Daytime running lights

[classic33]

https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/safety/daytime-running-lights

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I think most kids parents and school teachers will be drumming it into there heads to look before they run out so therefore making your car a visible as possible seems to me should be very drivers top priority
especially in 30mph built up zones

You're missing the point, visibility of vehicles is not the problem to be solved. Drivers top priority should be to slow the fark down and look out for kids.

 

[Mark pallister]

You're missing the point, visibility of vehicles is not the problem to be solved. Drivers top priority should be to slow the fark down and look out for kids.

Obviously I totally agree with that but can making your car as vi

You're missing the point, visibility of vehicles is not the problem to be solved. Drivers top priority should be to slow the fark down and look out for kids.

im t

A lowering of the 30mph limit to 20mph would be more beneficial than any visibility enhancing measures.

i totally agree I meant as well as driving slowly ect

 

[mjr]

https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/safety/daytime-running-lights

Motoring lobbyists in "promoting arms race that motorists will win" shock!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Obviously I totally agree with that but can making your car as vi

im t

i totally agree I meant as well as driving slowly ect

Not sure what you were trying to say but how can you say a vehicle approx 1.8 m wide X 4.7 m long X 1.4m high is not already visible? You'd have to have really poor eyesight not to see something that large.

Vehicles are already perfectly visible in daylight ; but the kids attention is elsewhere.

 

[icowden]

I'll leave it to someone far smarter than me: https://rdrf.org.uk/2016/09/28/on-formula-one-drivers-telling-children-to-wear-hi-viz/ - please read it before you hurt someone you love.

So, this is an opinion piece written by Robert Davies which references as the only source of data a book by Robert Davies which is out of print. It is full of lines like

. Mikael rightly reports the lack of evidence to show actual reductions in casualty rates as a result of this kind of programme.

but neglects to mention that Mikael is very quiet on the subject of whether there is a lack of evidence to show actual increases in casualty rates as a result of this kind of programme.

In other words, lack of evidence of improvement doesn't mean it does or doesn't work. The whole article is based on an assumption which the author offers no evidence for, namely that an increase in people using safety equipment may create danger by increasing the incidence of victim blaming.

CyclingUK have a similar article - they are concerned that there is a public health issue in that it may dissuade people from cycling because they feel the need to buy helmets, clothing etc. But most of their stats are over 20 years old, and even they shy away from the topic of whether or not safety equipment actually works in favour of arguing that by discouraging people from cycling you could create a public health issue.

It is clear that more research is needed, but of the research that exists, and a basic understanding of forces, physics etc, it suggests that protection is likely, on balance, to be better than not protection. This can be demonstrated with a simple experiment. You need your hand, a cheese grater and a glove. Put the glove on your hand. Rub the cheese grater on your hand. Note down what happened in terms of abrasion, damage to your hand, pain etc. Now take the glove off and do the same. You will prove, fairly conclusively that the glove offered protection to your hand by interposing itself between the cheese grater and your hand. From this, we can extrapolate that when falling off a bike onto the ground, if your body, hands etc are protected by something, that you are likely to have reduced the chance of bleeding, abrasion, damage to the skin etc.

You can do a similar experiment which involves wearing a cycle helmet and getting someone to punch you on the head. I wouldn't recommend it though.

Yes, it may not save your life. It may have absolutely no effect due to the speeds involved and the type of impact. Is it on balance better than nothing? I personally believe so, and can find medical research studies that suggest this is true. I have found a study which showed that a reflective jacket seemed to provide some benefit over not wearing a reflective jacket. I have still not found a single decent quality study which suggests the reverse. I have seen only once study which suggested the opposite and the authors of that study recommended caution when interpreting the results as the sample size was extremely small.

Yes, there may be a public health issue if say helmets or high viz were mandated and it might dissuade people. However I think that is likely to be countered by the growing interest in using healthier forms of transport and the effect of travelling in numbers. In that there London for example, where cyclists used to be a rare sight, they now often fill the roads, and there is quite a degree of safety in numbers.

