Get some f*****g lights!!!!

[BentMikey]

I'm so tempted to rig up a crossbeam about 4ft wide and lash it to my bars with a pair of AyUps on each end, one white lamp facing front one saxon cap making red facing rear. and fit a number plate with "CYCLING" on my saddlebag with a lamp illuminating it.

excellent wtf? factor. bet the bar stewards would give me a wide berth then!

LOL! I bet. The problem would be filtering through standing traffic.

There's a better solution along similar lines, IMO. If you have a super bright rear LED, you can leave a large pool of light behind you on the road. Drivers are *very* unwilling to enter that pool of light.

 

[ufkacbln]

If a collision occurs between a motorist and cyclist one of the criteria to be considered would be was the cyclist there to be seen.

Whilst each case would be viewed on its merits, if a cyclist failed to take reasonable steps to make themselves as visible as possible, ie lights and / or bright clothing, then a prosecution against a driver may not proceed.

The majority of my riding is off road these days but when I was pounding the black stuff I always dressed in bright gear with lights as required, it's the common sense thing to do.

Which again is the problem - responsibility to ensure you are seen, not responsibility of the motorist to look.

There was a guy who did some research in the 70's / early 80's who showed that HiViz is NOT The answer!

He found that wearing a black Police Uniform made him far more visible than any HiViz - which again makes the point of what drivers see and their reactions.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

LOL, we're out-editing each other here.

That last post of yours proves my point rather well. They didn't see you despite you being very visible. Most likely they simply didn't look. Neither bright lights nor hiviz would have helped at all if the motorist didn't look. If they had looked, the most likely thing to catch their eye is good set of lights. [1]

Apart from this all we can do is use good cyclecraft and good anticipation, and even then that won't always save us from a collision.

[1] The effect of a powerful flashing light is awesome for being noticed by half-aware drivers. Try overtaking a long queue of traffic with an Exposure MaXx-D on flash, and you get half the motorists pulling out of your way. These are the same motorists that mostly never bother to look in their offside mirror, and most definitely will do nothing for you and your hiviz vest.

I should make the point that I don't necessarily believe that Hi viz is the be all and end all of cycle safety. Good flashing LEDs do much the same job: that is, they give a driver something to identify the object as a cyclist and therefore help him or her to judge distance and plan an overtake accordingly. Or, in my case, avoid pulling out in front of him. But you're quite right that some motorists won't spot you regardless of how many lights you have.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

As a driver I dislike seeing excessively bright cyclists (and day time running lights) as they fight for my attention when I am already aware of them and would be better occupied looking for things I had not already seen.

That's just the point though: they don't. Instead, hi viz, flashing lights etc enable you to think "cyclist" immediately and plan your overtake accordingly. One constant light up ahead can leave you thinking "hmmm, distant traffic light, motorcycle in the distance ... or what?" This requires more concentration than the first scenario, and more than you've really got to spare in an urban environment.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Which again is the problem - responsibility to ensure you are seen, not responsibility of the motorist to look.

I'm not convinced by that. We do after all have a responsibility in law to fit lights to our bikes for riding at night, and regardless of the moral rights and wrongs of it, anyone riding unlit on an A road (or any road, really) at night, thinking "well, it's their responsibility to look for me" is really asking for trouble. And where does it stop? Should we be expecting pedestrians to develop x ray vision in order to see unlit cyclists swooping down hills in unlit villages? Or is it ok for anyone to decide to turn their car lights off because other drivers should be looking out for unlit objects? It's a nice argument, and I can see the point you're making, but it's ultimately meaningless.

 

[BentMikey]

Cool, it doesn't look like we're remarkably different in our views.

One constant light up ahead can leave you thinking "hmmm, distant traffic light, motorcycle in the distance ... or what?" This requires more concentration than the first scenario, and more than you've really got to spare in an urban environment.

This is exactly what you do want. "Unknown hazard" in the motorist's mind is going to be much larger and more dangerous than "Oh, it's only a cyclist". This ensures the driver will slow down and take more care than they otherwise would. It's a winner.

