.
I've taken so many risks like this when I was using a bike: dark grey coat: check, black pants: check, dark grey backpack: check, black shoes: check. And usually my light (only in the back) is barely visible because of using old batteries and forgetting to change them.
Partly, the instinct is about feeling trashy, and having to replace worn-out old junk as it accumulates stains, scuff marks, battle damage.
It feels wasteful to have to discard perfectly useful items, because they look worn out. We all know that black, dark items tend show the least amount of wear, and in the interest of efficient frugality, some of us gravitate toward that instinct.
You look at a white t-shirt, and you know it's going to show pit stains by the end of the year. A black t-shirt might show some white accumulation inside the armpits, but not outside, and you really are only going to have to trash it, once some holes show up. Same with socks.
So too with hi-viz stuff. You just don't want to buy something, and throw it out, the moment it gives a sense of unintended imperfection. It's more an equipment maintenance perspective, than a live, situational awareness point of view. The best equipment is the stuff you have, and the stuff you have is the stuff you keep.
Being a little OCD, but that's what's going on under the hood, from my own perspective.
Safety is no exception. It's all about management of risk. If you seek to mitigate all risk you'll find yourself with even more risk because your bank account is now empty. The internet is great at telling other people how to spend their money so of course everyone will tell you you need the "best" helmet and the "most" reflective jacket, etc, etc.
If you don't care about looks, you could just get some reflective tape (the kind used for trucks, e.g. V82). Use it on the bike and helmet and you'll probably be more visible than someone in a fancy jacket. Spending couple bucks on safety seems like a decent tradeoff.
It was more about taste than being cheap about clothes, but I understand your perspective. But I still kept most of those clothes because they are still in good enough state.
That part of the article blew my mind. That cyclist is practically invisible. I consider myself an extraordinarily safe driver and I know I would not see that cyclist.
Time to get a high viz vest for the motorcycle and bicycle rides.
I always use BGE. My dad basically nagged me into remembering it always. I tell people who have never done it, go find a parking lot with just a few cars in it and convince themselves that it works and that it is safer than twisting their head around to see backwards.
A warning, do NOT use this mirror arrangement if you drive in a crowded city and share the road with scooters, motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrians.
BGE is great if you drive on big roads and mainly share it with other cars.
However if you drive in a city with tons of scooters, you know the ones that will swarm your car, then they will all be in your blind spot if you use this mirror arrangement.
My Ford car has smaller convex mirrors in the corners of the normal side mirrors and they are a godsend in busy city driving. I really miss them when driving other cars.
I'm surprised to see this is the first mention of convex mirrors. I get some of the stick-on variety for any car I'm driving, as it dramatically increases the viewing angle for my side mirrors. I get them for my friends to put on their mirrors, too. If a $6 item can help avoid any kind of collision, that's an insane ROI.
I completely agree. Although, alternatively, you can keep BGE and just move your head a lot more when in the crowded city environment, if that isn't your primary driving environment. It isn't nearly as big of a problem to look sideways in the low urban speed environments, IMO.
Turning your head backwards gives you wider peripheral vision with the properties described in the article (i.e. quick motion detection).
When reversing in perpendicular pedestrian/cycle traffic (such as coming out a driveway, or if you accidentally ended up over a pedestrian crossing when the red light got you and you want to go back a few feet) looking backwards is much safer.
Requirement for a past job was that I take a traffic safety course, and one of the things they taught us was to never back up when you were caught out in the crosswalk because pedestrians will frequently walk behind the car. Better to sit where you are and feel stupid.
None of those cyclists are riding in a particularly sensible position, it's patently unclear where they are going, are they in lane 1 or lane 2, or moving from one to another?
The argument "it's the cyclist fault she got killed for not wearing bright colours" is practically the same as "it's the woman's fault she got raped for wearing a short skirt"
Maybe cyclists should be forced to wear high vis clothes so car drivers can drive around without awareness. Maybe schoolkids in the UK should wear bullet proof vests so gun owners don't accidentally shoot them. Maybe women should be forced to wear burkas so men don't get tempted. These arguments are very similar logic.
However if cyclists are to take some responsibility for their safety on the road, not riding at the edge of a lane is the first thing to do, not wearing a burka or a flak jacket.
It looks to me like they're in a perfectly sensible position - just outside the door zone as they approach some parallel-parked cars. Am I missing something?
They are in the second lane, then they are too close to the left most lane. A vehicle (especially a large vehicle) passing up the inside could be very close. If the yellow rider were to move slightly to the left, the blue one would probably swerve towards the left lane, but there's no where to go.
They are also encouraging in-lane overtaking, which might just about work for a motorbike or another bike, but anything wider would be a problem
The yellow topped one is probably OK in lane position if the other cyclists weren't there (but why not another metre to the right). However he's very close to the blue one. The blue and stripy ones run the risk of being hemmed in by traffic from the rear
Thanks for the reply! Studying the photo more, I see that you are right about them being in the left of the second traffic lane - it's not parked cars like I thought previously.
Where I live people cycle and walk on old country roads all the time. I am a cyclist and have no issue sharing the road, but I find myself starting to hate the cyclists and pedestrians because none of them seem to have any idea that when they are out at night and wearing black/dark clothes, not having any reflective material on their clothes or bike, or have any type of light makes them almost invisible, well invisible until I'm on top of them.
I have outstanding night time vision, I've had it checked, and I have outstanding depth perception, also checked.
If seeing in the light is tricky, darkness is probably 10x worse.
Just last night I had a guy crossing wearing a black hoodie, black pants, and black shoes, he was crossing along a stretch of 2 lane road where there are apartment buildings but no street lights, or cross walk. I saw him but only because the two cars in front of me illuminated him. The guy was walking on the shoulder near the white line, I don't think the cars in front of me saw him at all, even when they passed him because he almost got clipped by the mirror of the car in front of me. I guess that was too close for him so he just turned and started crossing, he never looked, and I was maybe 30 yards away driving the speed limit which was 40. Luckily I had seen him and was fully expecting him to do something stupid so I was ready when he started to cross.
