New sub category: Hi-Vis Ninjas

[bauldbairn]

Sat behind one last week on a bus towards Boghall roundabout in Bathgate then on towards Deans at 07:30hrs(still pitch dark in Scotland).
Dark coloured trousers with reflective strips around the ankles, matching dark coloured jacket with reflective strips around hem / cuffs.
No lights, no look backs - no brakes either by the looks of things, didn't stop at red lights or give way at roundabouts. The bus driver said he(cyclist) went straight onto Boghall(unbelievably busy) roundabout one morning in front of a truck - who had to take evasive action to avoid collision.

 

[eddiemee]

I saw two people with no lights on yesterday morning, one of them was a ninja, one of them had a few reflective strips but as the OP said these were not adequate as they weren't visible until you were quite close. There was a third guy as well, had no front light, as I passed him I checked his rear (oo-er) and he a barely visible static light. Better than nothing, but probably not enough to be seen from more than 20 yards away.

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

devils advocate: tbh honest on a bike in traffic and i am in the car, the first thing you see is a hi vis jacket before the lights. the lights no matter how bright, just get lost in the sea of lights. hi vis stands out far better than any cheapo light as they are higher and there is more reflective area than light lens area, but i would imagine far better if clean. now a bike not in traffic coming from the side, on an unlit road is far easier to see if it has lights because there is no light source for the reflectives to reflect. now before we all get high and mighty. who on here wears a hi vis in fog (the bright non reflective bit is visible far better in fog than average lights)? in the bad fog we get up here, we become ninjas unless you have a dinnotte and even then it is still iffy. so for at least some of the time we are all guilty of being ninjas no matter how hard we try.

the only cyclist i have seen in traffic who stands out is a guy who has a dinnotte on the the bike, two cateyes on each stay and 2 on his helmet. similar on the front. wears an altura hi vis and rides primary no matter how big and bad tempered the bus driver is. unless we put this amount of effort in then at some point we are just hypocrits.

 

[Browser]

Erm, I wear hi-vis in fog, in sun, in rain, all the time in fact. I always make sure I'm lit when I need to be, and I always have flashers on, as I firmly believe they make you far more visible than anything else (as long as they aren't the el-cheapo variety which don't show any lateral light spread). The point about the hi-vis ninjas is that they think they are visible and they should be by all rights, but for some peculiar reason they don't?
Nowt wrong wi' bein' devils advocate bromptonfb, I do it all the time (hence posts like this one!)

 

[BentMikey]

If you can see them then surely the hi-viz is doing it's job! Same with the 'ninjas'. It's amazing how many people see them.

+1

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Hi-viz aside I worry for cyclists who don't use lights when it's dark. Lot's of people may see them, so they are visible, but it only takes one person in a vehicle not to and that could be their lot!

 

[Armegatron]

I normally give a "you need some lights on that mate" as I overtake them. Hopefully it coming from a cyclist and not a motorist they may take heed - or may not but I tried

Generally though the hi-vis wearers that I have seen also have lights, but most of them have only rear lights and no front lights.

 

[brokenbetty]

If you can see them then surely the hi-viz is doing it's job! Same with the 'ninjas'. It's amazing how many people see them.

These are the ones that can just be seen. How do you know there aren't lots just below the visiblity barrier that we don't see?

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

If you can see them then surely the hi-viz is doing it's job! Same with the 'ninjas'. It's amazing how many people see them.

If you look hard enough into the reptile tank at the Zoo you can see the camouflaged animals... doesn't mean that they are readily visible though now does it? Yes you can see Ninja Cyclists, but a lot later than is required to accommodate them on the road safely.

 

[BentMikey]

That isn't a fair analogy though Sharky. It's not like pedestrians, cyclists, etc. are camoflaged, they are relatively easy to spot.

 

[Norm]

It's not just about easy to spot, though, BM, it's about easier to spot IMO.

I was going to post an "in praise of hi viz" yesterday. Maybe I'll write it here instead.

