Why SMIDSYs happen

A fascinating review by a cycling psychologist into why SMIDSY's happen.
Lots of good stuff to reflect on and learn from.

http://staff.bath.ac.uk/pssiw/cognit...ableReview.pdf

"In accidents where a VRU is struck by a vehicle, the literature
suggests that many incidents occur because drivers expect only to
interact with other automobiles and so attend to their surroundings in
such a way that VRUs are overlooked. This is perhaps most dramatically
seen in the looked-but-failed-to-see phenomenon, where drivers do not
expect to encounter VRUs and so do not become aware of VRUs even though
they look at them"

There is a fascinating piece on pedestrian fault fatalities:

"Fontaine and Gourlet (1997) found that in many pedestrian-initiated
accidents (28% overall, rising to 41% in people aged between 16 and 44),
the pedestrian had recently left a vehicle or was planning shortly to
get into one. In particular, the authors refer to many police reports of
heavy goods vehicle drivers who were killed soon after leaving their
trucks. The drivers in all these accidents were apparently walking
around in the mindset of a motorist, and so continued to act as if they
were protected from other traffic"

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

I wonder how this research accounts for the even more common 'Fu*ck it
it's only a cyclist, I am pulling out anyway' phenomena?

I feel that phrases such as 'drivers expect only to interact with other
automobiles and so attend to their surroundings in such a way that VRUs
are overlooked' is just another way of saying that 'drivers don't
bother to look out for cyclists.

Unfortunately such 'scientific' statements are all too often taken as
excusing drivers for 'seeing' cyclists, when in reality they are
simply pointing out the fact that many motorists don't bother taking
proper observations!

This 'failed to see' nonsense is, for the most part, hogwash cooked up
by the motoring lobby to excuse driving without due care and worse. For
one thing if the 'findings' were robust drivers would never or rarely
see cyclists and other VRU's, but for the most part they do. This
indicates that it is the failings of individual drivers which is the
real cause of the problem.

Most cyclists will have experienced the deliberate pull out (Which can
sometimes be distinguished from a genuine case of driving without due
care by the motorists raised middle index finger as he drives away) and
I am convinced that in many cases the driver sees the cyclist perfectly
well but simply assumes that all cyclists travel at 4 mph.

If this research has some validity surely it also suggests that 'high
visibility' clothing is pretty pointless if the driver is not looking
for VRU's full stop. If they take a proper observation they will see
them anyway.. If they are only looking for vehicles what the cyclist
wears is immaterial.

I do recall reading a report which pointed out that the 'high
visibility' jacket is so common that it hardly registers anymore and
certainly does not signal 'cyclist ahead' to drivers. This is important
because it is unambiguous signals- such as the flashing red light of a
LED rear light- which are most effective in ensuring that drivers adapt
their behaviour appropriately.

I discussed this issue with a community officer at York rally last
year. He said that when riding to work in a bright yellow jacket he was
frequently cut up by drivers who 'failed to see' him. However, when on
duty wearing a similar top (only with 'Police' written on it) he seemed
to be spotted by drivers from miles away. Again this suggests that
drivers really do see cyclists perfectly well, but fail to act
appropriately unless they see that the cyclist is also a police
officer...

A fascinating review by a cycling psychologist into why SMIDSY's happen.
Lots of good stuff to reflect on and learn from.

http://staff.bath.ac.uk/pssiw/cognit...ableReview.pdf

For some reason the document crashes my browser so at the risk of
repeating information contained in the pdf:

There has also been two articles published in Bike magazine which attempt to
explain two types of SMIDSY, one through a physical impediment and one
through a perceptual impediment.

The physical impediment arises from the ever increasing width of the
pillars,
front and rear of many cars which increases the size of the blind spots in
the field of view of the motorist especially on roundabouts. It then
explains
how this can be negated by the driver altering his/her head position and
how motorcyclists can alter their road positioning to bring themselves into
view.