I live near a university, and there is a street that runs right through the middle of the school. It has 3 different types of lights, high pressure sodium, LED, and Halogen all in about 50 yards, the section of the street is well lit, but because of the different lights and the color of the light it's damn near impossible to see students when they are darting out from between cars. A lot of people I know avoid that street at night because they feel like they can't see anything event though it's well lit. I've notified the university, and they don't even respond to my letters.
> Where I live people cycle and walk on old country roads all the time. I am a cyclist and have no issue sharing the road, but I find myself starting to hate the cyclists and pedestrians because none of them seem to have any idea that when they are out at night and wearing black/dark clothes, not having any reflective material on their clothes or bike, or have any type of light makes them almost invisible, well invisible until I'm on top of them.
How do you cope with cows? (dark coloured ones) Or fallen branches?
In a metal cocoon of a car, you're cut off from almost all your senses. Even just your visual sense your awareness is far worse in a car than when walking or cycling. Add to that the likelihood you're traveling a lot faster and it's a recipe for disaster.
Should this also apply to pedestrians, or only to cyclists? Because everybody is a pedestrian once they get out of their car.
I used to walk to work, and I always wore a hi viz vest on winter mornings when it was still dark. But none of my co-workers (who still had to cross streets to get from the parking lot to the office) did.
I like using the car park analogy. It is perfectly legal to park in a bad neighborhood. If your car is broken into then the thief should be sent to jail. You are still dumb for parking there. This isn't victim blaming.
Can't remember the last time I saw a cyclist with lights. They seem to think that they don't need them if in a cycle lane, even when there is nothing separating it from the rest of the road.
Yes they are wrong, they are required by law to have lights. The cycle lane isn't continuous, there are breaks in it at every junction.
A car travelling in the opposite direction has to cross the path of the cycle lane to turn into a cross street. Not being able to see that a cycle is coming towards you isn't going to end well for the cyclist.
Where I live, there are laws mandating the minimum distance a vehicle has to be from a cyclist when passing (1.5m) - this distance is not covered by the available clearance in the cycling lane.
If you can't see a cyclist is in the lane, it's difficult to give them safe clearance, and driving as though you are always giving clearance to cyclists means driving closer to the other traffic lane, increasing risk of vehicular collision.
They are wrong. The law in some (all?) EU countries fortunately mandates lighting.
I have seen bike lanes where it's expected that cars will at least partially drive onto the lane because the road is too narrow.
And it's kinda ironic: pedestrians will likely blunder into the bike lane without looking, just like bikers sometimes suddenly pop before cars without the slightest care in the world.
I've seen pedestrians cross the street without a walk light in a downpour where visibility is five feet at midnight on a poorly illuminated intersection while wearing all black.
Cars have lights not just so they can see, but so others can see them. Pedestrians absolutely should have the same, or at least something approaching reflective clothing.
Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn.
I have an Air Zound air horn and I feel much less safe riding without it. I'll often give a few toots before approaching an intersection to increase the chance that I am seen. And it has probably saved me from some major crashes when I lay down the horn on someone. Many drivers seem to automatically brake when I honk.
The horn is also great for giving bad drivers feedback. Most people who drive poorly around cyclists seem oblivious.
Some drivers unfortunately see horn use as hostility. I have dealt with a few road raging drivers who were very angry that I honked at them. I am pretty certain most of these drivers would be angry with or without the horn, so it doesn't much matter to me. The safety benefits also are far too large even if these folks would not tend to be angry either way.
As a fellow commuting cyclist, I find that the most effective "tool", by far, is constant awareness, and a significantly reduced faith in humanity.
I assume that everyone is distracted and not paying attention to what they're doing, and that informs my "riding rules": Try to make eye contact, don't assume you've been seen. Never be in the blind spot. Never pass on the right. Cross on a red light to get ahead of the pack of cars.
I am a US transportation cyclist. I mostly dislike vehicle (including bicycle) horns.
If it's a close enough call with another vehicle, my voice has been enough of a 'horn' to alert drives. If there's a less close conflict, then there's probably positioning/visibility change that should have happened upstream.
For me, horns are a too frequent, rude disruption in the world.
In my experience a horn is far superior to a voice. For one, it's much louder. And as rude as a horn might seem to some, I've had much worse experience from shouting at drivers. It doesn't matter how polite you try to be. The volume of your voice is going to make you seem like a jerk. In contrast, most drivers respond fine to my air horn.
I agree that horns can be rude and disruptive, and perhaps most honks are. But I stand by every time I've used mine. I don't use it frivolously. Whereas drivers seem to use their horns frequently because they are impatient, I use it only because I'm in danger.
I never had the second or third problems. I don't use the horn on pedestrians unless strictly necessary, nor do I honk at people as revenge.
The first point was a challenge at the beginning, but I think I've done fine using both the brakes and the horn at the same time. I can think of any least one instance where both were necessary to avoid a crash. I'm certain my worst case stopping time has increased at least a small amount, but it's a worthwhile trade-off in my view.
"see horn use as hostility" Of course they do. When people in cars honk at other people in cars, the majority of time it is a sign of hostility. They've been conditioned to perceive the use of a horn as a sign of hostility.
In the US. In some places (I know personally China), drivers frequently use their horns simply to tell other drivers that they exist when they are passing. A downside is incredibly noisy roadways.
It's only a sign of hostility if used as such. If I need to remind you to look up from your phone becuase a light has turned green, then a quick "doot" or "doot doot" isn't typically considered hostile. If someone does consider that hostile, then as the parent said, they're probably an angry person regardless, so it's still not the horn that's hostile.
> Using your horn as feedback means you missed the moment.
Perhaps. I try my best, and think I avoid the vast majority of potential conflicts that come my way. But I can't avoid them all. I can prepare for the common problems, e.g., drivers turning into the bike lane without looking or doing a right turn on red that hits me or goes directly into my path. But those don't cover all possibilities, and I'm continually surprised by the diversity of bad driving that I've seen.
