Night Riding
NIGHT RIDING
Riding at night is a great way to check your headlight adjustment. Nighttime is also good for snipe hunts and record runs down deserted highways. About the only problem with motorcyling when the sun goes down is that things smaller than the Golden Arches get hard to see.
You say you have 20/20 vision. Good. But your night sight is still only about 15 percent as effective as your daytime vision. And if your visual acuity is only 20/40, you’re going to have 10 times more difficulty in seeing something at night than someone with 20/20 sight.
Consider some other startling facts: your capacity to distinguish contrast at night drops by nearly 90 percent. Depth perception and the ability to estimate other vehicles’ speed and distance also takes a beating.
You may be thinking that night cycling is akin to some form of highway roulette. In many ways, it is. But it’s doubtful you’re going to park your wheels and walk. So you must learn how to develop your night sight to cope more effectively with the dangers of the dark. Before you read about some simple techniques for improving your capacity to see more effectively at night, you should have some idea how the eyes function.
First, the process of seeing is largely a mental phenomenon. You don’t really see with your eyes. Their job is to gather sensory impressions and transfer them through the optic nerves to the brain, which has the job of interpreting them to form meaningful images.
This explains why some people, despite having good vision, still have trouble noticing certain objects like motorcycles. The driver who pulls into the path of a motorcycle and then says, “I never saw him,” may not be lying. Although his eyes picked up the approaching bike, the motorist wasn’t conditioned mentally for consciously noticing any vehicle smaller than his own vehicle.
Why?
Blame it on a kind of mental-block condition known as Mental Set. It simply means that some drivers just block out anything they’re not conditioned to be aware of. Accentuating Mental Set can be a preoccupation or distraction of some sort, such as a ball game on the radio, falling ashes from a cigarette, or a pretty girl crossing the street. Whatever.
In many cases, poor vision of the driver will intensify his unalertness even more.
Now regardless of your degree of vision, you’ll have your sharpest perception in daylight when you look directly at something. Light sensors called cones are to be thanked for that. They're concentrated in the central portion of the retina. But at night the cones become insensitive to low light, and the central part, of the retina then becomes a blind spot.
It’s then that other sensors called rods come into play. Located on the peripheral areas of the retinas, the rods provide you with the ability to perceive objects under low-illumination conditions. But to use the rods to maximum advantage, you must turn your head slightly to allow the rods to line up on whatever it is you’re looking at.
Another technique you can use at night to see better is to keep your eyes moving. Never focus on one point for more than two or three seconds. Holding your gaze longer than that can disorient you to the point where you become highway hypnotized. This is such a sneaky phenomenon, you probably won’t be aware it’s even occurring.
For instance, if you’re riding a lonely stretch of road, a distant farmhouse light may capture your attention. You may turn your gaze elsewhere, only to be drawn back to that light. And each time you look at it, you tend to hold your gaze a little longer. Before you’re aware what’s happening, you run off a curve or into the back of someone’s car.
A solitary light isn’t the only thing that can capture your attention. A steady stream of headlights, or even the surrounding darkness itself can mesmerize you. So can something as trivial as a smashed bug on your windshield or faceshield.
Besides keeping your orbs in motion, blink naturally. This reflexive action provides a momentary rest for the eyes and minimizes fatigue and staring. .Blinking also helps to keep the eyes moist, which can help to reduce the irritating effects of headlight glare from oncoming vehicles.
Every so often, squeeze your eyelids shut tightly without the aid of your fingers for just an instant. This will improve circulation in the eyes and minimize fatigue.
Don’t strain to see anything. Try to look at something in a relaxed but keen manner. The more you strain to see, the more difficulty you have in perceiving something. If you find yourself squinting in an effort to see something, relax your facial muscles and take a deep breath or two. The extra oxygen you take in will help you relax more and can actually effect a momentary increase in acuity.
Keeping the eyes in motion is particularly important for minimizing the blinding effect of oncoming headlight glare.
Obviously, you should never look directly at oncoming headlights. But, again, when you’re tired, headlights can attract your attention and disorient you. Of course, if you keep your eyes always shifting, headlight glare won’t be all that troublesome.
For best results, move your eyes in a scanning pattern. For example, try the two-point scan. Glance at a point on the ground somewhere between the oncoming vehicle and the side of the road; then immediately flick your line of sight to a point somewhere on the road in front of your bike. By alternating your line of sight between these two points, you’re accomplishing two things:
One, you’re avoiding exposing your eyes to the direct glare of the headlights; two, you’re also monitoring the positions of both the other vehicle and your bike in relation to the road.
