blinded by light

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
:On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

:Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
:at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
:blinding light?

During the day, gray and rainy.

:Some stupidly bright flashing thing, poorly aimed.

:Probably someone doing weapons research. Megalumen lights will
robably be prominent in the next inevitable war.

:How do I know it was poorly aimed? I was inside. At my desk. On the
:second floor. Looking 90 degrees away from the direction the bike was
:traveling.

:If it was a headlight, 90 degree side illumination suggests it may
:have had 180 degree beamwidth. Impressive for a bicycle light.

My desk is at the corner of the building. I stand facing out a east
window, and have southern ones immediately to my right. The biker was
in the alley on the block south, heading towards me. The light was
annoying me (flahs, flash, flash, SUPER FLASH, flash...), and turned
to see what it was, which is when I really was blinded. If I'd been
driving a car down the alley, I'd have run the guy and his pinarello
over.

:Assuming your description is accurate, my guess(tm) would be a poorly
:secured headlight that had rotated itself to one side. Further, I
:suspect that the rider was not familiar with the operation of a day
:time blinky "safety" headlight. Perhaps the bicycle was stolen, he
:was making a hasty escape, and he did not have time to adjust and
:secure the headlight?


:http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/slides/bicycle-flashlight.html
:It's difficult to be certain, but I suspect that this was a unique and
:unusual occurrence, which is unlikely to be repeated in the near
:future.

Dude lives on that block (or at least, he keeps his collection of
bikes there). I expect I'll see him and the light again.



--
sig 27

On Sun, 29 Sep 2019 20:14:27 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Sunday, September 29, 2019 at 4:51:11 PM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
blinding light?

Here's my experience while driving one day last year:

I was driving on a 55 mph two-lane highway I occasionally ride. I saw a white
light way up the road and wondered what it was. As I got closer, I realized it
was a bicycle headed the same direction I was. The female rider had fastened a
super-bright bike headlight to the back of her bike, facing backwards.
Effectively, it was a white taillight, which is specifically illegal.

It was aimed directly in my eyes, and bright enough that it really was blinding.
I remember shading my eyes with my hand as I changed to the oncoming lane to
pass her. It was almost as bad as driving into a setting sun.

Now, I generally change lanes to pass bicyclists anyway. But I prefer to do it
when I can easily see where I'm going.

- Frank Krygowski

The security camera industry has a product that might solve the
problem of headlight glare. LPR (license plate reader) cameras are
designed to allow reading vehicle license plates in the presence of
headlight glare. Lots of demos online:
https://www.google.com/search?q=LPR+camera+block+headlights&tbm=isch
I can't find the web page, but there are video cameras where the
headlights appear as black spots. Something like:
http://www.licenseplatesrecognition.com/hardware-involved-in-lpr.html
It should be possible to build a similar viewer that will allow you to
see through the glare.

If that's unacceptable, you could adapt an IR heat seeking missile to
home on LED light wavelengths, and take out the rider with an
appropriate payload, such as opaque black paint or essence of skunk.
This looks more like a motorcycle, but would make a good concept model
of a bicycle rocket launcher.
https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/sol-motors-pocket-rocket-bike/



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 29 Sep 2019 20:57:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 06:13:05 +0700, John B.
wrote:

And, I might add, eliminate the complaints of "lights in my eyes".

There's a better and easier way that has been proposed many times and
rejected every time. Install a horizontally polarizing screen over
all headlights, and require riders, drivers, and pedestrians to wear
vertically polarized glasses, which blocks the horizontally polarized
light from the lights. As an added bonus, the glasses would also
eliminate most forms of glare.

Sounds great.... but what about bright street lamps, light from
buildings. windows, etc., hand held spot lights, flashing directional
lights (red arrow sort of things), warning lamps on obstructions,
lamps at railway crossings, and so on?

I was marginally involved in a test of such a system while in college.
As long as every vehicle used horizontally polarized lights, it worked
very well. In fact, it worked too well. If everything was perfectly
orthogonal (90 degrees), it was difficult to see the light source. So,
the researchers had to rotate the polarization of both the headlights
and glasses +/-10 degrees in opposite rotations, to insure that the
headlights could be seen by at least one eye. There was also a
problem with some traffic signal lights which produced mostly
horizontally polarized light and were therefore difficult to see
wearing the vertically polarized glasses.

At the time (1968), seat belts were federally mandated for new cars.
This precipitated a large numbers of "safety" proposals promoted by
patent holders and manufacturers who wanted their products also made
mandatory such as seat belt interlocks, shoulder belts, voice alerts,
air bags, anti-lock brakes, helmets for drivers, redundant everything,
etc. The light polarizing scheme got lost in the rush and confusion.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 29 Sep 2019 21:28:43 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Sep 2019 20:14:27 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Sunday, September 29, 2019 at 4:51:11 PM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
blinding light?