>>Some drivers unfortunately see horn use as hostility. I have dealt with a few road raging drivers who were very angry that I honked at them.
You'll fit right at home biking in NYC since constant car honking is par for the course, although pedestrians will probably be pretty shocked when you let loose the Zound from the bike lane.
I also have a normal bike bell that works fine on pedestrians and other cyclists. I never use an air horn on a pedestrian unless there's no other way to get them out of the way in time.
The one time I horned a pedestrian that comes to mind was like that. This guy was walking distracted and he decided to come off the sidewalk and directly into the bike lane without looking perhaps 20-30 feet in front of me. I was traveling around 15 to 20 mph. I hit the brakes hard but immediately knew I would still hit him unless he jumped out of the way. That's where the air horn came in. He jumped out of the way. No harm to him aside from perhaps some temporary tinnitus. Horn use was unavoidable in my view.
A lot of people keep their motorcycles extra loud for this reason. It pisses people off, to hear an extremely loud motorcycle engine, but a subset of riders don't do it to be cool, but really to gain attention as a survival mechanism. An overlapping group do it for both reasons.
When people go blaring down my residential street at 10 PM at night I start to fantasize about stringing up a cargo net. I don't think that's working for them as a survival mechanism.
(Context: I bicycle in Boston, so I know what the roads are like, although I'm sure it's somewhat different for motorcycles.)
On motorcycles you can be just a little bit more agressive, but selectively.
There's enough power to assert high speeds, and take the lead with quick acceleration, but due to the amount of surface area in contact with the ground, motorcycles have lower agility than bicycles, based on the weight that gets thrown around.
With most motorcycles weighing well over 200 pounds, depending on speeds, the usual turning radius cuts a pretty wide arc (not very maneuverable, ultimately), and stopping too short will throw you off the bike. You just lock up the tires, or peel out if you don't finesse the amount of force in play.
They can do more than a car, in terms of turning and stopping, but it requires agility, dexterity and practice. Whereas with a car you can just slam the brakes, and toss it in any gear, do whatever, and not even think about balance.
So, in a situation where you gain a feel for the attitude of some random car, and the driver is radiating the demeanor of a total dickwad, there are three choices. A. Stop, reroute, and go anywhere that fucker isn't. (the best, and most common decision, more than you might ever know) B. Clutch the transmission and rev loudly, to see if they know you exist, which often doesn't work because people listen to music and mostly try to ignore the world around them. C. When they inevitably don't respond to options A & B, release the clutch, and rev the engine to launch in front of that prick and blast off. Fuck the world.
People just really don't like to give other people choices, so you wind up doing a burnout in front of them, because they keep stepping on your toes. Hurts me more than it hurts them. Such is life.
Interesting to know about the turning radius issue. Bicycles can cut very sharp, and I suppose that's a function of both mass and velocity. (Possibly the lighter bicycle is easier to tilt over into a tight turn, driven down by the rider's weight, while the motorcycle has to tilt under its own weight.)
Ultimately, though, on a city street my gut says that motorcycles are in pretty much the same situation as bicycles, or better. Not sure how the stopping distance compares, but what a motorcycle lacks in being able to swerve, it should make up for in power. (Different benefits in different situations.) I believe part of why drivers don't see bicycles is that bicycles are usually ridden on the right side of the right lane. But I have never ridden a motorcycle, so my gut could well be wrong. :-)
(Highway, that's a different beast. I care less about how loud motorcycles are out there.)
So I guess here's a question: Should bicycles be equipped with constant noisemaking devices?
Unfortunately it's near useless since the bulk of the sound is directed towards the back of the bike; and it's the front that would make the most use of it (left turn in front of you, run-over merge, etc).
I ride and don't like relying on annoyance for survival: it only makes things worse. Better idea: assume you're invisible and ride with always at least 1 escape route.
I can’t begin to describe the rage I feel when I’m walking down a street going about my business when some ape riding on what sounds like continuous dynamite explosions, violates my ear drums.
It’s one of the clearest signs of selfishly telling others “fuck you” that I know.
I'm not a cyclist, but I'm a huge fan of having these on bikes. They've become more popular in my area and because of that you notice the bicycles earlier so you have a much smaller chance of accidentally hitting them because you don't see them. After I started seeing these, I've become quite baffled why more cyclists don't use them.
Also I wish that road vehicles had radios so drivers and riders could communicate intention like we do when flying. All you have for communication in a car is turn signals, high beams, and a horn, and many drivers take severe umbrage if you use them because they willfully or accidentally misunderstand what you're trying to say.
> Also I wish that road vehicles had radios so drivers and riders could communicate intention like we do when flying
NO! Dear god no! Most people suck at communicating and could you imagine to road rage? Even though as a pilot you aren't supposed to chit chat on the radio I'm positive you've heard it.
Also you couldn't realistically set up something like ATC so you could have flight following. Not only would tracking that many vehicles be extremely difficult, but setting up all the transponders and receivers would be near impossible. You may notice you have a hard time talking to ATC below 1kft AGL. Plus everyone is in such close proximity at all times what are they going to do? "November 1234 Whisky, you have a Chevy incoming from your 6 oh clock passing on the left. Stay course." Or (in general channel) "Traffic at 6th and main, there is a cyclist approaching from the East on 6th, please use caution" and everyone that isn't at 6th and main tunes out, learning to tune things out.
Flight works because even at a busy airport the communication is still relatively small.
> I'm not a cyclist, but I'm a huge fan of having these on bikes. They've become more popular in my area and because of that you notice the bicycles earlier so you have a much smaller chance of accidentally hitting them because you don't see them. After I started seeing these, I've become quite baffled why more cyclists don't use them.
I find the sentiment in your first paragraph to be baffling, though common. The problem isn't that horns (or high viz, helmets, or flashing lights) are a bad idea, or that you're wishing that more people would use them - I agree that more should use them. My issue is that the sentiment displaces responsibility on to the cyclist, from the person operating the dangerous machine. It's up to the cyclist to decide what gear works for them, and the burden of responsibility is firmly on the driver to not hit other people using the road.
