Imagine that you and your family are driving across a busy highway in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. Besides the fact that the experience is unnerving, and that you would ordinarily attempt to avoid being forced to drive in such weather where possible, you have little choice. Additionally, your family's safety and your own visibility are your biggest concerns on the road. Without the use of windshield wipers to maintain your visibility, you would likely not be traveling anywhere in such weather. The good news is that being equipped with windshield wipers is both a legal requirement and standard feature for most modern vehicles.
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The windshield wiper is a device used to remove rain, snow, and other debris from a vehicle, boat, or airplane's front panes of glass. The majority of modern wipers consist of a pair of metal arms, each with one pivoting end and a long rubber blade attached to the other end. The metal arms are powered by an electric motor, which allows the blades to move back and forth over the windshield. This action pushes water and other obstructions away from the windshield's surface while improving visibility for the driver.
The speed at which a vehicle's windshield wipers swing is adjustable by the driver and can often be set to either continuous or intermittent operation. The speed is usually dependent upon the amount of rain or debris hitting the windshield during periods of extreme weather. The harder the rainfall, the faster the wipers will swing to remove water more quickly.
In addition to electric motors, some automobiles make use of pneumatic-style wipers that operate by directing pressurized air from a vehicle's braking system to an air-operated motor above the windshield.
The most common form of wiper movement is parallel, meaning that both rubber blades move across the windshield in the same direction. This movement typically covers the greatest surface area of the windshield to maximize visibility. Less common (and effective) is opposed movement, whereby the wiper blades are mounted on opposite sides of the windshield and move in opposite directions.
A third wiper system, used most commonly by buses, is the pantograph-based design. A pantograph wiper system features two dedicated metal arms for each wiper blade. The entire blade assembly is supported on a horizontal bar connecting the two arms. This allows each wiper blade to cover a larger surface area of the vehicle's windshield. However, a pantograph system also requires the wipers to be mounted in the middle of the windshield itself, which can partially obstruct the driver's view.