The second article was a fascinating insight into the psychology of vision.
Paraphrased, it suggests that a vehicle on a main road approaching another
waiting to pull out onto the main road occupies a cone of vison. If the
size
and speed of the vehicle is such that the geometry of the rate of image size
increase on the retina falls between a specific range of values, the car, or
any
other appraoching vehicle does not register on the conciousness until it
'materialises' suddenly just before an impact or a very near miss. I was
quite
sceptical about this theory until it happened to me, thankfully a near miss.
I couldn't believe that a car could appear out of nowhere but on this one
occasion, one did.

I wonder how this research accounts for the even more common 'Fu*ck it
it's only a cyclist, I am pulling out anyway' phenomena?

I feel that phrases such as 'drivers expect only to interact with other
automobiles and so attend to their surroundings in such a way that
VRUs are overlooked' is just another way of saying that 'drivers often
don't bother to look out for cyclists'. Unfortunately such 'scientific'
statements are all too often taken as excusing drivers for 'not
seeing' cyclists, when in reality they are simply pointing out the fact
that many motorists don't bother taking proper observations!

This 'failed to see' stuff is, for the most part, hogwash cooked up by
the motoring lobby to excuse driving without due care and worse. For
one thing if the 'findings' were robust drivers would never or rarely
see cyclists and other VRU's, but for the most part they do. This
indicates that it is the failings of individual drivers which is the
real cause of the problem.

We also have to look at where 'failed to see' incidents occur. The most
common place is on roundabouts simply becase roundabouts encourage
drivers to continue straight ahead without having to stop or slow down.
If the 'failed to see' phenomena was not in reality a reflection of
other factors, such as the motorist's desire not to slow down if at all
possible, 'failed to see' collisions would not be 'clustered' in such
locations.

Most cyclists will have experienced the deliberate pull-out (Which can
sometimes be distinguished from a genuine case of driving without due
care by the motorists raised middle index finger as he drives away) and
I am convinced that in many cases the driver sees the cyclist perfectly
well but simply assumes that all cyclists travel at 4 mph.

If this research has some validity surely it suggests that 'high
visibility' clothing is pretty pointless if the driver is not looking
for VRU's full stop. If they take a proper observation they will see
them anyway.. If they are only looking for vehicles what the cyclist
wears is immaterial.

I do recall reading a report which pointed out that the 'high
visibility' jacket is so common nowadays that it hardly registers
anymore and certainly does not signal 'cyclist ahead' to drivers. This
is important because it is unambiguous signals- such as the flashing
red light of a LED rear light- which are most effective in ensuring
that drivers adapt their behaviour appropriately.

I discussed this issue with a community officer at York rally last
year. He said that when riding to work in a bright yellow jacket he was
frequently cut up by drivers who 'failed to see' him. However, when on
duty wearing a similar top (only with 'Police' written on it) he
seemed to be spotted by drivers from miles away. Again this suggests
that drivers really do see cyclists perfectly well, but fail to act
appropriately unless they see that the cyclist is also obviously a
police officer...

wrote:
I wonder how this research accounts for the even more common 'Fu*ck it
it's only a cyclist, I am pulling out anyway' phenomena?


Perhaps if you read the report I linked to it would answer many of your
questions.


--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

vernon levy wrote:


There has also been two articles published in Bike magazine which attempt to
explain two types of SMIDSY, one through a physical impediment and one
through a perceptual impediment.



Yes, written by Paul 'blame it on a dead person if you are caught
speeding' Smith...

I did 'discuss' his 'SMIDSY' stuff with P*** S**** once. His solution
was not to educate drivers to take proper observations (remember the
old 'Think once, think twice think bike! adverts) but for cyclists to
go so slowly that when drivers did pull out without taking a proper
observation they could stop in time. Of course the one thing guaranteed
to encourage a pull-out is if the driver thinks the cyclists is
travelling slowly!

I also note that in the ABD press release concerning Smith's SMIDSYS'
'research' no mention at all was made of the risk this behaviour poses
to cyclists...

P.s someone is sure to bring up that old chestnut about the research
which found that people didn't quickly spot gorilla's hidden in
pictures of everyday scenes. The whole point of this is that you would
never expect to see a gorilla in the street. However cyclists and
pedestrians are very common features and may perfectly well be expected
to be encountered! Hence there is no parallel between the two
situations.