As for cunobelin's point, he's quite right. The highway code requires us all to drive at a speed where we can safely stop in the distance we can see to be clear ahead. The school of thought that pedestrians need to wear lights and hiviz is victim blaming, and just an excuse to allow speeding beyond what is safe. Trees, dogs, and all manner of other hazards don't carry lights or hiviz.

 

[Firestorm]

There have been comments on here about cars leaving their fog lights on when its not foggy and how wrong it is, and I am in complete agreement

Now I have just resumed cycling after many years and lights have certainly improved , which are the recommended lights which are bright, but not as bright as car fog lights ?, because I should not be using lights that intense when its not foggy.

 

[Debian]

Assuming you mean the one I put up - that was aimed at Lee, as he accused you of throwing your toys out of the pram and having a tantrum, which I found rather amusing.

Oooh, sorry then!

 

[benb]

Oooh, sorry then!

That's OK.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

This is exactly what you do want. "Unknown hazard" in the motorist's mind is going to be much larger and more dangerous than "Oh, it's only a cyclist". This ensures the driver will slow down and take more care than they otherwise would. It's a winner.

All I can say is that you've got a lot more faith in drivers than I have ... if a driver thinks that the red light he can see ahead of him is a traffic light half a mile off, why is he going to slow down? If he can see it's a cyclist, there's a much greater chance that he'll overtake you safely. Unless he's a psycho (and few drivers are, contrary to appearances), in which case all the lights in the world won't help you.

As for cunobelin's point, he's quite right. The highway code requires us all to drive at a speed where we can safely stop in the distance we can see to be clear ahead. The school of thought that pedestrians need to wear lights and hiviz is victim blaming, and just an excuse to allow speeding beyond what is safe. Trees, dogs, and all manner of other hazards don't carry lights or hiviz.

I've gone over this fairly recently in another thread and made my views fairly clear. I drive well over 200 miles every night. I stick to speed limits and I drive in the distance I can see to be clear, as proven to myself by practical experiment more than once. There remain circumstances in which it would be entirely possible for me to miss a cyclist riding (illegally) without lights on an unlit A road in the dead of night: to give one example off the top of my head, an unlit cyclist could very easily materialise in front of my truck in the time between him being beyond the reach of my headlamps and, say, a car coming round the corner up ahead with foglamps on, dazzling me. Or, in an urban environment, unlit cyclists pretty much disappear when they're creeping around in the rearview mirrors. There's a huge difference between seeing a cyclist in time to shout "F**K!" and wrench the wheel over, hoping you miss him, and seeing him in time to plan your overtake from half a mile back, slow down and manoevre around him safely. I absolutely agree that drivers should be drivnig in the distance they can see to be clear, but equally cyclists should not be putting themselves on the road without making at least some effort to be visible.

EDIT: Actually, having read the posts over again, I see that Cunobelin's original post was arguing against compulsory hi vis, which is fair enough. I'm arguing that cyclists (and pedestrians) should really use lights on unlit roads at night, which is something I suspect few would disagree with here.

 

[BentMikey]

All I can say is that you've got a lot more faith in drivers than I have ... if a driver thinks that the red light he can see ahead of him is a traffic light half a mile off, why is he going to slow down? If he can see it's a cyclist, there's a much greater chance that he'll overtake you safely.

I doubt any modern LEDs would be mistaken for traffic lights. Wrong height, wrong shape, wrong intensity, not static. They are obviously vehicles, and because they're not moving in accordance with expectations from their brightness, they cause drivers to think again.

The bolded bit - is exactly what the few impatient London (and UK) drivers do, yes? Of course not. It's only a cyclist, they'll push past. Using super bright LEDs, they'll not be certain it's a cyclist, it might be an HGV trailer with the lights out on one side, so they take more time and give more space.

It's not a coincidence that a number of super bright LED users have posted how drivers give them much more space at night. It's the Theory of BIG.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I doubt any modern LEDs would be mistaken for traffic lights. Wrong height, wrong shape, wrong intensity, not static. They are obviously vehicles, and because they're not moving in accordance with expectations from their brightness, they cause drivers to think again.

