Posted on 02/03/2009 2:24:23 PM PST by Daffynition
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- People underestimate the length of the white dashed lines painted down the middle of a road indicating that many drive too fast, a U. S. researcher said.
Study leader Dennis Shaffer of Ohio State University and colleagues tested more than 400 college students in three experiments. When asked to guess the length of the lines from memory, most answered..........
......and the empty spaces in-between measure.........
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
I’m thinkin’ there would be quite a bit of ambiguity in the students discerning exactly what white lines the test was really talking about. ;-(
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The length of a white line is of no relevance to a driver, so there is no reason they should know it. All that matters is whether a white line is solid or broken.
Any driver who is paying enough attention to the white line, to accurately estimate its length, is focussed on the wrong thing, and more likely to have an accident.
Best practice for safe driving...
Do not follow closer than 2 seconds behind car in front
Do not drive faster than you can see 4 seconds ahead
Generally match driving speed with others in own lane
When in doubt, estimate speed by the Speedometer
and follow the law
HAHAHA! Even with a meridian clinometer, I have no idea what that image means!
Utter bull. This indicates that the appearance of the lines from the perspective of sitting in a car plus motion of the car creates an optical illusion of shortness. This common experience also trumps the "standing still" perception -- an interesting insight into how people process information. It has NOTHING to do with driving too fast!
Oh yeah, another indication that this has nothing to do with driving “too fast” is this statement: “’We were surprised, first, that people’s estimates were so far off, and second, that there was so little variability,’ Shaffer said in a statement.” So, either they interviewed ALL speeders, of there is a common factor resulting in the commonality of result, gee maybe like how people’s brains interpret visual information? Sheesh.
I am for some reason reminded of an old Pilot’s joke:
An airliner landing at an airport... When the pilot realizes that he’s running out of runway. “Wow...” he says as he’s virtually standing on the brakes “Can you believe how short this runway is? I’ve never seen a runway this short...” as the plane finally stops, and the co-pilot looks around and says “yeah, but look how WIDE it is...”
I heard that if you sing “Duke of York” (I think that was what the title was) those white lines keep beat to that music and you’re doing 55MPH ..... but then don’t try La Bamba ....
It’s really hard to guess when the lines keep moving from one side of the road to the other.
There was a thing on TV where they did that ... well it was a rhythm of some sort but it was cool ...
I believe the white lines are 21 feet. Or, at least that is what I was told years ago.
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