It seems like every couple weeks, our local paper runs an article on another driver running in to a cyclist, and it nearly always frames the event as "cyclist hit by car" (notice we're already biased - "other-class-of-person hit by machine"), then proceeds to answer the "was the cyclist wearing high viz?". This creates a situation where it's more acceptable to drive carelessly, so long as the victim isn't following your locale's particular safety checklist.
Remember that there are a bunch of reasons people bike, and a lot of them are counter to some of these recommended safety products; people don't want to mess up their hair for work, have to wear a dark school uniform, can't afford lights, haven't considered any of this stuff, don't have a safe cycle lane to use...
I find yelling effective, but this might just be of my location where music is played at a reasonable level. Don't need to move my hands to activate and easy to modulate from "passing through" to "I'm here, don't back into me!".
Another effective item is a 1,400 lumen lamp. Set to strobe as needed.
You know, I would pay for something that integrates a two stage horn (announce or loud) and push to strobe lamp; remotely switched by buttons in the handlebar wrap on the brifter. (think electronic shifting buttons and remote shifting buttons).
>I'll often give a few toots before approaching an intersection to increase the chance that I am seen. And it has probably saved me from some major crashes when I lay down the horn on someone.
When are you doing this? When you go through a green light?
Or is this when there's a chance for cross-traffic, say going through a yellow or red light?
The only reason I ask is because whenever I'm in SF, at least half the bicyclists I see, if not more, run all the lights and stop signs.
I never run red lights or stop signs, and don't appreciate being associated with bad cyclists any more than you would probably appreciate being associated with bad drivers.
> Nothing wrong with getting more context, is there?
In principle, no. But you didn't need to add the part about cyclists breaking the law. Many if not most cyclists would find that offensive.
Over the years I've heard many drivers suggest that the reason I don't get respect on the road is that I probably break the law. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be suggesting that I might be using my air horn so frequently because I run red lights and stop signs and want to stop traffic that has the right of way. When stated that way, the suggestion seems ridiculous. If a driver said that they needed to use their horn frequently, I wouldn't suggest that they might be road raging at everyone or something similar, even if I thought that were likely or true. I'd just ask for context without any assumptions.
Should I stop at intersections where I have right of way and a driver on the cross street might be turning right on red? (I can't tell precisely because far too many people don't signal.) Because that's the most frequent reason I'll give a few toots of the horn.
Definitely not if you have the right of way. I do the same thing when I'm driving and I see a car creeping forward to making a right turn as I approach the intersection.
same can be argued for loud Harley or Indian motorcycles. tbh, they are going overboard but I always wondered if a loud bike truly is safer? It makes sense that if you hear your doors rattling on the highway, the tactile feedback from the monstrous motorcycle exhaust sound immediately catches attention. Also, there is an intimidation factor as well.
Meh, I say your life and safety is of higher priority. but do not be surprised if somebody snaps, I've watched too many /r/publicfreakouts to know what the emotional threshold of an adult commuter is these days.
> If you use an air horn in any context on me there is going to be trouble, I hope you're prepared for that. If you assault someone you should expect a proportional response.
Fortunately, people like you seem to be fairly rare in my experience. After hundreds of horn uses (more than 500, easily), I might be able to count the number of times that people got noticeably angry at me for honking on one hand. I'm actually struggling to think of examples, but it has happened.
Also, horn use is not assault. It causes no harm to the typical recipient as they are in a sealed box, reducing the sound pressure appreciably. That's why I only ever use the air horn on a pedestrian or cyclist if it's absolutely unavoidable. I can only think of one instance where I honked at a pedestrian off the top of my head, and that probably saved the distracted pedestrian from serious injury.
A simple "mechanical bike horn" (no idea if that's the right term, but Google image seems to find the right thing when searching for that) might be what you want for pedestrians. I've never seen an air horn that looked usable before, so thanks for that. Looks nice for cycling in traffic.
On the left side of my handlebars I have a normal bike bell, good for pedestrians and fellow cyclists. On the right I have the air horn, good for drivers who can't hear the bell and emergency situations. I'd recommend having both a normal bell and air horn.
> Remember, lights are just as much about being seen as being able to see
I cannot emphasis this enough. It's terrible the amount of drivers who think "I can see fine, I don't need to put on my headlights". Whenever I'm driving on open roads (100 km/h areas) I'll always turn my headlights on. Like aeroplanes, I think that anything on the road should have lights on it for visibility.
Having lights on is good advice, especially since you tend not to notice the evening getting darker gradually. If you've been outside since daytime, by the time you realize to turn on the lights it's already quite dark. In my country, all new cars need to be equipped with daytime lights and even before that rule, using lights at all hours has been mandatory.
However, this advice is a bit questionable:
"Flashing LEDs (front and rear) are especially effective for cyclists as they create contrast and the on-off flashing attracts the peripheral vision in the same manner that movement does."
Flashing LEDs as your only light is really bad, because it's impossible to judge distance and speed from a flashing light in darkness.
Having a flashing light on your helmet or handlebars in addition to a normal light may be beneficial but only if you have otherwise decent lighting on your bike.
In fact, in my country there are regulations that require a non-blinking white light on the front, a non-blinking red light on the back and reflectors on the pedals and wheels. There are actually quite strict rules where and how the lights should be placed.
Unfortunately not everyone complies with these regulations, and the worst offenders I see are children. I've seen kids riding bikes dangerously on the roads (and had closer calls than I'd like to) on otherwise affluent neighborhoods. Their parents (and themselves!) had completely neglected to put lights on their bikes (or check that they work, have batteries, etc).
Long ago, running as twilight came on, I noticed something odd. Those driving east had the sun behind them, and were more visible, yet they had their lights on because they were facing a darker sky. Those driving west were less visible against the darkening background, yet they faced a lighter sky and did not turn on their lights.
