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Roadside Construction Essay

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Abstract
Due to the growing population and overly congested roadways, numerous of the roadside construction sites occur at night to reduce the problems of traffic. These sites have continually shown problems caused by their unnatural lighting solutions. The essential problem brought to attention is that of safety, caused by the poor vision, bright lights, shadows, and the glare created by the current lighting types being used. While looking at these different forms of lighting, one will be able to see and understand which the best permanent solution for roadside construction is. Portable Towers, Balloon Lighting, Headlights, Droplights/Floodlights will all be looked at as possible solutions, as well as the advantages and disadvantages …show more content…

According to the Signal Detection Theory (SDT), in these events, I would be considered a miss. (Foley, 2010) I am driving through and because the lighting is so strong or so poor, I miss the workers instructions and sometimes even the workers themselves. I also have seen sites where I can see the workers fine but it seems like they cannot see the vehicles approaching, which will also be considered a miss according to the SDT, (Foley, 2010) which can be warning signs for a possible future serious accident and exponential problems. When one cannot see the workers instructions clearly, it is very easy to mistake what they say, thus causing a false alarm. (Foley, 2010) According to the SDT, in this case would be a mistake what you see or hear on the roadside due to the poor lighting conditions (Physical Stimulus) that cause one to perceive something incorrectly. (Foley, 2010) The problem we are looking at now is the insufficient amount of lighting on roadside construction sites. Most of the time these construction sites have workers working late at night well into the early morning, (Huckabee, 2009) which in this case is an example of top down processing. (Foley, 2010) The physical stimulus, which is the lighting issue, is not sufficient to determine the perception of the light. The mental factors play an essential

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