Organ donors in motion.

[Andy in Germany]

I bet one of my wife's bikes that everyone here takes safety precautions. You draw your arbitrary line, others draw theirs. To blame any cyclist for being out of your line is as flawed as a cyclist who wears body armour blaming you for not.

I thought you always wore body armour because of your adoring fans flinging themselves at you?

 

[Markymark]

I thought you always wore body armour because of your adoring fans flinging themselves at you?

I’ve got more close protection security than Trump.

 

[Glow worm]

I know. It's almost as if they are using an entirely segregated cycling route in a city with some of the best cycling infrastructure in the world.
Not all of us live in the Netherlands.

)

Come off it. Wherever we are, we are jumping on a bicycle, not crossing Kandahar under enemy fire. we can all asses risk and make judgement calls on that risk ourselves. Being told to dress up like Christmas trees while just accepting dangerous or lethal driver behaviour as 'well that's just how it is' is never really going to go down very well on a cycling forum.
I'd love to see a presumed liability law in the U.K. to start with but we all know that's never very likely given the toxic attitude to cyclists here, as demonstrated perfectly by some of your comments above.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

at no point did I say anyone was "asking for it

And yet..

Honestly, it doesn't imply it, I pretty much stated it outright. I'll say it again if you like. If cyclists are not seen it's their own fault.

Own fault = asking for it.

Glad to have cleared that up.

 

[bladesman73]

Good to see the majority on here understand that a cyclist shouldnt have to go around lit up like a fckin xmas tree in the daytime so as to be seen. Its the prerogative of all road users to pay attention and they should then see anything on the road when it is light.

 

[Markymark]

It might rain tomorrow in London and it’s forecast to be cloudy. It really is the sort of day I should put lights on so the cars see me. Must remember to put them
On when leaving the tube station and walking to my office crossing all those roads.

 

[boydj]

The most important factor in a cyclist being seen is the cyclist's position in the road. Clothing matters not a jot (I bet you'd be seen if you weren't wearing any), but if you are in the driver's line of sight then you are very likely to be seen. This means riding in a prominent position in the lane where drivers are likely to be looking. That's not to say you shouldn't have lights and reflectives at night, but even then you need to be riding where drivers are looking.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I have seen many cyclists taking no regard for their personal safety by riding without lights at dusk / after dark, wearing nothing reflective and riding a dark bicycle.

And yet you saw them all, and not just a few, but the many. QED they are perfectly well visible.

 

[winjim]

And yet you saw them all, and not just a few, but the many. QED they are perfectly well visible.

But how many did he not see? I guess we'll never know...

 

[Edwardoka]

Goodness, how are any of these crazy fools even alive?!

View attachment 469364

I'm sorry, I can't see anyone in that photo. Why have you posted a photo of an empty road?

 

[Edwardoka]

what are the disbenefits of wearing reflective clothing etc?

1. It furthers the perception that cycling is a dangerous activity requiring specialist equipment, which discourages people from taking it up, which in turn lowers the demand for good, safe, usable infrastructure being built that facilitates active travel for everyone, not just road warriors

2. It continues to feed a false narrative about what constitutes safe behaviour and what is unsafe. For example: There are plenty of motorists out who will happily opine in comment threads under news articles about the actions of cyclists without any insight into why the cyclist has done something - worth bearing in mind that ~80% of cyclists also drive, yet hardly any drivers cycle.

3. If a cyclist isn't wearing hi-vis/daytime running lights/helmet/beacons that broadcast to cars/anti-vehicle-forcefields/magical fairy dust then it's OBVIOUSLY their own fault that they were killed COMMON SENSE INNIT (even though you don't have to look far to find cases where a cyclist was killed by a driver who was texting moments before the crash on an open stretch of road and who subsequently deleted the messages)

Since Latin is apparently de rigeur here: Carthago delenda est.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I'd love to see a presumed liability law in the U.K. to start with but we all know that's never very likely given the toxic attitude to cyclists here, as demonstrated perfectly by some of your comments above.

I reckon it does make a difference here, certainly.

The point with presumed liability is the underlying principle: If you make the personal choice to use a more dangerous form of transport, ie: a car, you take responsibility for that and the potential it has to harm others.

The same applies to cyclists here: If I hit a pedestrian I'm presumed liable: I am using the more 'dangerous' form of transport so I take responsibility unless there's a very good reason to think the pedestrian did something really stupid. Even then, I still should theoretically have been ready for it to happen, and with a child, this is multiplied by a factor of ten: hit a child and you are in trouble, and quite right too.

What the pedestrian or cyclist is wearing is immaterial in Germany, although if I'm hit and my lights were not working that's considered a mitigating factor.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Since Latin is apparently de rigeur here: Carthago delenda est

Well "hic manebimus optime..." to you.

 

[Poacher]

Ooh, can I play too? I confess I rarely use lights a sulis ortu usque ad occasum, unless conditions demand them. After dusk, then definitely fiat lux; otherwise, if I'm hit, then mea culpa.

 

[derrick]

Unfortunate you see this a lot around here, I'm always amazed at people who have bikes into the multi thousands that wear black and don't bother with lights,!

My wife was lit up like a christmas tree when she got hit. If the driver is not looking it does not matter what you wear. It ain't rocket science.