Turns out I always turn lights on in such HDR situations producing low-contrast areas: if you have a hard time seeing those in front of you, those behind you have a hard time seeing you. Same goes for haphazard tree shades, even though it looks like it's bright enough, the alternating areas of bright and dark makes you difficult to see. Also, I have excellent eyesight which biases me into what is seeable and what is not, but I try to take into account those who don't, and act accordingly.
Definitely not all of them, Austria even rolled back because it removed the visibility advantage of motorcycles and because daytime running lights are an arms race that some legal road users cannot keep up with. It makes those with no light (or with significantly weaker lights) practically invisible because drivers will inevitably reduce attention to the common case.
I think usrusr is referring to non-car road users. Bicycles and motorbikes need to stand out from cars, but can't keep up with them in a lighting arms race due to power and weight.
And ox-carts. And walkers. And all kinds of other long tail surprises. The distinction between limited access roads and the regular kind exists for a reason.
I think it's mandatory that new cars have always-on lights, rather than being mandatory to turn on your lights all the time (if you've got an older vehicle). That's how it is in the UK, anyway.
Mandatory for cars type-approved after the 7th of February 2011 [1], not all new cars. Some manufacturers were selling models that were type-approved before that date for years later (the Peugeot 3008 is one example), and therefore weren’t required to have DRLs.
Motorcycles maybe, cars have (by now) mandatory daytime running lights, but at least in Germany for older cars it's not mandatory to have lights on during daytime.
Worse, some of the daytime running "lights" are only visible from about 5 m directly in front of the car - plus on most cars, the "daytime lights" setting only switches front lights, leaving the back entirely off. That's a cure worse than the disease.
I remember that one country reverted its decision for mandatory daytime light for cars because it decreased visibility of motorbikes (for which daytime lights were mandatory).
That would be France. The idea is indeed to increase visibility of the most vulnerable vehicles. Motorbike riders behave differently than car drivers, hence it is critically important to be able to distinguish them easily in traffic (we downright suck at evaluating movements of light sources compared to solid objects). This is also a factor as to why always-on daylights are mandatorily placed lower than headlights.
I reckon a dynamo hub and good always-on lights is perhaps the best cycling purchase I've made for my commuter bike. No faffing around with charging batteries and blinking lights, just leave it go all the time.
("perhaps" because mudguards are pretty useful too). b&m lights, sensible ones that have a backreflector so you don't get horrible specular lights shining in everyone's eyes.
This is always my pet peeve. If there's a car coming, and I'm trying to cross, I can see there's a car coming. Simple. But if there's 10 cars coming, and most of them have their lights on - the one that doesn't looks like a gap.
I don't care if you need your lights on or not. If >50% of traffic have their lights on, I need your lights on too.
There was a lot of debate about this when daylight running lights where made mandatory on all new motorcycles in the EU.
Most of it was on the lines of if every vehicle had lights on you would no longer stand out, you are just another light which is also harder to judge distance in the mirror. Where as if yo have lights on but cars don't you are more likely to stand out for thr fact there's less motorcycles so not as many lights to blend in to the background.
In the AU everyone genrally has full beams on regardless, horrible experince driving at night.
They are not there to stand out, they are there for you to see an object that exists specifically at a point x. Are you instead proposing the situation where half of the drivers are invisible and the other half is (probably) safe?
Just as much as you shouldn't be driving into a motorcycle you should probably not drive into a car.
All in all: you're saying is a horrible experience, but you're not giving any better solutions.
> if every vehicle had lights on you would no longer stand out
From reading this article I don't think that applies. It's typically only one car or bicycle that needs contrast against the background so that you don't miss them. It's not about trying to pick out one car amongst a sea of other cars.
Even then as long as you're aware there's something there you can avoid the psychological problem of assuming nothing is there.
In the summary section it says the conspicuity of motorcycles is improved with daytime lights although may be less if cars have daytime lights.
It’s been a long time since I read that report but it has lots of real data and research.
Cars are easier to spot regardless of lights due to them being much larger than a motorcycle or cyclist and the reports being biased towards protecting the most vulnerable road users.
Your comments don't seem to answer the question of cars having their lights on making it harder to spot motorcycles.
At night time cars will have lights on anyway, so I think it comes down to if cars having their lights on makes it harder to spot a motorcyclist in traffic.
Doesn't it also apply the other way though? Motorcyclists are more likely to spot cars with lights in their periphery? I don't know how much of a non-issue it would be given how restricted the view is from a motorcycle helmet.
More reading, although I'm having difficulties getting links for pdfs:
"Motorcycle Conspicuity and the Effect of Fleet Daytime Running Lights"
> The annual number of motorcycle rider fatalities in the United States has more than doubled from 2294 in 1998 to 5290 in 2008 (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2009). Many multi-vehicle motorcycle crashes involve right-of-way violations where another vehicle turns in front of, or crosses the path of an on-coming motorcycle. Improving the frontal conspicuity of motorcycles with forward lighting may reduce these types of crashes. On the other hand, widespread use of DRL on passenger vehicles may reduce the safety effectiveness of daytime headlamp use by motorcyclists. Research is needed to address these questions. This study involved testing the Fleet DRL Hypothesis that widespread use of daytime running lights (DRL) among the motor vehicle fleet is associated with an increased risk for certain types of multi-vehicle motorcycle crashes. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that the conspicuity of motorcycles (which normally run with their headlamp illuminated all the time) is effectively reduced during the daytime when a high proportion of other vehicles have DRL illuminated. To test the hypothesis, crash data from Canada where DRL use is mandatory were compared to crash data from the northern United States where DRL use is not mandatory and fleet penetration of DRL has been modest. Based on several specific assumptions, we developed a set of ten testable predictions that follow from the hypothesis. We compared crash data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) for 24 northern United States for the period of 2001 – 2007 to fatal crash data from the Canadian National Collision Data Base (NCDB) provided by Transport Canada for the same years. Crash scenarios that were plausibly relevant to frontal conspicuity of the involved vehicles were defined as DRL-relevant. The proportion of DRL-relevant crashes was modeled by country, year, and whether the crash involved a motorcycle. We fit separate models for crash data that occurred in four groups defined by time of day (Day, Night) and location (Rural, Urban) of the crash. The results supported seven of ten predictions indicating that the Fleet DRL Hypothesis may be true for urban roadways (but may not true for rural roadways). These results suggest that there could be negative consequences for motorcycle riders of widespread DRL use in the vehicle fleet. For urban roadways especially, the proportion of two-vehicle fatal motorcycle crashes that are relevant to frontal conspicuity of the vehicles (DRL relevant) is higher in Canada than in the USA. This result and other related predictions verified by the modeling results support the Fleet DRL Hypothesis for urban roadways, that widespread use of DRL in the vehicle fleet increases the relative risk for certain types of multi-vehicle motorcycle crashes. This conclusion should be interpreted cautiously in light of some limitations of the analysis approach.
