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- Feb 18, 2007
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LEOs, RWs, RSs, REs, FFs, ..., members of any other occupation that works on the sides of roads with traffic.
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING!!!!!
Everyone knows I don't care much for government employees who can't maintain friendships with civilians, but this post is to protect all people who work on the side of the road, no matter what they do, as well as all passing drivers.
At night, since you don't glow, oncoming drivers' eyes must detect you by the light that reflects off you and to the oncoming drivers' eyes. Simple physics, no way around that. Lately many LEOs and FFs have been glaring oncoming drivers with rear-mounted work lights, not pointed anywhere close to the work area. Spotlights on vehicles with a pulled over redneck have been seen deliberately aimed into the eyes of oncoming drivers. Even entire vehicles have been parked facing the wrong direction with high beams and roof mounted spots and take-downs aimed right at oncoming drivers. Apparently these acts are a deliberate attempt to promote safety, and I expect the roadside workers are simply following instructions from higher ups in a misguided attempt to promote safety. The people actually on the road doing the critical work are not the guilty parties, the fools who are promoting these new mis-procedures and equipment in the name of "safety" are guilty.
The brightest source of light at night that can be reflected off you to oncoming driver's eyes is the oncoming drivers' headlights. For many years roadside and emergency vehicle reflective tape and the reflective tape on emergency gear has been retro-reflective, i. e., reflecting the light back toward the source no matter the angle the light hits the reflector, to take advantage of the best possible light source for your safety. ANY LIGHT NOT NEAR A LINEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ONCOMING DRIVERS' EYES WILL NOT MAKE REFLECTIVE MATERIAL ON ANY PERSON OR VEHICLE MORE VISIBLE TO ONCOMING DRIVERS. Simple physics of retro-reflectivity.
New LED emergency flashers with 5 watt diodes are brighter than high beam headlights. It only takes about 2 LEDs of 5 watts each to equal the output of the typical 50 watt rooftop halogen of days gone by. How many LEDs in that new light bar? Some have 150 or more, and the most halogens I ever saw in a light bar was 10, and 6 were take-down, alley, and back up lights of which only 2 could be used at a time. Your new light bar is putting out about 20 times more light energy than the old days.
No problem in day light. These new lights show up well at a long distance even in bright sunlight under a cloudless sky. This is a good thing.
Big problem at night. My guess is these ultra bright, spaz mode flash pattern LEDs have been sold to government departments with big promises of more safety, and they are definitely too much of a good thing. 5 watt diodes are excessively bright, especially when the increased radiant energy over incandescent and halogen bulbs are considered. The narrow beam of LED lights also multiplies the perceived intensity sensed by the oncoming drivers' eyes. The brightness is physically painful.
Such bright lights will not reflect off or even illuminate you or your vehicles in a good way unless the lights are directly between you and the oncoming drivers, or the oncoming drivers are directly between you and the light, and facing you. Maybe. Excessively bright lights cause the pupils of oncoming drivers to constrict, so the only way your lights will improve visibility for oncoming drivers is to shade the oncoming drivers' eyes from your light sources. That's the way eyes work. Simply factual.
This would all be true and bad enough if all the lights involved were any color but blue. Blue has a really nasty habit of constricting pupils really fast and really small. That's just the way pupils are. Simple optometry, nothing fancy. My calculations show an increase in intensity of blue perceived by oncoming drivers about equal to looking directly at the sun about 3 hours past an apogee directly overhead through a cloudless sky.
Take your victim, shine a bright blue light in his or her eyes, your victim is night blinded in about 1/3 second while operating a motor vehicle, and will remain at least partially so for a minute or 5. BAM! I'm thrilled the crash you just caused by deliberately blinding an oncoming driver took out your cruiser instead of you.
Hope you have a really good lawyer because even when any government employee is following instructions, if an innocent is injured, who gets sued? Remember, ignorance is no excuse. Always the employee, sometimes the department. Never the person who gave the bad advice. You're screwed.
So, if you work on the side of the road, do your research on pupils, light, and night blindness, make yourself an expert, take your well-developed knowledge to the instructor and, if necessary, the instructor's boss. Yours is the life at stake.
If you want to be seen, get the lights out of the eyes of oncoming drivers. Shine the lights on the work area. The best solution is multiple raised lights surrounding a work area, shining down from different points on the perimeter. Think football stadium. That is a much better solution.
