Do drunk people get hypnotized by flashers?

[Sodo]

Ah-ha!.. Now we know... Departments think.. brighter is always better.

The bright lights thing has gone too far, without proper forethought. When emergency lights are blinding, everything around them is in danger. And now (as we know) even the owner of the safety lights. If there are emergency lights on the left, and a baby stroller on the right (all driver attention diverted to the emergency lights) the baby stroller is in grave danger.

I live on a street that is perfect for bicycle commuters. In our state apparently its legal for bicycles to use emergency strobes facing oncoming traffic. Every evening several bicycles with emergency blast me on the left rendering pedestrians on the right, invisible. It's not fair because I am the one responsible for the safety of the pedestrians (or other bicycles) on the right. Those guys blinding oncoming traffic need to be held accountable.

It's not fair to commandeer such a large portion of a driver's available attention to one person's safety (their own).

 

[Danno1]

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Some of you guys have hit the nail on the head. It's called "Target Fixation". It has to do with the way the human brain works. Unrelated to alcohol.

It has been ID'd as a major contributor to single vehicle motorcycle accidents. Yes, even sober. And should be studied for cage accidents, but I'm not sure if it has.



I personally witnessed this on a white water canoe trip. We were in PERFECTLY flat water in between rapids. Wide river. One single rock in the dead center. No prob for anyone to avoid. But one paddler went square on into the rock. Spent something like 45 minutes extracting the boat and paddle. The person was OK though.



When I try to teach people how to drive, I say "look for the holes (in traffic), not for the cars". I'll guess that more than 50% don't understand that concept. Much more than...



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[k0ua]

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Some of you guys have hit the nail on the head. It's called "Target Fixation". It has to do with the way the human brain works. Unrelated to alcohol.

It has been ID'd as a major contributor to single vehicle motorcycle accidents. Yes, even sober. And should be studied for cage accidents, but I'm not sure if it has.



I personally witnessed this on a white water canoe trip. We were in PERFECTLY flat water in between rapids. Wide river. One single rock in the dead center. No prob for anyone to avoid. But one paddler went square on into the rock. Spent something like 45 minutes extracting the boat and paddle. The person was OK though.



When I try to teach people how to drive, I say "look for the holes (in traffic), not for the cars". I'll guess that more than 50% don't understand that concept. Much more than...



.

Even though everyone does it to some extent, intoxicated or not, I think the drunks don't know they are doing it and sail into the stopped emergency vehicle. More of the sober folks realize they are fixating and correct their path to miss the stopped vehicle. Intoxicated people are not know for making quick life saving decisions. I don't know if there is any fix for this or not, but I have noticed that the lights just keep getting brighter and brighter, to the point that I have to turn my head when going by them and look into the other lane to keep from being momentarily blinded. It is much worse than in past decades.