James R. Schmidt, Jr., BSME, Collision Reconstruction Engineering Analyst

Previously, I was picking up a morning coffee, when I “ran into” a bit of a sun glare situation.

More recently, I was doing a little pre-work, holiday shopping and boy did I face a serious sun glare situation!  Take a look for yourself down below:

The sun was low in the sky at an altitude of about 4½ degrees above the horizon, and it was pretty much directly ahead and in-line with the roadway I was travelling on.

In all of the snapshots shown, glare from the sun was a problem, but it was exacerbated by the uphill grade in the roadway in position/image 008, as the uphill grade effectively reduced the altitude of the sun relative to the driver to near zero degrees.  Once the driver (in this case me!) crested the hill, the serious sun glare situation was eased, given the downhill grade on the other side (which effectively increased the altitude of the sun relative to the driver).

James R. Schmidt, Jr., BSME, Collision Reconstruction Engineering Analyst with DJS Associates, Inc., can be reached via email at experts@forensicDJS.com or via phone at 215-659-2010.

Collision Reconstruction | James R. Schmidt | Sun Glare