The Dark Adaptation Strike Fighter

Have you ever gone from the bright afternoon sunlit street into a dark tunnel or dark parking garage? Most people, if they are smart, will slow way down and inch their way into the garage not knowing what obstacles or people hide in the darkness but crossing their fingers that one of those won’t be in their blinded path.

According to Rafael Caruso, an investigator in the National Eye Institute's Ophthalmic Genetics & Visual Function Branch in Bethesda, MD, if we go from the outdoors on a bright sunny day into a very dimly lit room, we are hardly able to see our surroundings at first. As time goes by, however, we gradually become able to detect the room's contents. This phenomenon is known as "dark adaptation," and it typically takes between 20 and 30 minutes to reach its maximum, depending on the intensity of light exposure in the previous surroundings.

The fact is that you really only have seconds in a busy downtown or crowded surface street to take the leap of faith that your eyes will adjust in time and we won’t have the luxury of 20 or 30 minutes. Property owners and managers often wonder how it is people strike the garage gates causing damage without considering this key information regarding adaption. With parking and garage space becoming more valuable, it is the architect’s desire to move the gates as close to the road entrance as possible to avoid taking more space than necessary putting the gates into the immediate darkness of the fold of the building. Some have recognized the situation after interviewing those parties involved in gate strikes where it often uncovered that the strike was simply the inability to see the black gate in a dark garage before some level of adaptation had happened. So they add another light fixture or two in the gate entrance hoping that that will solve the problem. While this helps on a cloud day where there is less ambient light it struggles to solve the problem on days where strong light would prevent rapid adaptation to darkness.

What is a building owner to do besides spending the rest of her days on the phone with insurance and gate companies arranging the replacement of damaged gates? The A&D team asked the same question and worked diligently through the darkness to identify a solution. What we came up with a fairly simple and reasonably priced solution to getting quick attention. Working with bright color-changing LED strips, and controller systems, drivers are immediately alerted upon entry into the garage that there is an obstruction and with their activation of the gates with their credential, they are provided visual stimulation that the gate has begun and opening or closing process. The addition of a lighted, flashing, Stop sign also provides additional reinforcement that an obstruction and traffic limitation exists. This reminds both sun blinded drivers that there is reason to stop, but it also reminds the driver who is thought distracted who suffers the third-highest reason for striking gates. You probably wonder what the first highest reason is that people strike gates, which I will provide at the end of the article.

The activated light systems are most commonly installed using psychology we already know as drivers, which is red/green cues to provide active feedback, We use solid red in a standing state, we use flashing red in a moving state and we use solid green in a fully-open state to signify the location of the panels. These colors instantly make the most sense., but custom colors could be programmed to provide similar feedback to positioning that is associated with the colors of the property to create visual continuity while providing cues that the gates are nearby for those entering the street.

Another thing we can do for upscale properties looking to add value to their tenants and owners is to install high intensity LED light strips that activate on contact with the magnetic loop on exiting a property to help drivers' eyes adjust to brighter conditions that exist outside of the garage.

A&D’s sales engineers can assist you in installing one of these systems in conjunction with your install team who can assist in setting up layouts and timing to get these systems just right on the light.

Ok, the first reason people strike gates is what is affectionately called “rushing the gate” which simply means that a driver is unwilling to wait the few seconds it takes for the gate to completely open advancing their vehicle before the gate has completed its opening cycle and in the process striking the gate. Smart property owners have added HD infrared cameras to their gate openings to ensure these drivers meet their repair obligations but there is a preventative remedy for this as well. If you choose not to install flashing light systems on the gate, you can do two things to help drivers avoid these strikes. One is to add a single strip of lights or a red/green stop light type fixture near each gate that activates to green when the gate is fully open so the driver knows when to advance or you can add a strip of bright white or colored LED strips to the bottom of the gate so that at night in darker locations, drivers can see the location of the gate panel as it opens and shines a light wash across the ground area.

In a world of contact, non-contact, and environment safety options, you can be assured that A&D will brighten up your options and continue to vet the best solutions that create the very best gate experiences.