Idiot cyclist - Beeston road, Leeds

[John the Monkey]

Right, well perhaps some people unwisely give in to that temptation. I personally don't though.

I wonder who would, after f'rinstance, a week of cycling on British roads? It becomes very apparent very quickly that a lot of drivers don't look ahead or anticipate to any significant degree at all.

 

[domd1979]

Some of the big bus operators now instruct their drivers to have the headlights on at all times - and it has resulted in a significant drop in the numbers of accidents. You would think that without lights, a double deck bus would be quite visible, but apparently not....

Never driven a double decker, but I've driven some pretty big vehicles, and I'm well aware of the capacity of all sorts of people to not see things... I used to mutter, when on my bike, "would you have stepped/pulled out like that if I was a bus?". Soon after driving a bus for the first time, I realised the answer was 'yes'.

 

[Cab]

I think you've missed the important point there that the retroreflector returns light parallel to its original direction. Of course there'll be a little spread as you've observed with a car and cats eyes, but I think that will be quite a small angle if you work it out. Much outside this angle and the reflectives will disappear.

A perfect retroreflector does indeed do that; a well made mirrored cube corner, say, is quite a creepy thing to look at for that reason (try closing one eye, you'll see what I mean). But 'retroreflectors' on the road aren't that good, they reflect light back at a wider range of angles.

Essentially I think the strategy of having lights shining on your hiviz would be completely useless without at least a halo of lights shining on your vest, and roughly between the horizon and the reflective part of your vest. Even that halo wouldn't really work well when you take into account hills, and that being so close to your bike only a small part of the reflective strips will shine out at drivers. I think you'd be far better off having proper lights pointing the proper direction, rather than trying to be some sort of attention seeking martian spaceship.

I quite agree that outward pointing lights would make more of an impact than pointing lights at yourself from your bike. Why bounce a spreading light source off yourself (losing a lot of it) when you could just point it outwards?

This bit is probably wrong, unless your light source has UV in it. No UV, and the bright colour will be dull and hard to observe.

Depends really; if its got fluorescein (which I have probably spelled wrong, but which a common yellow fluorescent dye) then it shows up remarkably well in blue-rich white light.

 

[Arch]

I quite agree that outward pointing lights would make more of an impact than pointing lights at yourself from your bike. Why bounce a spreading light source off yourself (losing a lot of it) when you could just point it outwards?

I'm not suggesting pointing a light at myself instead of outwards, but as well as. So that anyone looking at me sees (in my case) two forward facing lights (one flashing) AND a broad patch of yellow front, as opposed to three lights, one of which wiill probably be lost in the glare from the others...

Frankly, if it just makes a driver think "Oh, what's that?" for a second, (like a recumbent does), it's done it's job.

 

[Cab]

I'm not suggesting pointing a light at myself instead of outwards, but as well as. So that anyone looking at me sees (in my case) two forward facing lights (one flashing) AND a broad patch of yellow front, as opposed to three lights, one of which wiill probably be lost in the glare from the others...

I know thats what you're suggesting, but I think that would be a less effective strategy than just pointing the extra light outwards. Remember, if you're not in the headlights of a vehicle then you're not in the drivers line of sight, and as the area effectively illuminated (at least such that your reflective stuff will show up) is actually pretty broad, you're not likely to make yourself more visible to motorists using something like this.

Better, IMHO, to get a couple of those lit up reflective armbands. Shows up light, also a good reflector.

Frankly, if it just makes a driver think "Oh, what's that?" for a second, (like a recumbent does), it's done it's job.

I agree, I just don't think that what you're proposing will work very well for that.

 

[Tynan]

good for peds then yeah? that's at least half the shoot I put up with