"OK - no hi-viz, how about Honda's new FACE?" thread in "Staying Alive"
OK so the rights / wrongs of Hi-Viz stretches on. But Honda has a Conspicuity Enhancement Design programme, of which part is the FACE idea. ...

OK so the rights / wrongs of Hi-Viz stretches on. But Honda has a Conspicuity Enhancement Design programme, of which part is the FACE idea.

So, with regards to the whole visibility thing, what do you think of Honda's new FACE idea? Will it work help or not? Or is it a waste of time?





there's also an interesting short film here
Honda Worldwide | ASV-3

if every manufacturer uses a different layout it'd be confusing and difficult to judge a position based soley on the lights, but i can't see it doing any harm and maybe - just maybe - helping prevent a night-time smidsy or two.

it's definitely worth a try, and would surely eliminate any of the fairly.. um.. situational 'bike lined up exactly with the light of a vehicle directly behind it' tomfoolery.

Based on all the information posted about DRLs on the threads here where the posters seem to believe they make no difference why are Honda bothering??

What's the "upper" light mounted on?? A roll-bar??

I'm not particularly convinced by it tbh. Most people are perfectly capable of walking into an oncoming pedestrian, let alone driving into an oncoming bike.

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non quod, sed quomodo

Looks great. I'll feel much safer on one of those.










Kidding. Honest.

Where are these posts?

I am not biting we have enough DRL threads! And I am not in disagreement with your point of view either!

there are two elements to it -

• one, that it looks like a human 'face', which as humans we tend to notice
• two, that the extra lights (upper & lower) allow better judgment of speed / distance

the extra lights makes sense to me from a triangulation perspective. If you've ever seen a cat hunt a bird, they move their head from side to side & up and down, in order to better judge the distance, so that when they launch their attack they get it right first time.

They're mine, and I'm sticking with them.

Unhelpful in my opinion.

The other night I saw a car coming towards me with an unusual layout of lights appeared to be four in a row and one lower down like a fog light. I nearly pulled out into the gap in front of it, but something stopped me - I noticed that some of the lights appeared to be moving independently of the others.

I hesitated and took another look and realised it was a bicycle with three lights - two on the bars and one on the fork leg. That unusual arrangement did a very good job of camouflaging him.

I nearly pulled out in front of an R1 when they first came out as the widely spaced lights made it look like a car much further away.

Keeping things conventional actually makes it more likely the vehilce will be recognised for what it is. IMO.

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Slightly similar sort of thing Spin but I overtook a cyclist who was wearing a lamp strapped to his helmet..... even though I had just overtaken him the strange movement of the light made me feel as if he was catching me up again...very bizarre....

Vision is complicated (perhaps that's why hi-viz threads attract so much comment).

On the one hand something totally new and different attracts a WTFIT reaction. eg a pink hi-viz jacket, or blueish HIDs when they first appeared.

On the other hand about 90% of what we "see" is pattern recognition in our brains, so we actually send signals from our eyes for only a small amount and then "fill in the blanks". Or not if we don't recognise it.

Given that the WTFIT reaction will only ever happen a few times to any one stimulus, its practical use is limited. So we might well be better having a recognisable and STANDARD pattern to recognise as a bike. I quite like the "3 lights in a triangle" that Italian scooters seem to be using.

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Cousin Jack

A bof that rides a Bonnie T100.

Might look like yours! It's bugger all like my finely chiselled aquiline good looks.

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A fool may ask questions a wise man cannot answer.

It may look a little like a face, in the daytime when you can see it, unfortunately with the lights on it kind of defeats the purpose because you can't see the features as well. oh no I mentioned DRL.

I'm not certain their various shapes and positions of lights helps very much. As Cousin Jack says a recognisable and standard light shape might be better.

I do like the rear camera idea - could save more lives than the rest of the stuff put together IMO.