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING!!!!!
Everyone knows I don't care much for government employees who can't maintain friendships with civilians, but this post is to protect all people who work on the side of the road, no matter what they do, as well as all passing drivers.
At night, since you don't glow, oncoming drivers' eyes must detect you by the light that reflects off you and to the oncoming drivers' eyes. Simple physics, no way around that. Lately many LEOs and FFs have been glaring oncoming drivers with rear-mounted work lights, not pointed anywhere close to the work area. Spotlights on vehicles with a pulled over redneck have been seen deliberately aimed into the eyes of oncoming drivers. Even entire vehicles have been parked facing the wrong direction with high beams and roof mounted spots and take-downs aimed right at oncoming drivers. Apparently these acts are a deliberate attempt to promote safety, and I expect the roadside workers are simply following instructions from higher ups in a misguided attempt to promote safety. The people actually on the road doing the critical work are not the guilty parties, the fools who are promoting these new mis-procedures and equipment in the name of "safety" are guilty.
The brightest source of light at night that can be reflected off you to oncoming driver's eyes is the oncoming drivers' headlights. For many years roadside and emergency vehicle reflective tape and the reflective tape on emergency gear has been retro-reflective, i. e., reflecting the light back toward the source no matter the angle the light hits the reflector, to take advantage of the best possible light source for your safety. ANY LIGHT NOT NEAR A LINEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ONCOMING DRIVERS' EYES WILL NOT MAKE REFLECTIVE MATERIAL ON ANY PERSON OR VEHICLE MORE VISIBLE TO ONCOMING DRIVERS. Simple physics of retro-reflectivity.
New LED emergency flashers with 5 watt diodes are brighter than high beam headlights. It only takes about 2 LEDs of 5 watts each to equal the output of the typical 50 watt rooftop halogen of days gone by. How many LEDs in that new light bar? Some have 150 or more, and the most halogens I ever saw in a light bar was 10, and 6 were take-down, alley, and back up lights of which only 2 could be used at a time. Your new light bar is putting out about 20 times more light energy than the old days.
No problem in day light. These new lights show up well at a long distance even in bright sunlight under a cloudless sky. This is a good thing.
Big problem at night. My guess is these ultra bright, spaz mode flash pattern LEDs have been sold to government departments with big promises of more safety, and they are definitely too much of a good thing. 5 watt diodes are excessively bright, especially when the increased radiant energy over incandescent and halogen bulbs are considered. The narrow beam of LED lights also multiplies the perceived intensity sensed by the oncoming drivers' eyes. The brightness is physically painful.
Such bright lights will not reflect off or even illuminate you or your vehicles in a good way unless the lights are directly between you and the oncoming drivers, or the oncoming drivers are directly between you and the light, and facing you. Maybe. Excessively bright lights cause the pupils of oncoming drivers to constrict, so the only way your lights will improve visibility for oncoming drivers is to shade the oncoming drivers' eyes from your light sources. That's the way eyes work. Simply factual.
This would all be true and bad enough if all the lights involved were any color but blue. Blue has a really nasty habit of constricting pupils really fast and really small. That's just the way pupils are. Simple optometry, nothing fancy. My calculations show an increase in intensity of blue perceived by oncoming drivers about equal to looking directly at the sun about 3 hours past an apogee directly overhead through a cloudless sky.
Take your victim, shine a bright blue light in his or her eyes, your victim is night blinded in about 1/3 second while operating a motor vehicle, and will remain at least partially so for a minute or 5. BAM! I'm thrilled the crash you just caused by deliberately blinding an oncoming driver took out your cruiser instead of you.
Hope you have a really good lawyer because even when any government employee is following instructions, if an innocent is injured, who gets sued? Remember, ignorance is no excuse. Always the employee, sometimes the department. Never the person who gave the bad advice. You're screwed.
So, if you work on the side of the road, do your research on pupils, light, and night blindness, make yourself an expert, take your well-developed knowledge to the instructor and, if necessary, the instructor's boss. Yours is the life at stake.
If you want to be seen, get the lights out of the eyes of oncoming drivers. Shine the lights on the work area. The best solution is multiple raised lights surrounding a work area, shining down from different points on the perimeter. Think football stadium. That is a much better solution.