 

[Mark pallister]

Not sure what you were trying to say but how can you say a vehicle approx 1.8 m wide X 4.7 m long X 1.4m high is not already visible? You'd have to have really poor eyesight not to see something that large.

Vehicles are already perfectly visible in daylight ; but the kids attention is elsewhere.

But does it really hurt to try and make them just a little bit easier to see
It may just make the difference between a child getting hit or not

 

[Dogtrousers]

@icowden Nice to see a thoughtful contribution to this thread. I'm not sure I necessarily agree or disagree with all of it, but it's coherently written and ... well ... not stupid. So bravo!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

But does it really hurt to try and make them just a little bit easier to see
It may just make the difference between a child getting hit or not

Again, visibility of vehicles isn't the problem. The car driver is not hitting the child because their vehicle wasn't visible.

The harm in thinking DRL solves the problem of children being hit, is that it doesn't lead to a change in driver behaviour that is required.

 

[Mark pallister]

Again, visibility of vehicles isn't the problem. The car driver is not hitting the child because their vehicle wasn't visible.

The harm in thinking DRL solves the problem of children being hit, is that it doesn't lead to a change in driver behaviour that is required.

That didn’t answer the question?
No one is saying that they will solve the problem but just as with having a rear light on your bike during the day
Do you not think it might just possibly increase your chances of being seen ?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

That didn’t answer the question?
No one is saying that they will solve the problem but just as with having a rear light on your bike during the day
Do you not think it might just possibly increase your chances of being seen ?

Nope, an inattentive driver is an inattentive driver. those who look see, those who don't, don't . The issue is people who can cause serious harm not adjusting their behaviour and not paying attention to what they should.

If you are drawing attention to someone or something then you are taking someone's attention away from something or someone else. So what is the something or someone else you are taking their attention away from?

 

[icowden]

The car driver is not hitting the child because their vehicle wasn't visible.The harm in thinking DRL solves the problem of children being hit, is that it doesn't lead to a change in driver behaviour that is required.

I'm not sure that your first statement is a given. If we re-word it as "the child is potentially putting themselves in danger if they do not see a car. Will DRLs make the car a little more visible and therefore help the child not to put themselves in danger?" then indeed DRLs might help that situation. It is hard to see that a child (or an adult) would be less likely to be able to see a car if they have DRLs. DRLs are not in and of themselves, camouflage and it can be reasonably demonstrated that in many situations, a car with DRLs is more visible than one without.

I also think there is some false equivalence here. I don't think that DRL solves the problem of children being hit. That's never been the intention of DRLs and isn't the sole point of them. The original intention as I mentioned some pages back, was to reduce the incidence of certain types of crashes in Scandinavian countries which have a lot of "dark" daylight hours.

I do however agree with you that DRLs or not DRLs has no bearing on driver behaviour, which would, for this scenario, achieve a much better outcome. This is why in the UK, many residential areas, areas near schools etc are set at 20mph instead of 30mph. The point remains however that I don't think there any much evidence to suggest that having DRLs is creating a problem.

 

[icowden]

Nope, an inattentive driver is an inattentive driver. those who look see, those who don't, don't .

Now a truism. Most drivers have moments of inattention. It is very common when you are driving down roads that you are most familiar with. Therefore doing something that draws attention interrupts that inattention. It does not follow that because someone is inattentive that their attention is focused on something else more important, only that their attention has not been drawn to something which they might need to pay attention to.

 

[Mark pallister]

Nope, an inattentive driver is an inattentive driver. those who look see, those who don't, don't . The issue is people who can cause serious harm not adjusting their behaviour and not paying attention to what they should.

If you are drawing attention to someone or something then you are taking someone's attention away from something or someone else. So what is the something or someone else you are taking their attention away from?