"The Effects of Motor Vehicle Fleet
Daytime Running Lights (DRL) on
Motorcycle Conspicuity"
> As a group, motorcyclists experience a high fatality rate, a significant number of which are attributable to right-
of-way violations by other drivers. One factor behind the high crash rate is insufficient conspicuity of
motorcycles, which is now of greater concern because of the increasing use of Daytime Running Lights (DRL)
in the vehicle fleet. The hypothesis is that the additional lights on all vehicles will degrade the conspicuity of
the previously unique DRL signal used by motorcycles. The main goal of the current study was to evaluate the
effects of motorcycle conspicuity treatments on other drivers’ left turn gap acceptance. This study was
comprised of three phases. In Phase 1, a test track study measured participants’ left turn gap judgment as a
function of motorcycle DRL treatments. This study was designed to determine which treatments yielded the
largest gaps, thereby making that treatment a good candidate for the on-road portion. No treatment was clearly
better, so lighting systems currently in use on motorcycles were selected for the on-road study. In Phase 2, an
on-road study measured gap acceptance, then followed up with intercept surveys of observed drivers. This
phase included data collection in the United States (low fleet DRL use) and Canada (high fleet DRL use) in
order to evaluate the effect of DRL use in the vehicle fleet. However, due to concerns about the comparability
of the U.S. and Canadian data, the results are inconclusive, and additional research is suggested. In Phase 3,
motorcycle side conspicuity treatments (retro-reflectors and marker lamp) were compared. Results indicated
that there were no differences in detection distance between the treatments.
"Effects of 24-Hour Headlight Use on Traffic Safety"
> Effect of Automobile DRLs on Motorcycle Safety
Minnesota law requires motorcyclists to use their headlights during daylight hours, and opponents of DRLs have
argued that requiring headlight use for all vehicles could make motorcycles less conspicuous. A NHTSA study on
this topic, Motorcycle Conspicuity and the Effect of Fleet Daytime Running Lights, is expected to be complete by the
end of 2010.
> The findings of the 2008 NHTSA study regarding motorcycles were not statistically significant, and the 2004
NHTSA study found that DRLs reduced daytime opposite direction fatal crashes of a passenger vehicle with a
motorcycle by 23 percent.
In Canada all vehicles since 1989 must have Daytime Running Lights. They come on as soon as you put the car in gear and take off the e-break. It's brilliant.
I have a car without DRL, and I always have my headlights on. However, in the daylight (the "be seen" mode), I always turn my headlight adjustment switch all the way down to prevent unnecessary glare for other drivers.
Not too long ago, I was very close to having a "constant bearing, decreasing range" (CBDR) accident that the article is talking about.
I failed to slow down adequately to a T-junction and almost drove straight in front of a truck, despite having looked in that direction twice before entering the intersection.
I'm pretty sure my vision was (partially) occluded by the corner pillar and/or a snow pile on the side of the road and therefore tricking my brain exactly as the article describes.
All it takes is a change in speed to avoid this accident. I now take extra caution in these situations, especially T-junctions or 4-way intersections without traffic lights.
I drive a Honda Element. The A-pillars are huge and cover a ridiculous percent of the field of view. "Constant bearing, decreasing range" ought to be printed on the side mirrors, or perhaps it should have been named the "Honda CBDR". (Note: I love the car, this is just one of it's few less-than-perfect attributes.)
On certain left-curving roads it's possible to drive 10 - 15 seconds being unable to see anything directly in front of you.
I compensate by bobbing and weaving to look around the A-pillar at every intersection or when passing. Maybe it even makes me a safer driver because there's no illusion - I know there's a lot I can't see so drive accordingly.
My biggest fear of driving a modern car is pedestrians and cyclists hiding in the think A pillar when turning. I am also doing the bob and weave like a prize boxer to make sure things don't escape my vision. I'd much rather run into another car than a pedestrian since at least vehicle collisions are a fair fight.
I'm so much more comfortable when I drive my vintage car. The greenhouse is massive, so you can see everything without even turning your head. I also drive that car much more consciously since it requires real effort. The trade off is if I ever run into anything I'm under no illusions about the safety it provides (which is none)
I can't wait for A pillars that are screens so they become invisible.
> All it takes is a change in speed to avoid this accident.
Together with moving your head slightly both ways to try to look from additional angles around both sides of the pillar.
Although rarer, CBDR can occur even when reducing speed if the other vehicle also happens to reduce his speed at the same time, which can be surprisingly common on intersections where priority is unclear or there's a curve leading to it. Happened to me on a T junction on a mountain road, luckily we were at low speed and (surprise!) stopped face to face. As the article suggests: "Move your head — or you’re dead". The other vehicle speed can't vary as fast as you peeking left and right around the pillar.
“[As a cyclist], look at the head of the driver that is approaching or has stopped. The head of the driver will naturally stop and centre upon you if you have been seen.“
Please, please do not rely on this. Correlation is not causation, a driver’s head might face your direction for lots of reasons (focusing on something behind/in front of you, spacing out, looking at their phone, etc). Friends and family have been bitten by this ‘trick’ before, thankfully not with deadly consequences. When someone’s head is facing you, it does not mean they see you.