Tony Raven mentioned:
A fascinating review by a cycling psychologist into why SMIDSY's happen.
Lots of good stuff to reflect on and learn from.

I thought the name Ian Walker was familiar. He used to be a regular
here - according to Google, he last posted on 05/11/04.

--
Danny Colyer (my reply address is valid but checked infrequently)
URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/
Subscribe to PlusNet URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/referral/
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Tony Raven wrote:

Perhaps if you read the report I linked to it would answer many of your
questions.



I have just started reading this and it looks like a typically poor
piece of psychological research (And I speak as someone with a
first-class honours degree in the subject). Straight off the paper
states:

The scope of the review will encompass all psychological topics which
are unique to the issue of VRUs. These criteria mean the exclusion of
several factors which undoubtedly affect VRU safety - excessive
speed, alcohol, and aggression are three that come immediately to mind
(see also Rothengatter, 1997). However, factors like these are either
not psychological or they affect all road users, and so are not
considered here.

I.e. in many cases where the driver claimed that he/she 'didn't see'
the VRU other factors are quite possibly the real cause of the crash,
such as aggressive driving (and perhaps any of the other factors I
mentioned at above). However, even if 95% of 'failed to see' incidents
are due to these other factors, as I am a psychologist I will
concentrate on the perceptual issues which in all possibility are very
peripheral to the real issues involved...

vernon levy wrote:
A fascinating review by a cycling psychologist into why SMIDSY's happen.
Lots of good stuff to reflect on and learn from.

http://staff.bath.ac.uk/pssiw/cognit...ableReview.pdf

For some reason the document crashes my browser so at the risk of
repeating information contained in the pdf:

There has also been two articles published in Bike magazine which attempt to
explain two types of SMIDSY, one through a physical impediment and one
through a perceptual impediment.


Funny, checked and it opens fine in my Firefox browser. But it suggests
a third very different reason to the two in Bike.

"The main identified cause of collisions to bicyclists is a process
described in the context of general driver psychology by Hills (1980)
and Moray (1990), and more recently in the specific case of bicycling by
Räsänen and Summala (1998). People have a highly limited ability to
receive visual information, being able to fixate on fewer than three
points per second at the very maximum (Moray, 1990). To compensate for
this, after more than a few hours’ experience of a complex task like
driving they develop mental models of what goes on in their
surroundings. These mental models – expectations, in other words – guide
attention to the areas of the surrounding scene most likely to be
important. Because a typical driver’s encounters are predominantly with
motor vehicles, their expectation will usually be that only other
automobiles will be present at a junction. This expectation guides their
attention to motor vehicles and parts of the road where these might be
found and away from cyclists and areas where these tend to be.
snip
The expectation-attention process is seen even more dramatically in the
‘looked-but-failed-to-see phenomenon’ (Hills, 1980), whereby even a
driver looking in the right direction to see a cyclist might not become
consciously aware that the cyclist is there. This most commonly happens
with more experienced drivers (Herslund & Jørgensen, 2003), precisely
because these are more likely to have habitual search patterns which
focus attention in very narrow regions of the visual scene likely to
contain motor traffic; regions of space likely to contain cyclists
(e.g., the edge of the road) receive less attention (Herslund &
Jørgensen, 2003; Hills, 1980; Moray, 1990; see also Joshi, Senior, &
Smith, 2001; Mannering & Grodsky, 1995)."

He goes on to link this to the studies we all know showing cycling to be
safer the more people cycle, because cyclists get built into the
expectations model, cyclist road positioning and also to some
interesting observations and research (on turning right onto crossing
pedestrians) to back it up:

"Houten et al. (2000) tested a system where the pedestrians were given a
3-second head-start before cars were given a green light. This greatly
reduced the number of conflicts between pedestrians and motorists.
Presumably, given the expectation–attention model we have discussed, the
system worked because by the time motorists rounded the corner, the
pedestrians were in the middle of the road, where drivers focus their
attention. This is similar to the bicycle safety advice mentioned above,
which similarly identified being in the middle of the carriageway as safer."

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon