Braking

Topics relating to Advanced Driving in cars
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ChristianAB
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Re: Braking

Postby ChristianAB » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:09 pm

I'm not impartial on this. Mean beam on a lit street may or may not be helpful: I don't even understand why some assume that it would have changed anything to that situation. If someone is happy to emerge from a side road without having a look first, chances are, there is a reason for that, but until we know what that reason is, it's all speculation.

As someone with quite light sensitive eyes, I really struggle with the glare from other cars and even as a pedestrian, would consider cars driving on full beam on lit streets to be rude. After all, there is always that brake pedal, unless you are categorically sure that no one is affected (but if that were the case, there wouldn't be any need for full beam in the first place).
Also, with modern LED lights, it's no always easy to tell whether a car is approaching perpendicularly to one's direction of travel if that car is unsighted.

But then again, I'm partial on this.

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Horse
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Re: Braking

Postby Horse » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:58 pm

There's a big programme around here to replace the orange low-pressure Sodium street lighting with with white LEDs. Makes it far harder to see headlamps.
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.

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Mr Cholmondeley-Warner
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Re: Braking

Postby Mr Cholmondeley-Warner » Fri Apr 22, 2016 9:38 pm

If that happens wholesale it will spoil one of the great pleasures of my life - returning to the UK from abroad at night and seeing all the streets below lit up with their familiar, homely British yellow glow :cry: :roll: something I've enjoyed since the age of 10.
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TheInsanity1234
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Re: Braking

Postby TheInsanity1234 » Sun Apr 24, 2016 12:35 am

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:If that happens wholesale it will spoil one of the great pleasures of my life - returning to the UK from abroad at night and seeing all the streets below lit up with their familiar, homely British yellow glow :cry: :roll: something I've enjoyed since the age of 10.

My physics teacher was moaning about this, and I have to agree with her. She was saying that the sodium street lights were very warm and welcoming, whereas the LED ones are incredibly cold and are just unpleasant to look at. :?

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Horse
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Re: Braking

Postby Horse » Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:56 pm

TheInsanity1234 wrote:
Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:If that happens wholesale it will spoil one of the great pleasures of my life - returning to the UK from abroad at night and seeing all the streets below lit up with their familiar, homely British yellow glow :cry: :roll: something I've enjoyed since the age of 10.

My physics teacher was moaning about this, and I have to agree with her. She was saying that the sodium street lights were very warm and welcoming, whereas the LED ones are incredibly cold and are just unpleasant to look at. :?


She's right, it's like a moonlight in a cold November.

There are also local concerns over the spill of 'blue'-ish light into bedrooms potentially affecting sleep, although they are better focussed 'down' than sideways.

I understandthat astronomers don't like them either, as they can filter out the very narrow spectrum orange light.
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.

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StressedDave
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Re: Braking

Postby StressedDave » Sun Apr 24, 2016 3:48 pm

It isn't beyond the whit of manufacturers to have the LED dies in different colours. Back in the dim and distant past when I was working in digital imaging for the Home Office (don't ask) we were looking at very specific light frequency outputs because certain chemical treatments fluoresce under bombardment from photons of a particular wavelength. They used to use a very high power laser to do the same thing on the basis that chuck enough photons and anything and they glow, but carrying around a big bit of kit happily capable of cutting through wooden benches was a bit of a safety issue.

You could get these LEDs in a range of colours - everything from red up to blue. If you've had a filling lately using resin rather than metal you'll note that they use blue LED light to cure the resin. It wouldn't be beyond the whit of man to keep the nice yellow glow (actually IIRC they're more efficient than white in any case) so that Mr C-W et al. could enjoy their glow on the flightpath into Heathrow.
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Silk
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Re: Braking

Postby Silk » Sun Apr 24, 2016 4:01 pm

StressedDave wrote:...Back in the dim and distant past when I was working in digital imaging for the Home Office (don't ask).


Actually, I am going to ask. I don't believe such a long and varied career can belong to just one man. ;-)

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StressedDave
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Re: Braking

Postby StressedDave » Sun Apr 24, 2016 4:14 pm

Scarily so... To run through:

1. Started pre-(they used to sponsor students through university) and post university with the Ministry of Death, sorry, I'll read that again Ministry of Defence. Worked in vehicle ride and handling
2. Worked for Metropolitan Police in their forensic lab reconstructing (by which I mean working out how they happened, not actually doing it again) road traffic accidents.
3. Lost profession reputation (I'm definitely not going to go into that particular escapade) and got shunted sideways into digital imaging. Was gainfully occupied from 0900 to 0930 every Monday. Wrote software that was still in use 10 years later to handle the audit trail involved in the manipulation of forensic images. Tried not to laugh at the idea that you had to print fingerprints out at true scale and then use a 5x loupe to examine them.
4. Took 'voluntary' redundancy and retrained as driving instructor. Was rescued from having to tutor novices by the timely intervention of Hugh Noblett. Haven't done any for the last two years due to illness.
5. Took on engineering lecturing job to keep the pennies (and anyone who works in the FE sector will confirm that it it indeed pennies) rolling in because I put too much into the driver coaching to be able to do it for more than three days per week.
6. Started vehicle dynamics business, eventually manufacturing own dampers. Still dabble, but I'm an engineer rather than a marketeer and realised that purple springs outsell really good dampers.
7. Could feel brains leaking out of ears due to lecturing, so jumped at chance to retrain into slightly different discipline. I now make large, medium and small structures not fall down, overturn or blow away. (The last two has unsurprisingly been causing large amounts of work lately - I do temporary structures amongst other things, so if you see a giant Pringles tube, Christmas tree, Breakfast table, Kinder Chocobon, Oreo biscuit or bottle of Pepsi-Max, then you'll have (not) seen my work).

I believe they call it a 'boutique' career. I hope that one day I'll move on from knowing a little about a lot to knowing everything about nothing. :mrgreen:
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Silk
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Location: South Glos.

Re: Braking

Postby Silk » Sun Apr 24, 2016 5:36 pm

StressedDave wrote:Scarily so... To run through:
[edit]
I believe they call it a 'boutique' career. I hope that one day I'll move on from knowing a little about a lot to knowing everything about nothing. :mrgreen:


Well, I did ask. :-)

A combination of modesty and shame prevents me from listing my CV on here. Suffice to say, I now deal with the inevitable aftermath when the technologically illiterate come into contact with technology - especially when it doesn't belong to them. Increasingly these days however, I'm called upon to assist these same illiterates when they somehow manage to blag a job in the tech industry. I also get to do plenty of driving in between, which is a welcome relief. In my spare time, and often in working time, I like to troll people on the Internet. :lol:

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StressedDave
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Re: Braking

Postby StressedDave » Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:47 am

Silk wrote:Increasingly these days however, I'm called upon to assist these same illiterates when they somehow manage to blag a job in the tech industry.

You sound like just the man I need for some advice: I'm technically literate and am worried that my CV looks a little thin on experience... :lol:
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