Article: Invisibility.

[wheelswings]

Comparing ninja pedestrians and cyclists with dark-colored cars doesn’t really work ‘cause the cars use headlights and taillights. Still, there is a considerable body of research on different colors of cars, which may apply to riding gear as well.

Yellow and pink are the safest car-colors (but hard to find in this country), and white is also good (except, perhaps, in blizzards), as is silver. Navy and black cars (and clothes) may be ‘cool’ but they are not so safe.

As a cyclist and a driver, I’d say that lights, reflectors, and colors make a huge difference in visibility – for cars, peds, and bikes. I wish that more people realized this. I’ve often wished there were signs at the trailheads urging the use of lights and hi viz at night – even by pedestrians. In my mind it’s not a question of who’s at fault, or of requiring “special uniforms,” but just common sense measures to increase the odds of keeping everyone safe.

[cvcalhoun]

I don’t know that hi viz gear makes a lot of difference in the daytime. However, I have an ANSI Class 2 safety vest I wear at night. We’re not talking normal bike vest; we’re talking the kind of thing that construction guys working on roads use at night. I always thought of it as just an add-on to my lights until I lent it to a friend and rode behind him. Even in the headlight from my bicycle (which is a lot less powerful than a car’s headlight), you could pretty much have seen him from the moon. It was much brighter (as well as of course much bigger) than either of the tail lights I use. Since that time, I’ve been obsessive about wearing it at night.

And I agree with wheels&wings. Whether drivers should be more attentive is not the issue. After the fact, I’d love to see courts be more attentive to driver errors, rather than just looking for every possible thing a cyclist could have done differently. (He wasn’t wearing a helmet when that 10-ton truck ran over him!) But I want to avoid getting killed, not just have my heirs and assigns win a lawsuit if I’m unsuccessful in that endeavor.

I also think that the article’s comparison of pedestrians and cyclists is misleading. No, pedestrians don’t wear hi viz clothes to walk, at least in the city. But that’s at least in part because they are primarily walking on sidewalks. If you have the opportunity to look both ways before getting into the path of traffic–and maybe use traffic lights or crosswalks to add to your safety–high viz gear is less critical. However, it drives me nuts when pedestrians wear dark clothes and don’t use lights on the CCT–and I’m going much more slowly, and therefore have more time to react, than a car would. If I were out in the country and having to walk along the side of the road at night, you can bet that I’d be wearing hi viz gear and carrying a light.

[FFX_Hinterlands]

I have a big warning triangle (jogalite large triangle) on my bike and I bought a hi-viz yellow helmet that I’ve plastered with reflexite reflective tape. I have just enough high viz that a driver will have difficulty saying “I didn’t see him there.” Well, the driver will say it anyhow but at least if someone looks at the police report it will appear stupid. It won’t matter anyway because you can pretty much kill anyone walking or biking with a car and just use the “I didn’t see them there” excuse every time. Maybe you’ll get a failure to yield ticket.

[vvill]

I agree with the previous few posts. It’s not always going to make a difference, and obviously drivers should be alert enough to see cyclists with lights. But I feel reflective stuff at night does help visibility, and I also tend to wear hi-viz colours (bright green/yellow/orange) when I’m riding in gray/murky/dusky conditions. Whether it helps enough to make a difference will depend on circumstances, but I’ve had enough occasions as a driver where I’ve struggled to see someone on a road (usually happens when they are fully dark – no lights or reflectors) that I’d rather err on the side of caution. I use reflective stuff and a light when I’m out running at night too.

Part of it is also attitude, and showing drivers that you are making an effort to be visible. Some may not agree with that but I’d to hope that most drivers would respond to that positively.

[Sunyata]

While I am a firm believer that we should “stop trying to make cyclists and pedestrians more visible; vehicle operators should pay attention and stop hitting them”, I also believe that I am in charge of my own safety. Therefore, I want to do everything in my power to make sure that I am visible to anyone who is remotely paying attention. I do this with a combination of reflective gear (clothing and on the bike), high-visibility clothing (when appropriate), and lights (LOTS of lights).

GCN did a really good compare test that compared lights and different styles of kits (hi-vis, reflective, basic black) in different lighting conditions. For those that do not think hi-vis is important in daylight and low light conditions, I highly recommend watching their video:

[video=youtube_share;9ZRXlrJ3Mi0]https://youtu.be/9ZRXlrJ3Mi0[/video]

[Author]

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