Oh well I’ll just bin my bike lights and wear all black at night ,I don’t want to be guilty of distracting any car drivers

 

[mjr]

So, this is an opinion piece written by Robert Davies which references as the only source of data a book by Robert Davies which is out of print.

The book may be out of print, but it's available as a free ebook download containing copious references. The main accusation you can level at it is its age, but be-seen campaigns aren't new and there's been no stunning new research recently, which is itself suspicious given how hard the myth has been sold at regular intervals.

It is full of lines like but neglects to mention that Mikael is very quiet on the subject of whether there is a lack of evidence to show actual increases in casualty rates as a result of this kind of programme.

In other words, lack of evidence of improvement doesn't mean it does or doesn't work. The whole article is based on an assumption which the author offers no evidence for, namely that an increase in people using safety equipment may create danger by increasing the incidence of victim blaming.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we should require evidence that health interventions work and don't do harm, not merely a lack of evidence that they do no good!

And is there really any doubt that creating an expectation that all cyclists should wear particular items leads to criticism of any that are not? I would be astonished if any survey of mainstream news reports didn't identify a clear strand of this.

CyclingUK have a similar article - they are concerned that there is a public health issue in that it may dissuade people from cycling because they feel the need to buy helmets, clothing etc. But most of their stats are over 20 years old, and even they shy away from the topic of whether or not safety equipment actually works in favour of arguing that by discouraging people from cycling you could create a public health issue.

I don't know what article you mean but is it really that they "shy away" or that they concentrate on the biggest argument first: that the discouragement of physical activity makes irrelevant the whole controversy about whether or not something is protective in practice.

It is clear that more research is needed, but of the research that exists, and a basic understanding of forces, physics etc, it suggests that protection is likely, on balance, to be better than not protection. This can be demonstrated with a simple experiment. You need your hand, a cheese grater and a glove. Put the glove on your hand. Rub the cheese grater on your hand.

Oh blimey is this old fallacy a typical argument in favour of be-seen now? Obviously, the best approach to avoid injury with a cheese grater is not to rub it on your hand even if an evil experimenter tells you to!

I also think that protection being better than no protection is disproved by a similar but far more natural example: wearing gauntlets while pruning rose bushes. I don't do it because the increased size of gauntlets greatly increases the risk of snagging and then being stabbed by thorns. Instead, I watch carefully where I'm putting my arm and use long-handled cutters for the branches further into the bush - and if I get it wrong, the scratchy feeling of a thorn tip is an early warning which allows me to withdraw before becoming caught on it, which is something gauntlets don't allow. By the time you feel the tip of a thorn on your skin through a gauntlet, your hand is stuck. Maybe you could cut the gauntlet off without moving at all and impaling your hand but I couldn't.

Now, returning to cycling protection, the question is whether the harm it does from increasing various risks (of crashing, of people giving up cycling) outweighs the benefit. Attempts to reframe it as a simple physics question that looks only at benefits are misleading and should be considered harmful.

I have found a study which showed that a reflective jacket seemed to provide some benefit over not wearing a reflective jacket. I have still not found a single decent quality study which suggests the reverse. I have seen only once study which suggested the opposite and the authors of that study recommended caution when interpreting the results as the sample size was extremely small.

And yet, it seems like you're not confident enough in either study to cite them. I've never seen a single decent quality study which suggests conspicuity aids have any significant effect good or bad, which means they are a distraction from doing things which are more likely to have benefits.

Yes, there may be a public health issue if say helmets or high viz were mandated and it might dissuade people. However I think that is likely to be countered by the growing interest in using healthier forms of transport and the effect of travelling in numbers. In that there London for example, where cyclists used to be a rare sight, they now often fill the roads, and there is quite a degree of safety in numbers.

Who cares if the discouragement of that safety theatre is countered? Without it, there would be even more cycling and so even greater benefits. Cyclists advocating be-seen measures seems like an act of mostly communal self-harm.