DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour      al@motorwayamerica.com

The second thing that goes as you get older is eyesight. Things multi-colored become more difficult to delineate. Thus I have always wondered what the sadistic benchmark is for hiring interior lighting designers. My biggest pet peeve when it comes to cockpit lighting is use of the color red. Especially when used over a dark background.

It used to be prevalent among European vehicles — particularly cars coming from Germany. I always attributed it to their obvious hiring of former U-Boat crews who associate red lighting with night vision. Fine, but one must remember that the average U-Boat captain during the height of World War II was 29…and at the close of the War there were some as young as 20. It wouldn’t matter to them if there was black lettering on a black background…they could distinguish it.

During the past few years there have been some beautiful colors of instrument lighting – including a lot of blues. To complement them the letters are generally white on a darker background. These are clear enough to give Jose Feliciano a 50-50 chance of reading them. Some manufacturers (specifically Ford Motor Company) have a function that you can select what color you want your background to be. In Mustangs, for example, there are six light-emitting diodes (LEDs) — green, blue, purple, white, orange and red — that when blended can produce 125 backgrounds. Ford does have a better idea.

However, before Ford engineers blow out their rotator cuffs patting themselves on the back they’ve also sabotaged their own service to the fiber-deficient crowd. I’ve been testing a Fusion SEL – a wonderful vehicle that has rightfully achieved global acclaim. My test vehicle has a DVD Navigation System with tremendous clarity in the display screen. I like to listen to music from the ‘50s on SiriusXM Satellite Radio and like most audio systems of that type it has a display of the artist and song. BUT…what did I see (or didn’t see as the case may be)...red lettering on a blue background! I don’t think Otto Kretschmer, Germany’s “Ace of the Deep” and the most successful U-Boat captain of the War could easily read the display.

I was showing the “blur” to my wife and tapped the screen as I did so. What happened next belongs on the Twilight Zone. The display changed to a white background with black lettering. Thank you, Ford, for what you’ve done for the sighted and blind demographics but why not just leave the damn thing legible 24/7?

I have some advice for the automotive industry that they can easily refuse. Either employ older people who have empathy with the Depends generation or, if you insist on picking up these young kids right out of college, make them wear welder’s goggles when they’re deciding what color and background to use on vehicular instrumentation.

Until then, CLEAR THE BRIDGE…DIVE, DIVE!!!!!