A little surprising to see this advice in an article that’s mostly about the eye being fallible.
The author speaks in stepwise, risk management terms rather than "if green then go" rules. This is just another piece of information that can help you reduce risk and make better judgements as a cyclist on the road, but by no means a hard rule (don't think the author meant to imply that it is)
I understand your point, but I still think it is worthwhile advice. This trick saved me very recently when it was clear that a driver had not seen me (and my 4yo!) on my bike. I was able to start braking hard even before she pulled out and thus avoid the collision. So, while you are correct that just because someone looks at you, it doesn't mean they see you, it is also true that if someone doesn't look at you, it means they almost certainly didn't see you.
It's not just the face, I always aim for eye contact.
But also as they say in the article it's about judging risk. If the face is towards you you're very unlikely to be in the peripheral vision, so there is a good chance the driver saw you.
If I'm approaching a junction where a vehicle is waiting to pull into my path, I watch their front wheels. I find this often gives an earlier indication that the driver is about to move than their head or eye movements, as you can see the change in weight distribution when a driver prepares to move away.
As a motorcyclist this is exactly what I do too. Its impressive how often people will telegraph a turn before they ever really turn.
Managed to not get into many an accident by watching the heads and front wheels of cars. Also, look for signs of them being on a phone, if so remove yourself from their area asap.
I look at drivers not because I want to verify that they see me, but because I know that the brain is better at picking up faces in the peripheral vision.
Still, my ultimate judgement is based on their vehicle’s position and movement.
Yes, "visibility" is as much about expectation and context as it is about being physically visible.
Example: Parking lots, of all places, are some of the most dangerous places a cyclist can ride into.
One would think a parking lot is relatively safe because of the slow speeds and lack of intersections, but actually, they're peppered with distracted people going backwards trying to avoid hitting other cars and slow-moving pedestrians. They're not expecting to dodge cyclists and aren't "looking" for them and thus cyclists aren't seen even when in plain view.
One of the campaigns here about truck drivers and the blind spot of trucks has focused on “if you see me, I see you” which, while not an absolute guarantee, still helps me as a cyclist to get some indication whether I would be visible in the first place.
As sibling post mentions: lots of little things that can help you mitigate risks.
The only time I've made contact with a moving car as a cyclist was when I was going past an off-ramp.
The weird thing was that I thought the driver "saw me". It was late morning, no problem with visibility. From my POV, she was looking right at me. In fact, she was looking "through" me. She simply was expecting other cars and a person on a bike was not what she was looking for.
Not sure If I understand the exact traffic engineer definition of "off-ramp" but I was going straight on an urban street that the off-ramp exited onto.
Also, in my state at least, bicycles are completely legal to ride on the shoulder of the interstate and similar divided highways with the exception of about 20 miles of urban highway. Very few cyclists do so since it is still a dangerous and unpleasant experience. Personally, I have done so once when I made a couple of wrong turns on unfamiliar backroads. A 2 mile ride along the highway got me back to a spot I knew rather than risk getting even more lost farther from home.
The part about the eyes not focusing near the pillars makes so much sense.
I've often griped about how hard it is to see out of modern cars with thick airbag-equipped pillars, but still wondered how I managed to "miss" something that clearly cannot completely hide in an A-pillar. (eg, because the pillar is diagonal, the pedestrian's head or feet or both will still be visible even if their midsection is obscured.
I used to commute through an area with an endless sea of stop signs, which almost NEVER had cross traffic. My car had a rearview mirror that came down too far and tended to block part of my view forward and to the right, and sometimes pedestrians or cross traffic would 'hide' in the pillars. It's one of those things where, if there had been no stop signs, I would have been much more likely to notice cross traffic, but having to look at the sign and stop line takes your focus for that last 2-3 seconds as you slow to a stop, so even if you're "sure" you scanned for peds/cross traffic, maybe once every 6 months I would begin to proceed and then suddenly see the movement of a vehicle or person in my peripheral vision.
Those pillars and the rearview mirror didn't block what i was looking for, but they must have cued my eyes to not look 'too close' to them. Interesting.
As a former pilot wannabe I do apply a similar set of practices and they do work wonders.
Some other tips I carried over from training:
- Don't look at bright lights at night, look slightly off, for two reasons. First retina persistence will occur somewhere in your (larger) peripheral vision, rather than in the small hi-res patch of your retina that is critical to conscious sight. Second we are naturally driving towards where we look, and lights are especially alluring. This is also valid for obstacles (static or moving), don't look at them, look past or next to them, ideally away from the direction of their movement (which is, as hunters, counterintuitive and unnatural). This can save your life (and has for me).
- Always perform pre-flight checklists, both metric, visual and tactile. This is about checking the usual fluid levels (brakes are obviously key) and tire pressure (don't be fooled, a slightly deflated tire can be invisible to the naked eye or touch yet still be dangerous) but also inspection of wipers, tires (tread and sidewalls) and wheels, brake discs, car underside, pedal feel, turning wheel behaviour. Look for evidence of leaking fluids, wiggles, wear, uneven surfaces. Don't hesitate to use touch. Pilots routinely manipulate parts of their planes such as flaps to check they're in no obvious non-working order.
- Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. A properly maintained car emits basically no unusual noise. I can't count the number of people who have undue noise in their cars. At the very least a noisy car is an inefficient one! Plus even if the noise is due to a harmless cause, it can cover other noises that hint at more serious problems.
- Respect the flow. It is critical to act as if traffic is a fluid, and anything that disrupts the flow creates perturbations, which means more chaos (hence less predictability) and increased risk of collisions. Think of those beautiful fluid dynamics simulations and what happens visually when you disrupt the flow at the edge, in the middle, introduce a narrow point or a second inlet mid-stream.
- Be humble: don't text (you're not looking at the road), don't phone (you're context-switching to a virtual space with the person you're talking to, not in the car, driving), don't drink (even a slight drink slashes reaction time by serious amounts, possibly by orders of magnitude).
