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Mirrored and or heavily smoked visors may not be a good idea.

  • Thread starter Thread starter spyug
  • Start date Start date
S

spyug

Guest
On Saturday I went up to Royal distributing in Guelph for their "tent sale". I picked up an Icon Alliance SS helmet. A good deal I thought for $139 and no taxes. As it was cheap enough I was going to get a mirrored visor but stopped myself at the last moment. Don't really know why.

So I'm out riding with the new lid on Sunday. Very comfortable and quiet. good flow through ventilation. A well made helmet at a good price and DOT and Snell certified to boot.

Now the incident about the visor. The stock visor is clear and I wear prescription sun glasses. I ride with the visor down until I come to stops at traffic lights when I flip it up. Toward the end of my ride, I'm stopped at a light facing a guy on a sportbike (CBR I think) wearing full leathers and helmet with a mirrored sheild. I could not see his eyes and he didn't move his head much so I couldn't tell where he was looking.

He did not have an advanced green but he must have figured I wouldn't be fast off the line on the old GS as he turned right in front of me and rocketed off. I was a bit alarmed to say the least. Luckily for him there was no car to the right of me.

I think if you ride with a mirrored or smoked screen it would be good to pop it up in situations like this so the on coming rider or driver can get a sense of what you might be contemplating by looking at your eyes and where you are focused.

Ride safe guys.
Cheers,
Spyug
 
I think I would rather vote against doing things that need eyeball communication. Too easy to misinterpret. But I am all for the prescription, polarized shades. No visor can beat that.
 
We should figure out how to make prescription visors.

....


How much does it cost to get an idea patent?
 
I always ride with a dark smoke shield during daylight. It isnt optional for me as the sun is bright enough to give me a headache without it. Sunglasses dont fit well under a helmet and become pretty uncomfortable quickly. I carry a clear shield in my tank bag that I change to when the sun goes down.

Earl
 
Before I picked up my new lid I was in another store ( 2 Wheel Motorsports, for the Ontario guys) where they have a really good selection of the quality brands like Arai, Shoei, Shark, Nolan etc.. Oddly enough, I didn't find any of the those brands to be as comfortable on me as the Icon I got. One thing I did notice and I thought it was a good idea was that several brands now have an inner dark visor that you pull down or pop up as you need to block the sun without moving the clear visor.

I brought up this post not really to put down tinted visors but to reinforce what I learned on the MSF type course I took 5 years ago and what I've read over and over that the direction of the eyes is a good indicator of what the rider or driver might be contemplating doing. As I couldn't see his eyes and he barely moved his head I was caught off guard thinking he would stay put 'til I move through.

I know that if he were wearing sunglasses as I do myself it might not of helped any but he might have had to move his head more to get a good view. I find I do that myself and often exagerate my head motions, especially with shoulder checks

Just wanted to clarify that a bit.

Cheers,
Spyug.
 
spyug said:
On Saturday I went up to Royal distributing in Guelph for their "tent sale". I picked up an Icon Alliance SS helmet. A good deal I thought for $139 and no taxes. As it was cheap enough I was going to get a mirrored visor but stopped myself at the last moment. Don't really know why.

So I'm out riding with the new lid on Sunday. Very comfortable and quiet. good flow through ventilation. A well made helmet at a good price and DOT and Snell certified to boot.

Now the incident about the visor. The stock visor is clear and I wear prescription sun glasses. I ride with the visor down until I come to stops at traffic lights when I flip it up. Toward the end of my ride, I'm stopped at a light facing a guy on a sportbike (CBR I think) wearing full leathers and helmet with a mirrored sheild. I could not see his eyes and he didn't move his head much so I couldn't tell where he was looking.

He did not have an advanced green but he must have figured I wouldn't be fast off the line on the old GS as he turned right in front of me and rocketed off. I was a bit alarmed to say the least. Luckily for him there was no car to the right of me.

I think if you ride with a mirrored or smoked screen it would be good to pop it up in situations like this so the on coming rider or driver can get a sense of what you might be contemplating by looking at your eyes and where you are focused.

Ride safe guys.
Cheers,
Spyug
Click to expand...


Sorry, but I don't think this has anything to do with visor transparency or eye contact. If somebody turns left in front of another vehicle that's proceeding straight through the intersection then they're simply violating right of way. Regardless of shield specs, a rider like that would likely still make poor/foolish/stupid choices.
 
