This paper describes a dynamic perception experiment carried out in a dark tunnel with black walls located in the Staatliches Materialprüfungsamt in Dortmund, Germany. The purposes of this experiment were: (1) to investigate the effect of various transmission levels on recognition distances; and (2) to determine the windshield light transmission level below which driver perception during nighttime driving becomes so bad that vehicles should not be equipped with such windshields. In order to find a suitable test for later field experiments, two objects whose optical characteristics can be mathematically defined used: a stripe-pattern and a landcolt-circle. It appears that the exact transmission value below which drivers' vision becomes significantly worse, lies between 60% and 70%. This result is similar to those obtained from a static perception experiment in the same tunnel carried out by the Staatliches Materialprüfungsamt in 1990.
Samenvatting