Idiots on bikes

[ufkacbln]

Yes for probably many reasons, but I guess speed maybe mostly to blame? Let's restrict emergency vehicles speed shall we, no I don't think so........

Some muppet drives into a bleedin big fire angine, adorned with all the HiViz and blue lights you could want and your answer is to restrict the fire engine?

About as logical as shifting the blame to cyclists for bad driving?

 

[Justinslow]

Some muppet drives into a bleedin big fire angine, adorned with all the HiViz and blue lights you could want and your answer is to restrict the fire engine?

About as logical as shifting the blame to cyclists for bad driving?

No, read the post it's about as sarcastic as a very sarcastic thing.

 

[ufkacbln]

.... and of course we could point out how many deaths and injuries occur to fully adorned road workers?

 

[mjr]

I would say that's exactly the same scenario on the road - dull Tarmac, dull hedges, dull grass verges, dull cyclist (in more ways than one)

Yeah but Suffolk is a special case. Most people are riding past flame coloured leaves, bright berries, winter pansies, variegated winter shrubs, lively Christmas shop displays, bright Christmas lights, golden sun...

"Very few things are bright yellow or orange" apart from the fecking great diggers, loaders, cranes and other equipment, yeah ok.

Yes, the other things they shouldn't drop stuff onto!

And just because something is decked out in hi viz does not mean it carries a "Star Wars" style shield! Of course they will be occasionally involved in accidents.

In fact, at the same rate as everything else on the roads...

 

[ufkacbln]

My favourite though is in Italy where the "Ladies of the Night" have to wear HiViz!

 

[ufkacbln]

Yeah but Suffolk is a special case. Most people are riding past flame coloured leaves, bright berries, winter pansies, variegated winter shrubs, lively Christmas shop displays, bright Christmas lights, golden sun...
.

Something else that escapes the HiViz fanatics

It is about Contrast between you and the surroundings

If you are cycling near a rape field then yellow will blend in and a dark coulur will give the contrast that will make you visible
Equally if the trees are dark then white would stand out better inthe lack of UV than a bright Yellow HiViz

What you need is a pannier full of different couloured clothing and change each time the surroundings do so

 

[Justinslow]

[QUOTE 4043266, member: 9609"]But I guess. @Justinslow is like myself and many other drivers who would not have a problem with poorly lit cyclists or obstacles that are on the road - I would be thoroughly ashamed of myself if I crashed into an object on the road simply because it was not lit and was difficult to see. However I suspect a great deal of drivers would crash into such an object because they are crap drivers / poor eyesight / distracted with mobile phone / not concentrating - and it is these clowns that compel myself to put effort into how visible I am.

And yes I would absolutely love it if those dangerous clowns that plague our roads could be banned from driving, but it aint going to happen any time soon.[/QUOTE]
Agree ^^^^

 

[Justinslow]

So how come you have such limited insight into the business of looking, our limitations in processing a field of visual information, and the importance of relative visibility?

I don't have those problems, you're arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

[Justinslow]

Who the fark are you?

Someone with an opinion equally as valid as yours.

 

[mickle]

Someone with an opinion equally as valid as yours.

Not really.

 

[Justinslow]

You certainly seem to be displaying a limited understanding of how these things work, otherwise you wouldn't be advocating the simplistic arguments that you have. Just making everything brighter is not the solution.

I'm not saying it will solve all the issues, as others have pointed out including myself - failure to drive any vehicle including bikes competently will probably inevitably result in an accident. The point is, and I go back to the OP, lights and/or brighter more colourful clothing would have made the cyclist more visible to other road users, period. You seem to not even acknowledge that it could help, stubbornness in the extreme.

 

[benb]

a road that carries a speed limit of 60mph allows vehicles to travel at that speed regardless of conditions and still be driving within the law

I suggest you stop driving until you have had a chance to brush up on the highway code and relevant legislation, as you are flat wrong.

 

[benb]

It doesn't matter what you wear really, aside from lights in the dark, because:
-A driver who is looking properly will see you no matter what
-A driver who is not looking properly will not see you no matter what.

There is no realistic scenario where high vis will make the difference between being seen and not seen.

 

[MontyVeda]

They're not sufficient to count as legally lit simply because the law says it must carry the BS or equivalent European marking - unless it only has a 1-4Hz flash mode of 4cd or more, or if it's a headlight on a vintage bicycle. I don't think it entirely makes sense, but that is what is required to be legal and everything else is a matter of opinion (for example, I think flashing lights are daft because a motorist may glance when they're in the "off" phase).


Yeah, I've done my time grubbing along searching for the road with old D-cell lights and that's overstating it slightly but no, they weren't good. It's rather disappointing that lights now aren't absolutely perfect with the brighter LEDs, but they aren't.


Most commonly, the beam cut-off is too far above the brightest spot, so you have the awful choice of whether to aim it closer to your wheel than you really want, or to aim it where you want it and consequently dazzle oncoming road users, which is rather rude when it's a cyclist and inviting serious injury when it's a motorist.

There are a few lights with good lenses and no standard marking, but they seem depressingly rare. The cycling light market seems almost completely broken, with shops selling mostly awful lights marketed on meaningless lumen and Watt statistics, with most cyclists either not caring whether they're nasty to others or disagreeing that it is nasty to shine a light in others' eyes.

...

so now... a decent set of lights without a kite mark are not only insufficient, they're rude and nasty too.

 

[Justinslow]

No, you are just not getting it. The solution is to make other things less bright and only have those things bright that really need to be. That way people don't have too many competing demands on their attention and can see the important things more readily. In the instance of your OP, the insistence by car drivers on using lights when they are not really needed artificially creates the need to use lights and makes the cyclist into an idiot in your eyes.

Why do we use lights in fog in daylight? Is it to see where we are going or to be seen?

It seems you would like us to live in a very dull monochrome world.