Reflective vests and infrared touchless faucets

[lordofthemark]

I guess in theory if someone walks out in all black, on a white striped crosswalk, a driver should notice that something is obscuring the crosswalk stripes. If not there is an issue with the driver, with the crosswalk, or both.

Of course there are implicit crosswalks where it is legal to cross, but there is no striping. That presents a problem.

[scoot]

@lordofthemark 193447 wrote:

Of course there are implicit crosswalks where it is legal to cross, but there is no striping. That presents a problem.

Still should be the driver’s fault. If you can’t see in time to react to someone legally crossing a road, painted crosswalk or no, then you’re out-driving your headlights.

That said, there is a difference between where our legal standard ought to be vs. practical advice for vulnerable road users to minimize one’s chance of becoming a victim in the current environment. I would bet that every single person who has commented on this thread has worn hi-viz or reflective clothing themselves at times while walking or cycling in the DC area.

[Starduster]

I wore my PAL Ambassador reflective vest today, marshaling for Notorious ARL. Stopped into Arlington Mill, and darned if that didn’t happen to me!

[baiskeli]

@scoot 193455 wrote:

Still should be the driver’s fault. If you can’t see in time to react to someone legally crossing a road, painted crosswalk or no, then you’re out-driving your headlights.

Don’t ever complain about a ninja then.

[baiskeli]

As noted before, the law requires cyclists to have certain equipment for visibility.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter10/section46.2-1015/

[jrenaut]

I don’t object to cyclists being visible. I encourage lots of lights and reflective gear. What I object to is specific gear requirements to interact with special gear we’ll put in cars so that drivers can say “well, my Cyclist Censor didn’t see you, so it’s not my fault I ran you over”.

[drevil]

@Shep 193305 wrote:

… it always give me a laugh when my reflective vest turns on all the touchless faucets as I walk by them, far from normal hand washing distance. (Anyone else have this experience?)

This happened to me yesterday. Normally, the sensor to turn on the faucet works at max of 5″. With my reflective backpack, it was 5′.

OK, y’all can get back to arguing

[jrenaut]

@drevil 193502 wrote:

OK, y’all can get back to arguing

No YOU can get back to arguing

[Steve O]

@baiskeli 193499 wrote:

As noted before, the law requires cyclists to have certain equipment for visibility.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter10/section46.2-1015/

Correct. And both Jon and I stated that if a driver runs over a cyclist who is riding legally, it is the driver’s fault. Full stop. You then took up valuable thread space with imaginary hypotheticals that were unrelated to our point.
People walking, on the other hand, have no such requirements. Still the driver’s fault.
@baiskeli 193498 wrote:

Don’t ever complain about a ninja then.

If I were to run into someone walking on the trail who was hard to see, I would consider it my fault, just like if I were to run into a deer standing on the trail (although they do have those cool reflective eyeballs), or a fallen tree limb lying across the trail. If I cannot see far enough ahead to avoid these kinds of things, I am riding too fast. My fault.

A person riding a bike at night without a light, however, is riding illegally, and I feel comfortable complaining about those types of ninjas.

[DismalScientist]

@jrenaut 193501 wrote:

I don’t object to cyclists being visible. I encourage lots of lights and reflective gear. What I object to is specific gear requirements to interact with special gear we’ll put in cars so that drivers can say “well, my Cyclist Censor didn’t see you, so it’s not my fault I ran you over”.

But wait a minute….
Don’t reflectors and reflective gear interact with special gear called headlights that are put in cars?:rolleyes:

[jrenaut]

@DismalScientist 193507 wrote:

But wait a minute….
Don’t reflectors and reflective gear interact with special gear called headlights that are put in cars?:rolleyes:

Yes. However, any reflector interacts with any light, and cars have been required to have headlights since forever (citation needed). Let’s just say we passed a victim-blaming law that said every cyclist had to ride with a Don’t Kill Me Beacon and every car had to have a Cyclist Sensor (And I like my typo in the previous post, I’m not fixing that). What would that COST? It would realistically be YEARS before every bike and every car had the right equipment. And you know that UPS would lobby against having to put Cyclist Sensors in their trucks, and they’d be made exempt. USPS would be the same. WMATA buses. Police cars. Range Rovers.

It’s just another expensive tech solution to a problem that could be solved by punishing drivers for dangerous behavior.

[mstone]

The problem I see here is that a couple of dozen posts ago someone proposed a couple of hypotheticals, and some people are supporting one and some people are arguing against the other, leading to an increasingly long thread where people are arguing for and against things which nobody on the other side is talking about. I guess that might be a first on the internet.

[ChristoB50]

@mstone 193510 wrote:

The problem I see here is that a couple of dozen posts ago someone proposed a couple of hypotheticals, and some people are supporting one and some people are arguing against the other, leading to an increasingly long thread where people are arguing for and against things which nobody on the other side is talking about. I guess that might be a first on the internet.

Oh yeah—- and today at work my reflective vest activated the hallway water bottle filler spout as I walked by!

[DismalScientist]

@jrenaut 193509 wrote:

Yes. However, any reflector interacts with any light, and cars have been required to have headlights since forever (citation needed). Let’s just say we passed a victim-blaming law that said every cyclist had to ride with a Don’t Kill Me Beacon and every car had to have a Cyclist Sensor (And I like my typo in the previous post, I’m not fixing that). What would that COST? It would realistically be YEARS before every bike and every car had the right equipment. And you know that UPS would lobby against having to put Cyclist Sensors in their trucks, and they’d be made exempt. USPS would be the same. WMATA buses. Police cars. Range Rovers.

It’s just another expensive tech solution to a problem that could be solved by punishing drivers for dangerous behavior.

Methinks you took my comment more seriously than it deserved. It was merely intended as snarky pedantry.

[Sunyata]

@jrenaut 193509 wrote:

However, any reflector interacts with any light, and cars have been required to have headlights since forever (citation needed).

Man, this led me down a rabbit hole. Interestingly enough, Massachusetts was the first state to require automobiles to have electric headlights in 1915, other states followed by the early 20’s. It seems unclear whether prior to that automobiles were required to have any source of lighting, although many of them had oil lamps.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/blog/history-automotive-lighting/

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