Don’t close your left eye and focus on the right side of the road with your right eye. You’ll lose peripheral vision on the left side. And if that oncoming vehicle drifts over onto your side of the road, you might not notice it in time.
How to Trick Your Eyes Into Seeing.
Bill Hampton
Besides causing temporary blindness, headlight glare can also impair your eyes’ ability to readjust to ambient darkness. When they’re exposed to glare, the pupils take about seven seconds to readjust to surrounding low-light levels. So if you’re traveling at 60 mph, you’ll have covered 616 ft. before the pupils have adjusted to the surrounding darkness. A muffler lying on the road or a deer bounding across the road could go unnoticed as your eyes try to adapt to darkness again.
If your vision is weak to begin with, your eyes could take anywhere from 5 min. to half an hour to readjust to lowlight levels. Now you may think it a good idea to wear some form of shaded eyewear to combat headlight glare.
Don’t!
Shaded eye protection will diminish overall vision severely. Although it will reduce headlight glare, it will also make it nearly impossible to detect hazards surrounding you.
Wearing shaded eyewear is a benefit, however, when in brightly lighted places such as restaurants. The eyes will adjust much more readily to darkness later out on the road when the sunglasses are removed.
An oncoming vehicle’s headlights aren’t all bad, though. If you’re observant, you’ll find that they can help you spot dangerous surface conditions or objects on the road that your own headlight hasn’t picked up. What’s more, if that vehicle is hidden from view, as when coming around a blind curve or up the other side of a hill, its headlights can provide advance warning of its imminent presence.
Look for headlight reflections off the underside of telephone cables or tree foliage.
By the same token you can inform the other driver of your impending presence by flipping your high/low beams to make them more noticeable. You’ll find that your headlight can be a means of communicating with other drivers.
Take, as an example, someone whom you’re following. If you decide to pass him, inform him of your intentions by flipping your high/low beam before you pull around him.
Use your turn signal, too, just in case the other driver wonders why you’re playing with your lights.
If you have any vision weaknesses, night riding can make you painfully aware of them. But oftentimes poor night vision can be attributed to nothing more than a deficiency of vitamin A in the diet. Lack of this nutrient can make your eyelids feel scratchy and sore. Headlight glare will prove more irritating than normal, too. Moreover, without enough vitamin A, the eyes will have difficulty in readjusting to low-light levels.
Don’t get misled, though, into thinking that huge doses of vitamin A will effect a miraculous improvement in night sight. Too much can be toxic. But if you eat properly, you’ll ensure yourself an adequate intake of vitamin A. If not, vitamin A capsules and special vitamin compounds are available for keeping your eyes healthy. Because deterioration in vision is usually a subtly progressive process, you may feel that your eyes are okay when they really are in need of attention.
You could have a visional defect that wouldn’t be noticeable during daylight; but at night it could prove to be a hazard. Depth perception is a good example: at night a lot of drivers have trouble in estimating the speed and distance of other vehicles, especially motorcycles.
Besides low illumination, poor depth perception can be caused by a couple of tongue-twisting maladies known as protanopia and aniscocoria.To someone with protanopia, the color red appears hazy or indistinct. The danger here is obvious to a driver with protanopia: a motorcycle’s single, relatively small tail light will appear to be farther away than it really is.
Anisocoria is another visional peculiarity. Here one of the pupils is notably larger than the other pupil. The larger pupil takes in more light than the smaller pupil. If, for instance, the right pupil is the larger of the two, a vehicle on the right side of the road would seem closer to the observer than if it were on the left side of the road.
Even if you have organically healthy eyes, certain substances can interfere with their functioning. Alcohol is one; tobacco another. Alcohol is deadly due to its rapid absorption by the bloodstream. The critical level for most people is .08 per cent of alcohol in the bloodstream. Two whiskies in an hour’s time will produce that percentage. Just one ounce of alcohol can affect your driving skills and night sight appreciably.
Smoking is more harmful than you may realize, too.
The incomplete combustion of the tobacco produces carbon monoxide, which interferes with the body’s supply of oxygen. Blood has an affinity 200 times greater for carbon monoxide than for oxygen. Therefore, more red-blood cells absorb carbon monoxide than oxygen.
Heavy smoking can lead to asthenopia, which is eyestrain accompanied by dimming of vision.
Since being seen at night is just as important as seeing, don’t overlook the importance of making you and your machine as outstanding as possible. Mount an extra tail light or a couple of running lights. Wear a reflective white helmet and fluorescent clothing. If your riding attire is dark, put reflective tape on it. Stand out!
See and be seen. That’s what night sight is all about.