Yesterday morning, I was coming in to work in the car, just after 9am. There's a broad stretch of straight road, about 400m long. There's a shallow right bend at the end and a crematorium on the right on the bend, with the right filter lane protected by traffic islands at each end.

As I came on to the straight, I saw a cyclist in a hi viz just going round the corner. As the weather was grim yesterday morning, she was only noticeable because of the hi viz.

As I had seen her so far in advance, I was able to drop my speed a little to ensure that, when I got round the corner, she was clear of the islands and I could maintain progress without either threatening / squeezing her at the pinch points or braking hard.

Would I have been able to continue smoothly if she wasn't in hi viz? No.
Did she realise what impact her jacket had on another road user? No
Did she know why the bald fat guy in the Merc gave her a thumbs up as he passed? Probably no to that too.

Ninjas are usually spotted. It might be at the last second, it might be because car drivers are more observant than they get credited for on here but there are no tales of massacres of the black hoodies on our roads although I certainly see several every trip. However, making yourself more visible makes the interactions with the majority of other road users go more smoothly, it makes them happen without comment because they happen a thousand times every time we ride.

Doing stuff to improve the lives of those around us is easy and usually goes unrecognised and unrewarded. Unless you consider completing each journey by bike rather than ambulance to be reward enough.

 

[Browser]

Most of us can spot ninjas, but do we see them or the reflectors on their bike (if they are still fitted)? Most of the time, especially if I'm in the car, my first sight of a full-on ninja is when they hurtle out of a side turning, or accross your bows as they decide to turn right in front of you, or just looming out of the darkness ahead of you. God help us if their standard uniform footwear of white trainers ever changes to black ones as more than once that's been my alert to their presence. Cycling ninjas were why I objected to the proposed change in accident liability that was suggested a couple of years back which would make motorists automatically at fault in a collision with a cyclist as that was far too simplistic a viewpoint.
Returning to the thread subject, a hi-vis coat cannot under any circumstances be seen as a substitute for good-quality, fully-working lights front and rear, Sadly, too many of the subject of this thread seem to think it is

 

[Norm]

Returning to the thread subject, a hi-vis coat cannot under any circumstances be seen as a substitute for good-quality, fully-working lights front and rear, Sadly, too many of the subject of this thread seem to think it is

Good point which I didn't make.

My tale was yesterday morning in daylight. Hi viz has little benefit at night, unless there is light with a similar colour temperature to dayling falling on it.

Hi viz with reflectives works well at night, as an addition to good lights.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

If you can see them then surely the hi-viz is doing it's job! Same with the 'ninjas'. It's amazing how many people see them.

But you shouldn't just be able to see them if the circumstances happen to be ideal: ie, if you just happen to be looking hard at the spot where they appear or if your headlights just happen to catch their hi vis. A bicycle - or any other road user, come to that - should jump out at you. In other words, you should be able to see a bike coming up from behind in your mirrors, or spot a bike five hundred yards up the road out of the corner of your eye because the light on it grabs your attention. "Seeing" someone when they're twenty yards away doesn't really count.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

That isn't a fair analogy though Sharky. It's not like pedestrians, cyclists, etc. are camoflaged, they are relatively easy to spot.

They are effectively camouflaged if they're not using lights on an unlit road. Even when there are streetlights it's amazing how well an unlit cyclist blends into background. Especially bearing in mind the thousand and one other things a driver has to pay attention to. The mistake a lot of people make when believing that cyclists are visible even without lights is to think that drivers spend all their time staring fixedly at the road ahead, and if that was the case unlit cyclists might well be visible enough. But take into account mirror checks (is an unlit cyclist visible in an HGV mirror? Er, no), dashboard checks, watching those kids on the pavement twenty yards ahead, looking out for the motorcyclist on your offside rear quarter and so on and suddenly the unlit cyclist twenty yards ahead of you is not visible at all until the last minute. A cyclist with good lights on jumps out at you wherever you're looking, and that's as it should be.