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Technical Paper

Nighttime driving and mesopic vision in vehicle safety

2021-03-26
2020-36-0088
A significant number of automobile accidents occur under low natural visibility conditions, especially at nighttime. This can be explained by some specific characteristics of nighttime driving, such as how human vision works within an intermediary visibility range – known as mesopic vision, which is a combination between scotopic vision (≤ 0.034 cd/m2) and photopic vision (≥ 3.4 cd/m2). In mesopic vision, the eye simultaneously uses cones and rods (photoreceptors in the retina), resulting in a unique interaction between sight and ambient lighting and, in practical terms, altering spectral sensitivity. These alterations improve visibility when ambient lighting has a high color temperature, in the range of 5000 K. Therefore, the spectral distribution of light from the headlamps plays a crucial role in vehicle safety. It is important to note that the most widespread lighting systems in Brazil, equipped with incandescent bulbs, operate with a warmer color temperature, averaging 3000 K.
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