Cassandra speaks

In article <[email hidden]>,

Peter Headland said:

In any event, I can't imagine that de-facto training drivers to believe
that if they can't see any lights there is no vehicle approaching can
be healthy for any of us.

Hmmm, we already have compulsion at night. We take that for granted,
but bear in mind that there is no such compulsion for pedestrians,
horse riders, etc, so there are already unlit road users round the
next bend. And if road users rely on the beam, most bike lights
won't show up until there's a direct line of sight, either.

--
Nick Kew

Nick Kew said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Peter Headland said:

In any event, I can't imagine that de-facto training drivers to believe
that if they can't see any lights there is no vehicle approaching can
be healthy for any of us.

Hmmm, we already have compulsion at night. We take that for granted,
but bear in mind that there is no such compulsion for pedestrians,
horse riders, etc, so there are already unlit road users round the
next bend.

Except that, mostly, there are not. Over the years horse riders,
cyclists and predestrians have mostly become too frightened to go out on
unlit roads at night. The result is many drivers who find it pretty much
unthinkable that they will encounter anyone except other motorists, so
they drive at high speeds unless they see the lights of another vehicle;
this only reinforces the fears of other, non-motorised road users. I've
tried walking a short distance along an unlit road to a pub in the lake
district. It was very scary. Most cars seemed to be driving as fast as
possible, short of skidding off on the corners.

From one point of view, of course, this is an excellent state of
affairs as it makes it very unlikely that non-motorised raod users will
be involved in accidents on such roads.

And if road users rely on the beam, most bike lights

Quoted message said:

won't show up until there's a direct line of sight, either.

Yes. Few bike lights show up much in comparison to vehicle lights.

--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

"Peter Headland" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I bumped into this site: http://www.lightsout.org/index.html
accidentally and (hey it's a slow afternoon over here) read a few of
the pages (especially the ones about the various poor-quality studies
that purport to show daylight running lights to be a Good Thing -
eerily familiar, I thought).

So why did the USAF mount bright lights onto some of their planes in the 2nd
WW?

Because it proved an effective camouflage that allowed them to get closer to
their targets before being detected!

T

On 29 Dec 2004 18:26:28 -0800, "Peter Headland"
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

I bumped into this site: http://www.lightsout.org/index.html
accidentally and (hey it's a slow afternoon over here) read a few of
the pages (especially the ones about the various poor-quality studies
that purport to show daylight running lights to be a Good Thing -
eerily familiar, I thought).

Maybe. My cars over the last ten years or so have had daytime running
lights (though not high-beam ones) because they were made in a country
which mandated them years ago. I think it unlikely that the same
justification used in a country like Sweden would apply in the USA,
though...

I think the major problem is not the lights themselves but the
increasingly bright lights being fitted to cars these days.

Guy
--
"then came ye chavves, theyre cartes girded wyth candels
blue, and theyre beastes wyth straynge horn-lyke thyngs
onn theyre arses that theyre fartes be herde from myles
around." Chaucer, the Sheppey Tales