Here's my experience while driving one day last year:

I was driving on a 55 mph two-lane highway I occasionally ride. I saw a white
light way up the road and wondered what it was. As I got closer, I realized it
was a bicycle headed the same direction I was. The female rider had fastened a
super-bright bike headlight to the back of her bike, facing backwards.
Effectively, it was a white taillight, which is specifically illegal.

It was aimed directly in my eyes, and bright enough that it really was blinding.
I remember shading my eyes with my hand as I changed to the oncoming lane to
pass her. It was almost as bad as driving into a setting sun.

Now, I generally change lanes to pass bicyclists anyway. But I prefer to do it
when I can easily see where I'm going.

- Frank Krygowski

The security camera industry has a product that might solve the
problem of headlight glare. LPR (license plate reader) cameras are
designed to allow reading vehicle license plates in the presence of
headlight glare. Lots of demos online:
https://www.google.com/search?q=LPR+camera+block+headlights&tbm=isch
I can't find the web page, but there are video cameras where the
headlights appear as black spots. Something like:
http://www.licenseplatesrecognition.com/hardware-involved-in-lpr.html
It should be possible to build a similar viewer that will allow you to
see through the glare.

If that's unacceptable, you could adapt an IR heat seeking missile to
home on LED light wavelengths, and take out the rider with an
appropriate payload, such as opaque black paint or essence of skunk.
This looks more like a motorcycle, but would make a good concept model
of a bicycle rocket launcher.
https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/sol-motors-pocket-rocket-bike/


The problems with all the modern, marvelous, systems is, "sometimes
they don't work". I remember driving a bloke's Cadillac car with it's
automatic dimming light system. Meet a car with your lights on "high
beam" and the car would automatically switch them to "low beam".
Wonderful, wonderful.

We were driving from Florida to Massachusetts and somewhere in N.
Carolina or thereabouts we hit an area with huge advertising signs.
We'd be happily cruising down the road and hit one of these advert
areas and the head lights would go mad. Down, up, down,up again, down
and every which way except sideways. I can assure you that if you were
feeling a bit sleepy that the light fandango would weak you up.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 04:03:09 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
:On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

:Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
:at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
:blinding light?

During the day, gray and rainy.

:Some stupidly bright flashing thing, poorly aimed.

:Probably someone doing weapons research. Megalumen lights will
robably be prominent in the next inevitable war.

:How do I know it was poorly aimed? I was inside. At my desk. On the
:second floor. Looking 90 degrees away from the direction the bike was
:traveling.

:If it was a headlight, 90 degree side illumination suggests it may
:have had 180 degree beamwidth. Impressive for a bicycle light.

My desk is at the corner of the building. I stand facing out a east
window, and have southern ones immediately to my right. The biker was
in the alley on the block south, heading towards me. The light was
annoying me (flahs, flash, flash, SUPER FLASH, flash...), and turned
to see what it was, which is when I really was blinded. If I'd been
driving a car down the alley, I'd have run the guy and his pinarello
over.


Standing, staring out the window... Why, you must be the Boss! :-)

--
cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 13:15:35 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Sep 2019 20:57:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 06:13:05 +0700, John B.
wrote:

And, I might add, eliminate the complaints of "lights in my eyes".

There's a better and easier way that has been proposed many times and
rejected every time. Install a horizontally polarizing screen over
all headlights, and require riders, drivers, and pedestrians to wear
vertically polarized glasses, which blocks the horizontally polarized
light from the lights. As an added bonus, the glasses would also
eliminate most forms of glare.

Sounds great.... but what about bright street lamps, light from
buildings. windows, etc., hand held spot lights, flashing directional
lights (red arrow sort of things), warning lamps on obstructions,
lamps at railway crossings, and so on?

How many of those light sources are mounted on vehicles or bicycles?
Probably none.
How many are located in the middle of the road where they might impair
a drivers or riders vision? Probably none.
Street and traffic lights are designed to be usable by drivers wearing
anti-glare polarized glasses.

We tested a few of these to see how the glasses would work. Most of
the signage, traffic, and warning indicators produced non-polarized
light and were easily visible through the glasses. This was in the
days when most of the lights were incandescent. I don't recall the
polarization of fluorescent lightning, but since the light source is a
phosphor, I would guess(tm) that these are also non-polarized. Same
guess(tm) with todays phosphor LED lighting. The polarized glasses
would dim some of the light from random sources, but not all of it.

If you're looking for additional failure modes, using IPS LCD displays
in automobile dashboard displays, tablets, and smartphones are big
problems. My Google Nexus 7 (2013) tablet goes black if I wear
polarizing (anti-glare) glasses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM3FBPrga3U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUA6nyvy-LY
https://youtu.be/26qYrSNYJXM?t=189
There are also some psychedelic rainbow color effects viewing
instruments that are behind clear plastic dashboard panels.

