[nozzlering]

After reading the post, I checked my driving. I have never followed this technique. In other words, I have been lucky for not having met with an accident. I will try to follow the technique, everytime I drive.

[lsp]

I have sparingly experienced not seeing people in the peripheral vision but that is mostly when I drive under some tension or my mind is engrossed somewhere else. It is scary when I am about to park the car in front of the house and realize that I don't remember about the drive home. . Scary, I tell you.

Under normal conditions I always keep moving my eyes between these 4 areas:-
(1) Front windscreen
(2) Central RVM
(3) Right ORVM
(4) Left ORVM

Mostly I am doing.
(1)-(4)-(1)-(3)-(2)-(1)
(1)-(4)-(2)-(3)-(1)

If you keep your eyes moving on all these 4 areas and the runing of the head for blind spot, you would not experience the MIB. It technique not only help you avoid the MIB but also keep you aware of your cars surroundings.

I sat in my friends car a few days ago, where the LORVM was closed, and the driver upon asking very proudly said that he doesn't need it.

Well, the usage of ORVM is a seperate thread in itself.

[noopster]

On a longish drive recently, we were on the city stretch just a few km from home when I suddenly braked hard and swerved left to "avoid" a car and bike in the right lane. Then I realised that neither of them had threatened to cut into my lane at all. The missus was worried and asked, didn't you see them? I shook my head and mumbled an apology.

In retrospect it makes sense. I was tiring after the long drive and my eyes had been focused on the taillamps in front of me. The vehicles in the right lane suddenly 'appeared' after being invisible and that startled me.

Scary. Thanks for this very usefull article TK and AB. The dot test is very revealing.

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by n_aditya

You're right Niranjan. That's why its important to keep scanning for objects all around including in the RVM's and over the shoulders while overtaking (while on a bike at least) so that there are no blind spots.

I heard from my friend who got a DL from the middle-east that during the driving test, it is also checked how often the driver checks his mirrors. Maybe one reason for this check is to train the drivers so that the effects of motion-induced blindness may be reduced.

[Jay5150]

Very nice info for all members. Thanks for sharing.

Like many have mentioned, many of us instinctively do this scanning (front-back-sides).

Its like second nature to me and actually it gets disrupted by either the missus wanting to have a serious talk while driving or the kids asking some "urgent" questions - "Daddy, can a crocodile defeat a lion?" or something like that

I find it that I scan more often in 2 situations: On a high speed run on a highway or in twilight/dark typical indian city traffic.

Also this motion induced blindness is a recently discovered phenomenon and that too in a lab. Being an ophthalmologist I have been interested in this effect, I have noticed it esp. while driving to Bangalore, at about 160 km/h your point of focus gets into the distance and the periphery disappears. very unsettling. Actually the thrill of hitting such high speeds is dampened by this worrying loss of peripheral vision.

Nice stuff from online:

"We have the widest range of vision (largest visual field) when stationary. Typically our primary vision is within 10° - 12° of our line of sight. But objects can be detected outside of this in our peripheral vision, 90° to the left and right, 60° above and 70° below our line of sight. This means when stationary we have a 180° horizontal visual field and a 130° vertical visual field.

At speed however our vision focuses automatically further ahead and thus the visual field reduces in all directions. At 100 km/h our horizontal visual field is only 40° (20° to the left and right of our line of sight)."

Driving Vision

Another interesting perspective from an American: Fighting Tunnel Vision


I think that is why many kids get into high speed accidents, they never think about this stuff or consequences.

Cheers
Drive safe

[hsprabhu]

Quite informative. Did you guys try focusing on one of the yellow dots? I did. Other two yellow dots disappeared. But the flickering dot at the center was still flickering. Not able to explain that though.

[MandarMax]

Wow this is very useful. With this knowledge I can now explain one of the accidents I had about 6 years ago. I was on my bike on a two lane road, there was a rickshaw ahead of me, normally I would have overtaken it easily but it had just rained that day and there was this longish puddle on the mid-right side of the road. I did not overtake immediately because I did not want to splash water on the rickshaw occupants. So I waited till the puddle got over and accelerated; and as soon as I did that I hit an oncoming scooter which I had not seen previously. It seemed as if that scooter had appeared out of nowhere. It wasn't that I was looking down at the road or the puddle, I had noticed it once and didn't need to focus on it, but I must have been focusing on the rickshaw which was moving ahead of me (BTW there was no chance of a blind spot, I had full visibility of the right lane). The person on the oncoming scooter had noticed me just before this happened and tried to warn me by honking, but it was too late! Fortunately there wasn't a lot of damage but till date I kept wondering how could I have missed an oncoming scooter in a broad daylight that too on a straight road. Now I know. Thanks for sharing.