- If at all possible, take extra classes on a track to experience vehicle behaviour near, at, and above its limit in various situations. This will help you in recognising when you're approaching the limits outside of controlled conditions and backing off in the safe zone. Don't be fooled by the fact that taking such a class makes you magically able to recover from, say, an uncontrolled spin though: again, be humble.
- Your body is constantly lying to you. As mentioned in the article, visual perception is a tricky thing, and other senses can be deceptively abused[0]. Some may appear with reduced frequency due to the vastly reduced amplitude of degrees of freedom in a car as well as visible cues compared to an airplane, but situations may happen where those axes are involved (cars do tilt along all axes!) or visual cues are lost (heavy rain, fog, night). Be aware of that, and combat that with failsafe cues and training.
- The OODA loop[1] is a thing that works well when driving, leading to anticipation, but needs practice to be leveraged in emergency situations. So, practice it regularly in safe situations, and neural plasticity will carve the required neural pathways to operate efficiently under more stressful conditions.
As with the helmet example, the ultimate goal is to avoid collisions altogether. You're driving several metric tons of metal at unnatural speeds. Unnatural as in: as low as 50km/h a brutal shock has a non-trivial chance of outright ripping your aorta to shreds, and driving an armor-clad, comfortable wheeled machine can't change that. As with most catastrophes, many dramatic events on the road are not due to a single root cause but death by a thousand cuts, some more aggravating than others.
Expecting the general population to do a pre-trip more involved than "yup, my tires don't look flat" is a recipe for disappointment. It's also not efficient. Mechanical failure causes a negligible portion of road accidents and the overwhelming majority of those only affect the vehicle that had the problem.
Indeed. People expect cars to be appliances. Sadly they're not.
I'm not talking about mechanical accidents such as a tyre popping though. I'm pointing out that the guy on a B road entered a curve, failed to account for the clues that grip was closing in to limit due to underinflated tires, looked into the approaching headlights which were blown up by its dirty windshield, blinding him, pushed the brakes which further reduced grip both front (due to wheels being turned) and rear (due to weight relief), misinterpreted the car reaction due to loss of visual information and overcorrected, throwing his car into a spin, and crashed into the incoming car.
Change "car" to "plane" and you get a thorough investigation pointing at the chain of events that led to the crash, but somehow with cars society accept it as normal, the go-to explanation generally being "he drove too fast", skipping all manners of root cause analysis. But hey, it's more efficient to lay out speed traps and reduce speed limits (both having proved to be inefficient long-term) to satisfy lobbies of crying families hit by careless people and looking for an easy scapegoat. Plus it rakes in cash like nothing else. Speed† being a byproduct of movement, as long as you have movement you have a risk of collisions, so the rhetoric can be recursively applied until we reach perfect standstill; interestingly enough, some other means of travel proceed at much higher speeds yet are statistically much less dangerous, because training, procedures, infrastructure design, and maintenance.
† Speed does have consequences, due to simple enough energetic calculations. Nonetheless "speed" is not a cause, it's an effect.
Awesome comment. The bit I find I don't have time for and/or simply do not have the discipline for is to do a walk around every time I get into the car, but modern tech will save you quite a bit of those checks (brake fluid level, tire pressure). And proper maintenance will help you there as well.
But even the slightest thing out of order or hitting a kerb or something like that and I'll definitely inspect to ensure nothing funny happens at speed. Even a blow-out on a tire can completely ruin your - or someone else's - day.
Take the fighter pilot thing with a grain of salt. Some of this stuff belongs more in the sky than on the road. The mirrors thing is a good example. Fighter pilots seek to reduce head movements. During g and/or turns, turning your head can lead to disorientation, even nausia. (It is about the little canals in your ears.) That isnt an issue on the road. Dont try to reduce shoulder checks.
The focus on being seen is also something to think about. Google "target fixation". At night, drunks tend to drive towards bright shiny things. Airstrips amd cockpits use this to hold a pilots attention. There is something to be said for staying hidden, or at least not relying totally upon cars seeing you. Better to stay where you cannot be hit in the first place, and actively avoid cars. That might mean not riding with traffic approaching from behind, or not trusting that if they see you they will avoid you.
In the past at a dangerous junction with limited visibilty owing to corners and high speed traffic I found myself looking one way then the other repeatedly before moving.
Now I look to one side until I'm certain it's free I look the other way and if I see nothing, I go. It feels like I'm fighting my instincts but so far so good!
>... when passing junctions, look at the head of the driver that is approaching or has stopped.
That doesn't really work any more with the steeply sloped windows of contemporary aerodynamic vehicles. All you see is a reflection of the sky. If the vehicle has tinted rear windows you don't even have a chance to see a silhouette...
This has happened before to a submission of mine, IIRC it was explained that it's a manual reset by the mods to give an interesting submission a second chance.
Here are some details about this process. Basically, your submission can get a second chance if a moderator thinks it was a good one that everybody missed:
HN's article submissions/promoting algorithm is shit. If I had to guess, they give priority to articles submitted by certain users (either based on fake internet points or ??).
It is shit. Duplicate stories are arbitrarily allowed to be submitted (exact same article/url), while sometimes it actually works and prevents duplicates.
Oftentimes you see submissions for an interesting article languish in the 'new' section, but then a user re-submits the exact same thing ('duplicate detection' algo at work, lol) and it's on the front page in minutes. Whether that user is a 'power user', besties with dang, lucky, or ???..
> The algos is presumably a straight up string compare with some url decoding
Well, except it fails in some cases to straight up compare two strings that are identical, so there must be some other 'secret sauce' in the algorithm that makes it unnecessarily complicated and error-prone.
When you have your phone in selfie mode, the latency is low enough that it can feel like a mirror. When you move, you see yourself in the camera app move. But if you do the above experiment, you can definitely catch your eyes moving. Then you can shut the screen off and do the above experiment using the screen as a mirror and you cannot. It's a neat demonstration of the latency.