THE SCIENCE OF THE SMIDSY
Beating the SMIDSYS with science
‘Sorry Mate I Didn’t See You’ syndrome is a genuine thing, science says so…
ISTARTED RIDING AT 16. After four years and three bad collisions with idiot drivers, I adopted a defence strategy based on this mantra: ‘they’ve not seen you and will kill you, or they’ve seen you and want to kill you.’ Since then (touching wood furiously here), I’ve never again had to suffer the indignity of peeling my broken body off a car bonnet, so survival tactics really can help.
The odds suggest that nearly every experienced rider will at some time have fallen victim to a SMIDSY, with their stock phrase: ‘Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See You.’ Every year in the UK, about 90 riders don’t survive to hear that excuse. Psychological tests consistently show that most often, SMIDSYS do see us. But their brains fail to register the fact. It’s up to us to make a bacon-saving difference – by branding our presence on their minds.
Scientists are keen to help. They are fascinated by drivers’ habit of killing and maiming motorcyclists – and what can be done. I’m also fascinated, not only as a motorcyclist, but also as a national-newspaper medicine and science correspondent. The latest attempt to improve matters comes from Nottingham University investigators in the highly respected scientific journal PLOS ONE.
The psychologists ran simulator tests on more than 100 drivers and found that their ‘failure to notice’ when pulling out of junctions is caused by a memory glitch.
In an alarming one-in-six occasions, drivers had no recall of seeing an oncoming bike as they were about to pull out at
‘Psychological tests show SMIDSYS do see us. But their brains fail to register the fact’
a junction, even though eye-tracking kit showed that they physically saw it.
Drivers’ brains are five times more likely to blank out the existence of a bike than a car. Riders get overwritten by other important thoughts, such as, ‘What’s for tea?’
The researchers suggest a novel fix for this memory glitch: teach all car drivers to say the word ‘bike’ out loud whenever they see a bike at a junction.
Training people to notice something makes them notice it. Hardly rocket science. But it helps to explain why drivers who also ride bikes are statistically far less likely to be a SMIDSY. Anyone with a biker brain will habitually check out every motorcycle they see, as well as the rider’s style and gear. This fact has inspired some researchers to demand compulsory motorcycle-riding lessons for every learner driver. In reality, that’s about as feasible as teaching every car driver to say ‘bike’ out loud each time they see one.
Fortunately, science suggests more likely ways we can dent drivers’ awareness before their vehicles dent us. Such strategies may also overcome two further glitches that afflict drivers. The first is human brains get puzzled by visual perspective. Perspective often means things that look big are actually close to us – and things that look small are farther away.
Road-simulation tests in the journal, Accident Analysis & Prevention, show drivers habitually misjudge the distance of approaching motorcyclists. Because bikes look much smaller head-on than trucks and cars, their brains instinctively decide: ‘They’re small, they must be far away, so I’ve got time to pull out ahead of them.’ Thud.
Something similar happens when the primitive human brain inside a car tries to estimate the speed of objects. It assumes smaller objects are travelling more slowly than bigger objects. This may be an old instinct to get out of the way of large angry things charging towards us. In the modern world, this ‘sizearrival effect’ means drivers think bikes are approaching more slowly than they really are. Once again, thud. All such collisions are most likely when the driver’s brain is under what psychologists call ‘high cognitive load’ – ie, having to think hard. Stats show most often this involves them making a right turn from a junction and having to look both ways. Commonsense says the best way to beat all this is to make ourselves more visible – and effectively bigger in drivers’ minds. Daylight headlamps are the obvious answer. Research says they help (that’s a nudge for classic-bike owners who switch them off to save batteries). However, modern life means headlamps are making less and less of a difference. French investigators at the Laboratory of Driver Psychology warn that a visibility arms-race is being waged on the streets. Kids and contractors in Day-g lo safety jackets, cyclists with blinding mini-lights, ever proliferating street signs… they all contribute to the visual noise inside drivers’ heads. Motorcycle headlamps are increasingly lost amid the din.
One answer is to look different. Human brains instinctively scan for the odd, the incongruent, the thing that might be a predator or prey. A study by the French driver-psychology lab, in the journal Human Factors, looked at whether colours on motorbikes may help motorists notice them. The research concluded that the bigger the contrast between the colour of bike and its surroundings, the better it gets noticed. Loud motorbikes save lives. That’s paint, not pipes.
It’s bad news for the rebel-image mob on their matt-black sickles. In fact, it gets worse for them. A 2016 study into rider visibility concluded that the best thing to wear to get yourself noticed is a white helmet and white outfit combo. The blacklid, black-jacket, black-jeans outlaws clearly won’t go for this, because dressing like a ton-up ice-cream man on a Day-glo bike would be taking things several steps too far. It’s certainly worth thinking about your look, though.
Perhaps most practical of all is riding like you own the road. When on a dual-lane road (ie one lane going each way) riding near the centre-line is safest, according to multiple simulation tests. Here, not only are you at your most visible, but you also appear in a dominant position, rather than apologetically crawling down the gutter-side. That doesn’t mean riding aggressively, just assertively – and in the psychological battle against inattentive brains, that counts for something.
I habitually swing out a little to the right if I see a car at a junction on my nearside. This ensures I am more visible. I’ve also got a better chance of catching the driver’s eye. Brain-scan tests show even fleeting eye-contact alerts regions that are associated with paying social attention. If the driver doesn’t see the bike, their brain may signal that a fellow human is approaching. And if all of that fails, my road position offers a slightly better chance of avoiding collision.
There’s one more reason for gazing at the driver.
You can assess their risk level. Most likely your prejudices are correct. Studies show that those most likely to pull out are young people with little driving experience, and older people with slower-reacting grey matter. There is however no accident data on the people whom I consider to be the most dangerous road users: hat wearing
Rover drivers. But we live in hope…
‘Dressing like a ton-up ice-cream man would be taking things too far’
‘Drivers are five times more likely to blank out a bike than a car’