[shridhar.s.i]

This is indeed very good information, as many i have not faced such a problem yet but looking at the proof of concept it is better to prepare ourselves for something like this
Will need some practice though to perfect the head swivel and eye movement
Just my 2 cents but i believe this happens even more in the night when the only moving object you see is the road strip and all other things are relatively blurred due to poor lighting
And had one question, is this also the reason that while gazing continuously for sometime on the road you tend to get a drowsy feeling, not sure if these phenomena are related

[sandeepmohan]

Oh my god. That test was scary. I lost all the yellow dots in under 10 seconds of staring at the green dot.

It is nice to know this. I have felt this I times when I am out on the highway. Sometimes it is due to lack of concentration and the eyes tend to relax a bit too much. I have been careful.

[kadanaJ]

Excellent post. Thanks for the info.

I'm definitely going to practice keeping my eyes in motion from now on. I'm sure eventually it'll become reflexive.

[Santoshbhat]

Very informative. Thanks for sharing it with us.

To be honest I have experienced this. Sometimes when coasting on a long fast road I get startled by a bike or pedestrian or cow that appears out of nowhere. Not that it was obscured by some other object or vehicle . It would be within the line of sight, but its almost like the brain has simply not bothered to process that bit of information. Then suddenly out of the blue it appears. And I'm like "where did that come from?" Now I know how that happened.

Point to be noted is that, the fast we make the blue lines turn, the higher the disappearance of the yellow dots.

[IronH4WK]

Wow! That's really informative! I usually cycle through the RVMs, instrument cluster and what's in front, but I admit some times I've been caught off guard. I've developed a habit to scan the road ahead of me from side to side to spot bogies. Faster the speed, faster the scanning.

There's another thing I've noticed in my drives - if I'm passing through area with big trees on either side and if sunlight is filtering through it causes a repetitive pattern of shade/sunlight. If the duration of this pattern is long it can turn hypnotic; it's kinda like slowly dozing off and can be very dangerous, especially if your driving fast. One will fall prey to it faster if one is tired.

Anybody else feel this phenomenon?

[prateek_ch]

I had an idea about this phenomenon but this was really a detailed explanation. the Demo in the link was truly an eyeopener.

People who drive at night should especially take care as our roads are more often than not dimly lit and does not favor a clear peripheral vision.

I have sent the link to everyone I know.

[vibbs]

Thanks a ton for the very informative piece. Many a times I ve faced this situation and I always thought may be some concentration issues with me or excessive stress, although I m never stressed by driving. Now I know there is a plausible explanation for the issue, and I m not alone who s faced it.

[Sangre]

Originally Posted by Jay5150

Very nice info for all members. Thanks for sharing. ...
Nice stuff from online:

"We have the widest range of vision (largest visual field) when stationary. Typically our primary vision is within 10° - 12° of our line of sight. But objects can be detected outside of this in our peripheral vision, 90° to the left and right, 60° above and 70° below our line of sight. This means when stationary we have a 180° horizontal visual field and a 130° vertical visual field.

At speed however our vision focuses automatically further ahead and thus the visual field reduces in all directions. At 100 km/h our horizontal visual field is only 40° (20° to the left and right of our line of sight)."
...

Cheers
Drive safe

Really interesting thread. Makes for a good read on a Friday morning

I have always been conscious of my peripheral vision while driving / riding, more so because I happen to wear glasses for myopia. I feel that this phenomena of loss of peripheral vision is compounded by wearing specs for short sightedness.

I always think that my peripheral vision is slightly obstructed by the specs frames. Moreover the field of vision is restricted to the area of the lens. Anything that falls out of the lens area appears blurred and consequently I find myself turning my head to a larger extent to cover areas that fall out of the "clear" area.

I have tried a few things to decrease blockages in my peripheral vision:

- Use contact lens. Abandoned this option due to cumbersome maintenance
- Specifically ask for a wider lens for my specs from my optician
- Wear sun glasses with power that wrap around your eyes

All this might sound like the ramblings of a paranoid brain but I'm concerned about it.

Since quite a few of us might be wearing prescription glasses, I'd like to know if any of you are as paranoid as me