"The Reason Polarized Lenses Cause Crazy Patterns in Car Windows"
https://www.revantoptics.com/blog/why-youre-seeing-rainbows-in-car-windows/

"Why aren't headlights and windshields polarized?"
https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-headlights-and-windshields-polarized

"Student Develops First Polarized LED"
https://phys.org/news/2008-03-student-polarized.html

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 13:26:05 +0700, John B.
wrote:

The problems with all the modern, marvelous, systems is, "sometimes
they don't work".

True. However, no system works 100% of the time in 100% of all
possible (contrived) situations. A bicycle that is quite suitable for
riding on pavement would probably do badly in dirt, mud, rain, etc.
One has to design for either a specific situation, or as in this case,
the greatest number of reasonable situations, and rely on the
intelligence of the operator to know when to disarm the monster. It
is impossible to design out clueless operators because we continue to
produce better clueless operators.

I remember driving a bloke's Cadillac car with it's
automatic dimming light system. Meet a car with your lights on "high
beam" and the car would automatically switch them to "low beam".
Wonderful, wonderful.

We were driving from Florida to Massachusetts and somewhere in N.
Carolina or thereabouts we hit an area with huge advertising signs.
We'd be happily cruising down the road and hit one of these advert
areas and the head lights would go mad. Down, up, down,up again, down
and every which way except sideways. I can assure you that if you were
feeling a bit sleepy that the light fandango would weak you up.

My fathers 1985(?) Cadillac Seville did that. I thought it was fun
when it happened. My father didn't and turned it off.

Today, we have Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) headlights, which work
better than previous generations of high/low headlight switchers, but
are still not perfect for every possible situation.
https://www.koito.co.jp/english/technology/koito/system.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=adb+headlights&tbm=isch

"It’s Time to Bring U.S. Headlight Standards Out of the Dark Ages"
https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/04/research-european-headlight-technology-us-low-beam-safety/

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 9/29/2019 11:03 PM, David Scheidt wrote:
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
:On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

:Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
:at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
:blinding light?

During the day, gray and rainy.

:Some stupidly bright flashing thing, poorly aimed.

:Probably someone doing weapons research. Megalumen lights will
robably be prominent in the next inevitable war.

:How do I know it was poorly aimed? I was inside. At my desk. On the
:second floor. Looking 90 degrees away from the direction the bike was
:traveling.

:If it was a headlight, 90 degree side illumination suggests it may
:have had 180 degree beamwidth. Impressive for a bicycle light.

My desk is at the corner of the building. I stand facing out a east
window, and have southern ones immediately to my right. The biker was
in the alley on the block south, heading towards me. The light was
annoying me (flahs, flash, flash, SUPER FLASH, flash...), and turned
to see what it was, which is when I really was blinded. If I'd been
driving a car down the alley, I'd have run the guy and his pinarello
over.

:Assuming your description is accurate, my guess(tm) would be a poorly
:secured headlight that had rotated itself to one side. Further, I
:suspect that the rider was not familiar with the operation of a day
:time blinky "safety" headlight. Perhaps the bicycle was stolen, he
:was making a hasty escape, and he did not have time to adjust and
:secure the headlight?


:http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/slides/bicycle-flashlight.html
:It's difficult to be certain, but I suspect that this was a unique and
:unusual occurrence, which is unlikely to be repeated in the near
:future.

Dude lives on that block (or at least, he keeps his collection of
bikes there). I expect I'll see him and the light again.




A brief survey of bikes in for service shows some large
number of tail lights pointing at the pavement and a lesser
but significant number of head lamps directed at outer space.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Monday, September 30, 2019 at 6:18:46 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/29/2019 11:03 PM, David Scheidt wrote:
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
:On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

:Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
:at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
:blinding light?

During the day, gray and rainy.

:Some stupidly bright flashing thing, poorly aimed.

:Probably someone doing weapons research. Megalumen lights will
robably be prominent in the next inevitable war.

:How do I know it was poorly aimed? I was inside. At my desk. On the
:second floor. Looking 90 degrees away from the direction the bike was
:traveling.

:If it was a headlight, 90 degree side illumination suggests it may
:have had 180 degree beamwidth. Impressive for a bicycle light.

My desk is at the corner of the building. I stand facing out a east
window, and have southern ones immediately to my right. The biker was
in the alley on the block south, heading towards me. The light was
annoying me (flahs, flash, flash, SUPER FLASH, flash...), and turned
to see what it was, which is when I really was blinded. If I'd been
driving a car down the alley, I'd have run the guy and his pinarello
over.

:Assuming your description is accurate, my guess(tm) would be a poorly
:secured headlight that had rotated itself to one side. Further, I
:suspect that the rider was not familiar with the operation of a day
:time blinky "safety" headlight. Perhaps the bicycle was stolen, he
:was making a hasty escape, and he did not have time to adjust and
:secure the headlight?


