The recent clock change and the dark early evenings have once again brought drivers’ vision very much into public thinking.
The news pages in the November 6 issue of Optician from 1964 took a different view on the subject, by attending the Commercial Motor Show and assessing how new developments would be of benefit to vision-related matters.
The Leyland Ergomatic cab was said to have been completely designed around the driver and offered significant benefits for their vision. Forward visibility extended to 12 degrees and window wiper sweep was not in the driver’s line of sight. Engineers also increased driver’s side visibility by off-setting wiper motors and wheel boxes.
Lighting was also covered extensively in the report. Toshiba unveiled an all-glass headlamp unit which could illuminate more fog and rain than before and continental manufacturers began to adopt four-light set-ups. This wasn’t without problems, however, as the internal design of the European lamps meant high beams provided plenty of illumination, but in comparison, some of the dipped beams were found wanting.
Elsewhere in the issue that week, details of the General Optical Council’s registers were published. The names of over 6,300 ophthalmic opticians were on the register at the time, but the journal’s editorial notes section questioned the figure, asking if the total was inflated slightly by the inclusion of non-active members. The corporate body ophthalmic opticians list contained 988 names and the corporate bodies list was made up of 2,246 establishments.