Why modulate your headights or improve forward lighting?

The link below is to a study by the department of transportation/nhtsb researching the effects of various forms of modification of forward lighting on motorcycles with an eye towards reducing collisions/increasing visibility/noticeabilty.

Remember, this is a research document of a scientific study, not something written for consumption by the masses. You may want to skip to the summary unless you have a research background ...

http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/Cras ... 811507.pdf

 

? Wth! I'm a lazy internet user. Where is the pasted summary? Facebook fail... Oh wait...

 

Whine, whine, whine. Poor baby. Okay, for those too lazy to click the link <grin>:

Executive Summary
The annual number of motorcycle rider fatalities in the United States increased from 2294 in 1998 to 5290 in 2008 (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2010). 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 auxiliary forward lighting may reduce these types of crashes. This report describes one of four recent studies sponsored by NHTSA on motorcycle conspicuity.
A field experiment was conducted with 32 adult participants to determine whether the conspicuity of approaching motorcycles viewed in daylight may be improved by various forward lighting treatments including pairs of low-mounted auxiliary lamps (LA), high-mounted auxiliary lamps (HA), both low- and high-mounted auxiliary lamps (LHA), low-mounted LED lamps (LED), or a modulated high beam headlamp (MHB). These treatments were compared to a baseline condition where the motorcycle had only a low beam headlamp illuminated (LB).
Participants, who were not informed that the study involved motorcycles, observed approaching traffic from the driver’s seat of a research vehicle parked in the center median of a four-lane roadway. As traffic flowed past the research vehicle on the adjacent road, participants were asked to press and hold down a button whenever they thought that they would be able to initiate a left turn across the path of the approaching vehicles and to release the button at the first moment when they were no longer able to initiate a safe turning maneuver. At no time during the study did participants actually drive the research vehicle.
Under normal conditions drivers preparing to initiate a left turn across a lane of oncoming traffic must monitor the oncoming traffic stream for a large enough gap to perform their turning maneuver, but they must also monitor the status of the destination roadway or driveway that they plan to turn onto. The destination road might have pedestrians, bicycles, and other road users or other hazards blocking the way. To mimic these shared demands on drivers’ attention, participants in the present study performed a secondary task that was similar to checking for pedestrians or other obstacles on the destination roadway. Participants were asked to monitor and respond to the appearance of a target light mounted on the top of a traffic cone located directly across the street to the participant’s left. This secondary task ensured that participants would not be able to fixate continuously on the approaching traffic stream.
Several times during the data collection period, a motorcycle ridden by a researcher drove past the research vehicle within the stream of oncoming traffic. The motorcycle was configured with a different forward lighting treatment on each pass. The participant’s eye movements were recorded by a head-mounted eye tracking device. This allowed researchers to evaluate the effects of motorcycle lighting treatments on the frequency, timing, and duration of gaze fixations on the approaching motorcycle.
The primary dependent variable was the time between the participant’s indication that it was no longer safe to initiate a turn maneuver in front of the approaching motorcycle and the arrival time of the motorcycle. This time difference was called the “safety margin” for the purposes of this

study. Other dependent variables included the frequency and duration of the participants’ glances at the approaching motorcycle and the latency of their first glances at the motorcycle. It was hypothesized that each of the experimental lighting treatments would provide greater conspicuity than the baseline condition and would therefore lead to greater safety margins, and earlier, more frequent, and longer duration gazes toward the motorcycle.
Statistical tests of the mean safety margin provided to the approaching motorcycle with various lighting treatments did not reveal any significant differences between experimental lighting treatments and the baseline condition. However, the results indicated that some of the experimental lighting treatments may provide a safety benefit for motorcycles because they were less likely to be associated with short safety margins as compared to the baseline lighting condition. Having either illuminated lower auxiliary lamps (LA) or modulated high beam headlamp (MHB) on the motorcycle significantly reduced the probability of obtaining a short safety margin as compared to the baseline condition with an illuminated low beam headlamp (LB). There was also an indication that the four-lamp enhanced lighting treatment (LHA) reduced the probability of obtaining a short safety margin as compared to the baseline condition but this result was not quite statistically significant (p = 0.06).
These results should be interpreted cautiously in light of the differences observed between subsets of participants in the study. In a post-study interview, some participants reported using a landmark strategy to judge when it was safe to turn by comparing the position of approaching vehicles to fixed roadside landmarks. Other participants focused on the approaching vehicles speed, the time until its arrival at the conflict point, or used other strategies. Differences were observed between landmark participants and non-landmark participants in the effects of the experimental lighting treatments. For participants who used a landmark strategy, the influence of the experimental lighting treatments was to reduce the probability of giving a short safety margin, while for non-landmark participants the influence of the experimental lighting treatments was to increase the time spent looking toward the motorcycle.
Future research on motorcycle conspicuity and on the causes of crashes resulting from right-ofway violations may benefit from an expansion in experimental paradigms from an emphasis on time/distance perception and perceptual biases revealed by measures of central tendency to the study of rare events including failures or delays in detection, lapses in attending to detected objects, individual differences in drivers’ perceptual strategies, and countermeasures for inattention blindness.
Overall, the results from this study suggest that enhancing the frontal conspicuity of motorcycles with lighting treatments beyond an illuminated low beam headlamp may be an effective countermeasure for daytime crashes involving right-of-way violations.

 

Well I have BRIGHT LED Low Mounted Aux Lights (LLA??).

They may or may not help during the day, but I LOVE them at night (11:30pm) riding home from work on DARK country/farm roads (paved).

 

So what I want are a pair of rear-view mirrors with modulating LED's on the front?
If they could vary the rate of flashing in synch with my turn signal,so much the better.

 

Modulating headlights/forward lights are required to modulate at a frequency of 240 Hz, or 4 times a sec. Seems fast to me, I would gone for 2-3 times/sec.

On the front, you want your headlight to modulate AND you want to add two running/daytime headlights. Other studies have shown that motorcycles with 3 headlights are in fewer right of way collisions than those with but one. You can get a decent set for $40.

Also, the lights must MODULATE, not flash. That means they don't shut off, but rather vary in intensity. It is supposed to modulate your high beam headlamp.