Edinburgh's new buses

[DonaldG]

Lothian Buses is currently taking delivery of 25 new double-deck buses. The thing that may interest those of us in the Edinburgh area is that they have "stair windows". How will skirted men (or women) feel about being viewed from passing traffic as they ascend/descend the stair?? I know that I, as someone who wears the kilt in the "traditional" manner, am not too happy!

http://www.route-one.net/wp-content/upl ... Drive1.jpg

Donald

[crfriend]

How will skirted men (or women) feel about being viewed from passing traffic as they ascend/descend the stair??

For all the noise that gets made about it the actual risk in real terms is pretty small. There are a lot of factors in play including motion, contrast, lighting, and angle -- and all of those have to line up perfectly to expose anything. Motion tends to confuse the eye and even if a "perfect instant" arrives it's over in a flash (sorry about the pun). It tends to be dark under skirts, unless you're wearing something very light and/or sheer, so that indicates that it'll be difficult to get a good view; contrast plays into this as well because the surrounding areas will be vastly brighter than the "inside condition" is up the skirt in question. And finally there's angle. It's actually surprisingly hard to get a view "all the way up" unless somebody's wearing a micro-mini.

The place I used to work at completed a new building in the months before I departed, and the central staircase had open risers on it. Some of the women were aghast at the matter and were swearing that they'd never use the stairs. I, on the other hand, used the stairs any time I was in the building and never had a lick of trouble. And, yes, I was wearing a skirt most of the time there.

[Sinned]

Like Crl I had a place of work that had a staircase with open risers and there was an edict that the staircase could only be used for going downwards because of the fear of offending skirted women by being able to look up their skirts. Common sense prevailed after a very short period when it was realised that the presumed effect just didn't happen! I think that there is a post where one of our members demonstrated how difficult it was to see anything up even a shortish skirt,

[skirtyscot]

Did anyone ever actually test the stairs for this? Find a volunteer (or ten pressed men!) to walk up and down the stairs in different styles of skirt while a friend actually tried to get a look up them? The volunteer could of course dress like Superman to preserve her modesty while leaving the underwear potentially visible!

[Kirbstone]

Nice looking Lothian Bus & smart colour scheme, too. I bet the 'public' wouldn't pay a blind bit of notice to anyone skirted or otherwise negotiating that stair.
I believe Edinburgh has a fleet of new trams as well, but they'd be single deckers, of course.

Tom