:http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/slides/bicycle-flashlight.html
:It's difficult to be certain, but I suspect that this was a unique and
:unusual occurrence, which is unlikely to be repeated in the near
:future.

Dude lives on that block (or at least, he keeps his collection of
bikes there). I expect I'll see him and the light again.




A brief survey of bikes in for service shows some large
number of tail lights pointing at the pavement and a lesser
but significant number of head lamps directed at outer space.



Tail lights don't have much directionality except for the designs with the built in bike paths. https://ride.lezyne.com/collections/...1-led-23r-v104

The popular move these days is multiple tail lights -- which is O.K. unless you're riding behind the person. I have a single pulsing rear light which is a nice compromise. You stand out as a bicycle without blinding anyone. My bike also has a bunch of reflective tape, and if I'm really concerned, I'll wear my reflective shoe covers. Those things are really noticeable -- but just so-so keeping my feet dry.

I also see a lot of DRL "good luck" rear blinkies -- the sort of thing you would get free for your kid to wear trick-or-treating. Why bother.

Super-bright front flashers should be outlawed, but then only outlaws will have bright flashers.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 30/09/2019 9:54 a.m., jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, September 30, 2019 at 6:18:46 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/29/2019 11:03 PM, David Scheidt wrote:
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
:On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 03:06:49 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:I got blinded by a bike light this afternoon.

:Blinded during afternoon daylight hours? I could see that happening
:at night, but not during daylight hours. Have you recovered from the
:blinding light?

During the day, gray and rainy.

:Some stupidly bright flashing thing, poorly aimed.

:Probably someone doing weapons research. Megalumen lights will
robably be prominent in the next inevitable war.

:How do I know it was poorly aimed? I was inside. At my desk. On the
:second floor. Looking 90 degrees away from the direction the bike was
:traveling.

:If it was a headlight, 90 degree side illumination suggests it may
:have had 180 degree beamwidth. Impressive for a bicycle light.

My desk is at the corner of the building. I stand facing out a east
window, and have southern ones immediately to my right. The biker was
in the alley on the block south, heading towards me. The light was
annoying me (flahs, flash, flash, SUPER FLASH, flash...), and turned
to see what it was, which is when I really was blinded. If I'd been
driving a car down the alley, I'd have run the guy and his pinarello
over.

:Assuming your description is accurate, my guess(tm) would be a poorly
:secured headlight that had rotated itself to one side. Further, I
:suspect that the rider was not familiar with the operation of a day
:time blinky "safety" headlight. Perhaps the bicycle was stolen, he
:was making a hasty escape, and he did not have time to adjust and
:secure the headlight?


:http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/slides/bicycle-flashlight.html
:It's difficult to be certain, but I suspect that this was a unique and
:unusual occurrence, which is unlikely to be repeated in the near
:future.

Dude lives on that block (or at least, he keeps his collection of
bikes there). I expect I'll see him and the light again.




A brief survey of bikes in for service shows some large
number of tail lights pointing at the pavement and a lesser
but significant number of head lamps directed at outer space.



Tail lights don't have much directionality except for the designs with the built in bike paths. https://ride.lezyne.com/collections/...1-led-23r-v104

The popular move these days is multiple tail lights -- which is O.K. unless you're riding behind the person. I have a single pulsing rear light which is a nice compromise. You stand out as a bicycle without blinding anyone. My bike also has a bunch of reflective tape, and if I'm really concerned, I'll wear my reflective shoe covers. Those things are really noticeable -- but just so-so keeping my feet dry.

I also see a lot of DRL "good luck" rear blinkies -- the sort of thing you would get free for your kid to wear trick-or-treating. Why bother.

Maybe it's just to comply with the law. Here lights are required at
night. There's no specification except one white in front and one red
behind. They've recently added that blinkies are allowed. BTW, there's
no real specification as to what constitutes night either. I have
decent lights for night riding though I don't do that much. I have some
pretty decent ones that I keep on the bike in case of a rainy commute or
when I commute this time of year.

I use some reflective tape because unlike lights, reflectors are
mandatory at all times. Since I don't have pedals I can put tape on my
shoes. For wheels it's even better. You can use tape on the wheel but
it has to cover the full circumference of the wheel. My HED wheels have
reflective labels but they aren't compliant because there are spaces on
the rim with no label. But we are allowed to substitute reflective tape
on the seat stays or fork. Now how does that make sense? The cops at
our club's info session told us it would be useful if the clowns making
the laws actually saw a bicycle but no matter, we have to comply to
avoid the fines. The fines are 65 bucks per missing reflector so I put
the tape on. I don't see much use for reflectors in daylight anyway.




Super-bright front flashers should be outlawed, but then only outlaws will have bright flashers.

-- Jay Beattie.