The first of a few days of whimsy, take from Life's Little Mysteries. The kind of things that make one wonder at the creativity and wonder of human beings
In the 1960s, John Senders of the University of Toronto in Canada pioneered the study of distraction during driving in an experiment that surely would not get approved today. He built a helmet with a visor that the wearer can move up or down at will, and had people wear the helmet while driving a car. Participants were told to keep the visor down — driving blindly — until they felt the need to see the road in front of them, at which point they would raise the visor until they felt comfortable lowering it again. "Most people would say this was dangerous, but, you see, there were no institutional review boards at the time," Senders told Life's Little Mysteries.
By measuring how much time drivers spent with the visors up and down, and comparing that to the amount of traffic on the road at the time, Senders found that drivers needed to pay more attention to the road, the busier it is. This may be exactly what you would expect — but Senders gathered the data to prove it.
"[The paper] remained essentially unread for 30 years," Senders said. Then, with the invention of cell phones and the driving distractions they presented, someone discovered the paper. For taking risks in order to gain a scientific understanding of how much attention people must pay to road in order to drive safely, Senders was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Public Safety.
In the 1960s, John Senders of the University of Toronto in Canada pioneered the study of distraction during driving in an experiment that surely would not get approved today. He built a helmet with a visor that the wearer can move up or down at will, and had people wear the helmet while driving a car. Participants were told to keep the visor down — driving blindly — until they felt the need to see the road in front of them, at which point they would raise the visor until they felt comfortable lowering it again. "Most people would say this was dangerous, but, you see, there were no institutional review boards at the time," Senders told Life's Little Mysteries.
By measuring how much time drivers spent with the visors up and down, and comparing that to the amount of traffic on the road at the time, Senders found that drivers needed to pay more attention to the road, the busier it is. This may be exactly what you would expect — but Senders gathered the data to prove it.
"[The paper] remained essentially unread for 30 years," Senders said. Then, with the invention of cell phones and the driving distractions they presented, someone discovered the paper. For taking risks in order to gain a scientific understanding of how much attention people must pay to road in order to drive safely, Senders was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Public Safety.
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