My latest helmet also happens to be an Icon Alliance (great lid!). I use the smoked (not mirrored) visor during the day, and the clear one if I head out late evening or nights.
From your description, my understanding is that the squid did not have the right of way to begin with. I'm not sure if he indicated a left turn while stopped at the light, or was in a dedicated turning lane, but it is moot....without an advanced green, he should have waited for through traffic to pass before cutting across. Had there been a collision, he would still have been at fault, visible eyeballs or not. It is just squidly behavior, and a lack of respect for other riders/drivers....a new trend I have noticed with these riders, and also their four-wheeled counterparts, is a tendency to weave through traffic, without indicating any lane changes...apparently, the normal sequence of check/indicate/change has not been hard-wired into their brains.... or perhaps they think 150+ bhp allows them to dispense with such niceties, as not many vehicles will be passing them.:roll:
Tony.
 
I have to go with John on this one. The US government already addressed the situation by requiring motor vehicle manufacturers to place odd looking orange lights on either side of the front and rear of a vehicle that are activated to indicate changes in direction. When used correctly they work surprisingly better than the make eye contact thing.

Down here in TX, the dark visor is practically mandatory for daytime riding.
 
Here's a fun one...

I have prescription fotogray glasses... (need em as I have a slight sensitivity to bright lights)
Bought my first dark smoked shield because the sun was right in my eyes in the morning commute... It was great. Then one day I sat at a light and flipped the shield up... activate fotogray... shield down again for a good two minutes was like driving on an unlit back road...
 
I got a couple of pennies.........polarized sunglasses don't work well with a visor or factory glass tints in cars, many purple rainbows etc.... good for fishing
 
The guy that cut you off was an idiot. It didn't matter if he had a smoked shield, or was sitting behind the wheel of a minivan wearing sunglasses.

Eitherway, he was going to cut you off.

Sharp skills prevented a bad thing from happening. Keep them sharp and hopefully you'll be ready the next time, as you were this time.

I personally ride with a smoked shield, and have zero intentions of replacing it. And if your counting on waiting until you can see the whites of someone eyes, your most likely going to be too late. Or wrong more than your right. After all, if the sun is in the direction of where they are wanting to go, they may look away "sort of" and still cross your path.
 
I gotta say I also agree with the others, the guy was just a bad/impatient/self-centered rider. Regardless of if he was looking left, or signaling left he has to wait for traffic to clear and seeing his eyes really wouldn't make a difference because if he did ride properly and waited for you to clear the intersection he could still have looked where he was planning to go. Just because your not turning doesn't mean your eyes are only looking straight ahead. Glad he didn't wreck you though, surely he learned a lesson about being faster than anyone else, seems alot of people cagers and riders alike who jump the gun making left turns as soon as the light goes green think they are fast **** so they do it fairly often until someone else scares the **** out of them or wrecks them.

Personally when riding I wait a moment when the light changes before I do anything to account for late light runners and people who might want to make a left in front of me. Other drivers may hate me for it but I care more for my life than their commuting time.
 
Turning left before traffic starts blocking a turn is a standard operating procedure around here, ha.

Anyways, I remember learning at the MSF course that eye contact means absolutely nothing as people can look you straight in the eye and still ignore your presence.
 
Absolutely, and experience will verify that. :-)

Earl

jola said:
Anyways, I remember learning at the MSF course that eye contact means absolutely nothing as people can look you straight in the eye and still ignore your presence.
Click to expand...
 
The guy was an idiot for cutting you off, and he should have let you know his intentions. People like that are basically the downfall of society, IMHO.
I am shopping for a smoked visor myself. Not too dark. I used to wear polarized glasses, but after a little mishap I had, no more. They were one of the contributing factors of flying through the air.
Here's something I found on the web:

Why don't pilots wear polarized sunglasses?

There is some debate on the effects of polarized lenses on certain surfaces.

We find that they're not satisfactory for sports such as downhill skiing because they may not provide the contrast the eye needs to distinguish ice patches and changes in the terrain quickly. The same logic may apply to motorcycle riders and slick spots on pavement. Without the glare created by the shine of a slick or oily road surface, a motorcyclist may not see a road hazzard.

Also a polarized filter will sometimes react with windshield lamination and tinting (as well as aircraft canopies) to create blinds spots and make it difficult to read LCD instrumentation. We'd suggest a non-polarized lens if you spend a lot of time biking, skiing or flying.



~~~ I have found Polarized glasses are great for kayaking, but riding a motorcycle with the shield made it like I was on mushrooms or something.8-[
Very wavy, rainbow effects, etc. You cannot see certain things until you are right on them, which can prove to be dangerous. Such as tar snakes, obstructions in the road, etc, etc...
I am for the shield because of this. Do what you wish, however. And as far as people who wear mirrored shields, maybe we're better off!*:-D Just be careful....
 
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