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Caution…visibility or lack of it

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:46 pm
by Dave
I just thought I would highlight a deceptive hazard, Visibility or lack of it, not only you not being visible but the rest of the vehicles out there hiding.

Currently the sun is still quite low, this causes long shadows, not only with stationary objects like trees and buildings, but also moving objects like vehicles.
Combined with the lack of clouds giving a surprising amount of bright light, this can make the ability to see traffic tricky, and if you can't see other vehicles there is a good chance they will have difficulty seeing you.

And because it is bright, many drivers don’t use their lights.

The morning run highlighted this to me.
Riding on a road that I use everyday…I am riding into the sun thru a tree lined road on a long straight, on first glance I thought the road was clear and I started to accelerate to pass the van in front….but something looked out of place ahead so I backed off.

There was a white box van on coming towards us, the sun was almost directly behind it, causing the van to be hidden in its own shadow.
Because it was a bright morning, the van driver did not had his lights on.
The road was covered in shadow from the trees and there was a bit of a haze, probably a bit of dust mixed with early morning moisture in the air.

In all the van coming towards me was hard to see.

I think I thought something did not look right because the 'invisible' van changed the outline of the view I normally see.

This made me back off the throttle a bit, and be even more cautious of the other traffic on the road.


You all be careful out there !

Re: Caution…visibility or lack of it

Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:16 am
by Dave
And don’t forget to clean your visor…that is one of the best things you can do to make everything else more visible (after opening your eyes!)

Re: Caution…visibility or lack of it

Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:51 am
by haiax0
I have recently had my helmet serviced (ooooerrr misses) What a diffrence it has made.. new lock pins / anti fog screen / new visor / good clean and grease.

something people may neglect to do as I imagine you dont notice the slow deterioration of your lid and screen.

lid now feels like im viewing HD!!

look after your lid well and you shouldnt have to much issues. :2up