Get yourself seen!

[ComedyPilot]

I HATE knobbers driving cars but this thread seems to going a bit anti driver. If you go out on a bike at night in dark clothes & no lights you are a selfish thoughtless tw#t who's actions are just as dangerous as drunk driving.

No.

Like most threads, this one is anti-'bad' driver...there's a subtle difference.....can you tell what it is yet?

I made that one bigger, and hi-viz, in case people didn't see it. You see, the annual cull on the UK roads is NOT caused by the most vulnerable road users, it is caused by 'bad' drivers......, ones who speed, overtake aggressively, tailgate, drive too close when passing, left hook, drink/drug drive, drive whilst eating, putting on make-up, using mobiles, laptops, reading papers/magazines, watching satnavs, or performing sex acts on themselves/others.....or just plain and simply not watching where the fark they're going........

 

[burndust]

The lights are a legal requirement which I agree with.

Cycling is safe so, unless you are going to a YMCA tribute band reunion, the hi-viz and pudding bowl are mere superfluous piffle...

erm it was pitch black...legal or not i would think anything that makes it safer for both motorists and riders is just common sense...

 

[theclaud]

erm it was pitch black...legal or not i would think anything that makes it safer for both motorists and riders is just common sense...

Stands to reason etc etc...

 

[ComedyPilot]

erm it was pitch black...legal or not i would think anything that makes it safer for both motorists and riders is just common sense...

Hi viz jackets are no more visible in the dark than one of Ronnie Corbett's golfing jumpers, and neither are plastic (concilliatory) 'safety' helmets.

Neither of the above items will offer any form of reassuring protection from being hit up the arse end by a driver more focussed on applying lippy on their way to work, or updating their (hugely important) FaeceBerk status as they 'guide' their 1 ton killing machine.....

As well as good lights, carefully placed reflective strips that move (located for example on pedals, shoes, lower arms, spokes) can offer a nice 'hint' to approaching drivers that you are there.

Dressing like some sort of corporate, box-ticking, H&S arse covering creep on a building site will not................


IMO


[opens popcorn....could be a long one, this one]

 

[ComedyPilot]

........hmmm......they've gone quiet........Is there a shelf life on popcorn....?

 

[theclaud]

This thread was a good example of the genre.

"Common sense" in the opener! Extra points for that.

 

[ComedyPilot]

This thread was a good example of the genre.

That thread is wearing out my 'Like' button......

 

[snorri]

That thread is wearing out my 'Like' button......

Tip...... It's bad form to 'Like' yourself, ok for cats and dogs, but not humans, well not in public anyway.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Tip...... It's bad form to 'Like' yourself, ok for cats and dogs, but not humans, well not in public anyway.

I haven't posted in 'that' thread....

 

[XRHYSX]

I have the spoke reflectors a hi-vis jacket (work wear) and a helmet (i want the kids to wear one so I lead by example) and i think my trainers have reflectors on the heel, along with the lights i feel I have a good chance of being seen, but a set of lights should be a minimum, if you want to be a road user

 

[theclaud]

The photo is its zenith

Ah yes - that was the one with The Cunning Trap, Tufty the Squirrel and the Space Lemons™.

 

[Chris Norton]

Plenty of ninja's round here. Most riding on pavements too. But it is a case that lights are a legal requirement, but as the police do nothing about it..........

Friend of mine once cleaned up a cyclist on a roundabout, once established that no lights were on the bike, the guy was just taken to hospital, patched up and nothing more was done to my friend the car driver due to the fact it was almost impossible to see him in the dark.

I prefer to have lights on.

 

[Wobblers]

I use my headlights within the parameters of the law, if every user on the road is lit up then why shouldn't a cyclist do the same? Especially as a cyclist is prone to more injury if contact is made with another vehicle.
Ninja's endanger there lives, by not making themselves visible,and I am supposed to feel sorry if he/she gets hurt? Not that i would wish that on anyone.

It is perfectly within the parameters of the law for a cyclist not to be using lights during the day - even in poor weather. It is also perfectly within the parameters of the law for pedestrians not to use lights at any time. Expecting vulnerable road users to use lights and be dressed up as human lemons leads very quickly to the most odious form of victim blaming: he wasn't bedecked in hi-vis - so it wasn't my fault that I hit him! Never mind the fact that there are rather a lot of unlit cars, trees, bollards, walls, etc, etc that the poor hard pressed motorist is also expected to see - and miss.

Using headlights when you don't need to instantly puts those without lights at a very large disadvantage. Not merely because having a whaacking great big engine generating umpteen kilowatts of electricity for oodles of lights is simply not something that can be matched by any cyclist, but also by fostering the expectation in the mind of the motorist that anything that needs to be avoided will be lit up like a billboard. We already have no shortage of motorists who simply don't bother to look properly for vulnerable road users - do you seriously expect that to get better once all cars have daylight running lights?

 

[swee'pea99]

Surely it's possible to recognise that the biggest danger on the roads is bad drivers without concluding that therefore cyclists who ride around after dark dressed in black with no lights are blameless. Isn't it? Personally I don't see these statements as in any way mutually exclusive. Bad drivers are the biggest menace on the roads; ninja cyclists are idiots.

(I also find the 'trees and walls don't wear lights' arguments utterly mystifying. Well, no, they don't. But they don't move around on roads either. Unh? You don't recognise how that might be said to constitute quite a significant difference?)

 

[Kies]

Pedestrians?

Pedestrians are not in the road, trying to use the same space as vehicles, and for the most part cars stick to the roadway, pedestrians stick to the pavement. This thread was about ninja cyclist. if you insist on wearing dark clothes, and no lights on your bike after dark - good luck!!