LEDs, possibly not. A single bulb - especially a bright one - very easily. It may be "obviously a vehicle" to you, because it's on your bike, but to the chap in his car somewhere behind you who can just see a single point of bright red light in the darkness, it could very easily be ... well, any other source of bright red light. Flashing LEDs, as I've said before, are pretty much impossible to mistake for anything other than a cyclist.

The bolded bit - is exactly what the few impatient London (and UK) drivers do, yes? Of course not. It's only a cyclist, they'll push past. Using super bright LEDs, they'll not be certain it's a cyclist, it might be an HGV trailer with the lights out on one side, so they take more time and give more space.

Yuo seem to be saying in one paragraph that it's impossible to mistake bike lights for anything else, and then in the very next paragraph that some motorists might confuse a bike with an HGV trailer. You can't have it both ways. Besides, what I said is that "there's a much greater chance that he'll overtake you safely" [if he can identify you as a cyclist], which is true enough even allowing for the impatient arses who squeeze past you. As you've said yourself, no amount of lights prevents idiots being idiots.

It's not a coincidence that a number of super bright LED users have posted how drivers give them much more space at night. It's the Theory of BIG.

I've never argued against using super bright LEDs, and I'm not quite sure where you've got the idea that I have.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

It's not a coincidence that a number of super bright LED users have posted how drivers give them much more space at night. It's the Theory of BIG.

Clothing
No reflectives at night time 0
Dark 'natural' clothing 0
Bright jazzy patterned clothing 1
Bright solid colours/Good reflectives at night 2
Stark naked 2

Interesting (my bold). So hi viz is a good thing, then?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

The ignorant drivers are rarely the problem, they are easy to re-educate. As for the rest, either you don't have much riding experience with London and UK traffic, or you've been cycling with blinkers on.

Sure, I haven't cycled much in London, but it isn't the only place, not even the only city, in the world, you know. Otherwise, about twenty years commuting, club-riding, touring, taking part in sportives etc. in cities and countryside around the world, most in Britain (living mostly in Oxford and Newcastle), but also in even bigger and more crowded cities than London - Tokyo for example. Seeing as I have had very few accidents on the bike, I would suggest that I ride very much with my eyes open.

There's no point to you being quite so objectionable.

As for the assumptions, I think they are perhaps mostly on your part.

This is an argument of the 'I'm not but you are' variety...

I posted elsewhere that it's a very tiny minority of drivers that are a problem. I have 84 youtube-worthy incidents in almost two years and 360-odd commutes. That's around one dodgy driver in 4 commutes. I think each of my commutes has, at a complete guess, an average of perhaps 2000 driver interactions, I cover a lot of mileage in sometimes very dense traffic. One dodgy driver in 8,000 is amazingly small, even to me. I think cycling is very safe, as safe as many other day-to-day activities we take part in.

Well, yes. So where are all these people trying to bully you off the road who you claimed were the problem? Are even all the 'dodgy drivers', bullies?

In any case, you agree that there are a vanishingly small number of people trying to bully you off the road out there, even in London. However you were the one who claimed that being bullied off the road was the problem in this case we are discussing. It isn't. It's a different problem. We're talking about visibility, and in that context, any reference to bullying is a diversion. It's a form of 'whataboutery'.

Visibility, however one achieves it - and I have an open mind on this, in fact yesterday I went out and bought a new back light as a result of the discussion above (thanks, Gaz) - is really presaged on the basic assumption (and it's not an assumption unique to me or which I invented) that someone is going to have the best chance of seeing you AND take some positive action on that basis - give you more space, or at least not put you in danger etc. The aggressive driver is not going to care whether you're more visible or not. Visibility will not do anything to help in the case of someone with an intent to harm you, and there's no point in discussing it in relation to that possibility.

 

[Jezston]

That Theory of BIG article only gives 1 point for bright lights and 2 points for hivis.