Dark cycle users.

[DRM]

If their attention is elsewhere, or lacking, then they never see anything.

Even that big lorry with the large sign on the rear, clearly showing you've to pass on the right hand side. It's only travelling
slow/stationary because it's being used to do a job.

Again I didn’t say a bright colour makes the inattentive pay attention, as above a bright colour makes it easier to be spotted from a bit further away

 

[DRM]

You don't get it, do you? I might use the time like that. You might. We're not the drivers who need to change because we avoid even ninjas. Kenny won't use the time like that. He's got the memory of a farking goldfish and will have forgotten about the cyclists by the time he reaches them. That's still better than Jemima Ondafone who hit a walker because she was distracted by cyclists a mile away usurping attention when she finally looked up out the big window instead of the little black mirror.

As above too, in this instance using phones or anything else whilst driving should be stamped on very very hard, as far as I’m concerned if caught using a mobile phone whilst driving the police should be able to confiscate it, no if’s no buts, end of.
Bad, selfish, antisocial & inattentive use of a vehicle should be punished by removing the license & the vehicle too, let Mr Audi/BMW man explain that to his company leasing firm

 

[mjr]

Again I didn’t say a bright colour makes the inattentive pay attention, as above a bright colour makes it easier to be spotted from a bit further away

Again, depends what background it's viewed against and the driver will not necessarily use that extra distance wisely, so the overall effect is insignificant and we can do much much better.

 

[classic33]

Again I didn’t say a bright colour makes the inattentive pay attention, as above a bright colour makes it easier to be spotted from a bit further away

I was answering the quoted post only.

Edited to read they'll not they

 

[youngoldbloke]

If their attention is elsewhere, or lacking, then they'll never see anything.

Even that big lorry with the large sign on the rear, clearly showing you've to pass on the right hand side. It's only travelling slow/stationary because it's being used to do a job.

Edited so they now reads they'll

- so is all the hazard warning paintwork and flashing lights on the big slow lorry a waste of paint and resources? Is it totally ineffective? Would the collision rate stay the same if they were painted black and unlit?

 

[classic33]

- so is all the hazard warning paintwork and flashing lights on the big slow lorry a waste of paint and resources? Is it totally ineffective? Would the collision rate stay the same if they were painted black and unlit?

If the persons attention is elsewhere, or lacking.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

You don’t get it do you, if you notice a cyclist sooner,

..then by the time you are close enough to hit them you have forgotten about them and are distracted by the next thing clamouring for your limited attention span.

 

[DRM]

..then by the time you are close enough to hit them you have forgotten about them and are distracted by the next thing clamouring for your limited attention span.

Eh? You’re suggesting I have a limited attention span and forget about the things I’ve taken note of when driving, How do you work that out, this is just getting stupid, I genuinely think you’ve got issues, I’m out.

 

[pjd57]

" it is common to see folk "

So if you can still see them, no
excuse for hitting them then

 

[icowden]

I'm going to regret this but...

With reduced reflectivity and contrast (i.e. dark clothes) you are less likely to spot a pedestrian or cyclist - that's just basic physics. There will always be circumstances where lights and high vis make very little difference. Most of us don't stay in one spot though. If I am in central London, my lights and high-vis equipment don't really add to my visibiility. The place is well lit. However by having elements of differing contrast (my coat and shorts are black and my bike isn't particularly colourful) I still thnk that I am noticeable enough. The only place I am truly invisible is standing on the concourse at Waterloo Station.

Getting back to Surrey however suddenly the roads are a lot darker. Many of the residential roads have low throw streetlights and some quite long dark spots. This is where the reflective material of my high vis rucksack, gloves and white helmet are useful, along with the bike lights.

Is there any evidence that wearing a reflective jacket improves the safety of the cyclist? Well yes, there does seem to be:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753517313528

Of course there have been numerous studies suggesting the opposite, however they were not randomised controlled trials, but instead based on analysis of accident data (the linked study does go into this).

So, on balance, it seems to me that it is better to encourage people to wear clothing that at best may reduce the incidence of having an accident rather than to dismiss it out of hand. Being possibly better off is to my mind better than not having that possibility.

This argument goes around and around. Should we use lights? Should we wear hi-vis? Should we wear helmets?. None of these things have actively and definitively been shown in a scientifically controlled randomised trial to make life more dangerous for the cyclist. If you don't want to wear them - that's fine. I think there is sufficient evidence to show that on balance it's probably better to make some sort of effort.

 

[Seevio]

As the original post was about Oxford, I thought I would share my experiences as I have worked there recently.

Parking in central Oxford is expensive. Don't do it. When I go there, I park in the Park & Ride. As I am not a peasant, I don't do public transport and so I take my bike and cycle into central Oxford. Oxford during rush hour seems to be divided into bits where there are nearly no cars and bits where cars hold up bicycles.

Central Oxford is well lit. Even if you don't have lights (not me), you are still easily visible. Once you get to the bit where the cars are, you are more in danger of hitting a car than they are of hitting you.

 

[mjr]

I'm going to regret this but...

With reduced reflectivity and contrast (i.e. dark clothes) [...]

Yes, you probably should regret that, making a fundamental error after less than ten words! Dark clothes are only reduced contrast if being viewed against a dark background, which isn't most towns and many villages now with bright "cool white" LED streetlights, and that's where most poor-light cycling happens.

The rest of the post is littered with similar basic errors, logical disconnects and words which hint at unthinking acceptance of the evidence-free 1960s-80s orthodoxy ("accident") which saw the bad advice on clothing added to the highway code. I'm not going to tackle them one by one (so-called Fisking) because it would make for a tedious discussion.

As I'm sure you know, the problem with https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753517313528 is that the participants knew they were in a trial, so their behaviour may have been affected, which seems to me like a better explanation for the difference with population studies than the ones put forward.

You may base your decisions on what may happen "at best", but I prefer to also consider what could happen at worst and estimate the various probabilities to arrive an an expectation of the effect - basically arriving at the "on balance" effect of your last sentence but without the previous two paragraphs dismissing the evidence that victim-blaming clothing may do more harm than good.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I'm a tad confused ( again ) I saw the thread title and popped by to discuss the practicalities of sorting cycling gear into separate piles before bunging it in the washing machine. ;-)

... and I thought the thread might have been about the cycling equivalent of the Dark Web.

 

[classic33]

... and I thought the thread might have been about the cycling equivalent of the Dark Web.

Batman on a budget.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

From that study

“The effect in twilight is based on only few accidents, and thus no conclusions about the effect could be drawn.

The hypothesis was that the effect would be greater in daylight than in the dark, but the results cannot confirm this hypothesis

This effect is of the same magnitude as the effect of the permanent running light

Some may argue that this effect seems unrealistically high. This may reflect a weakness in the study design: the fact that it was non-blinded and the use of self-reported accidents, which may result in response bias

Consequently, it is possible that the test group reported slightly fewer PIAs than they should because they wanted to prove the safety effect of the bicycle jacket.
”

Ignoring the other errors, basically if I turn my lights on when appropriate in poor light conditions, I’m sorted.