Originally Posted by
JoeyBike
Notice the sun itself, then the glare off the tarmac, then the direct sunlight reflected off the near edge of your hood (or bonnet), then on the glass. If you pulled the visor down enough to cover the actual sun, which is what most people do, This leaves about 80 ft of visibility with three sources of reflected light still in the driver's eyes. 75 mph (no one drives the limit of course) but 75mph = 110 feet per second. Literally one second to see an object in the lane ahead, process this through the brain, determine that object is basically stationary, move a foot off the accelerator, move to the brake, apply the brake, then give the car time to actually stop. This is IF the driver notices the object the INSTANT it pops into view and has the reaction time of a stunt man.
See? (I adjusted your visor to hide the sun itself). It's just not that complicated. People mess up all the time.
BLAMO!
(I estimated the distance by standard stripe length = 10 feet, and the distance between stripes at 20 feet, which looks about right compared to the stripes)
Your lack of driving experience is showing. It is substantially more than 80 feet to the truck ahead. How do you know how most people adjust their visors? I can honestly say that I have no idea how anyone else adjusts their visors. The bottom line is that neither of us know. I would assume most would adjust it so that the bottom edge of the visor is just below the sun, allowing a maximum field of view/sight distance. If most people are running the interstate into a rising or setting sun with an 80 foot line of sight, I think the accident rate would be higher than it is. Even with the number of idiot drivers out there, my instincts tell me they are not limiting their field of view anywhere near that much.
Touching on your first comment about 3 sources of reflected light. Well, mark a place on the road where a bicyclist would be where you couldn't see them. The presence of a reflection doesn't render them invisible. If a cyclist was right where the reflection is on the road, they'd still be visible.
The bottom line that driving into the last 45 minutes of a setting sun with a dirty windshield did NOT obscure my view of the road in a manner that would impair my ability to see a bicyclist. A driver that says "I didn't see them because of the sun" is lying. If they didn't see the cyclist, it is because they can't drive worth a crap or weren't paying attention. The sun is an excuse, not a reason.
A wet dirty windshield going into the first or last 30 minutes can be an issue. But the conditions that find a windshield wet while the sun is out is largely limited to the first few minutes a driver is heading into a sunrise.
Edited to add: Your default mindset on these accidents, if the sun is anywhere from 3-4 hours from rising or setting, is to suggest the sun was likely in the drivers eye. If "most" drivers adjust the visor to give themselves an 80 foot long sight distance, then wouldn't it be more accurate to suggest that the driver likely had the visor adjusted incorrectly rather than the sun was in their eyes?