Tell me this is a wind up

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ACS

Legendary Member
I take my personally safety seriously, helmet, bright lights, reflectively jacket etc etc so I was surprised this evening when a ninja cyclist appeared next to me at a set of lights, in St Andrews. He (student type) told me in quite a vociferous manner that I should be ashamed of myself, did I not realise that motorists in University towns expect cyclist not to use lights so by doing so, it would be my fault if a student got ran over because locals will expect all cyclists to use lights. Having had his say he pedalled off in the direction of the residence leaving me speechless.

Tell me this is a wind up?
 

buggi

Bird Saviour
Location
Solihull
the perfect answer would have been .... "don't be a pr!ck all your life"
 
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ACS

ACS

Legendary Member
Bigtallfatbloke said:
No he hasnt he was just being a tosser

Bigtallfatbloke ignore Domtyler, he is just likes pulling his chain.
 

domtyler

Über Member
His logic is perfectly sound although it seems to have escaped many people on here. Indeed, were there many cyclists on the roads with no lights or dayglo clothing then drivers would become adapted to looking for them. If many then switched to using lights and dayglo drivers would switch to looking for lights and dayglo leaving the ones who remained unlit at a distinct disadvantage.
 

Wolf04

New Member
Location
Wallsend on Tyne
domtyler said:
His logic is perfectly sound although it seems to have escaped many people on here. Indeed, were there many cyclists on the roads with no lights or dayglo clothing then drivers would become adapted to looking for them. If many then switched to using lights and dayglo drivers would switch to looking for lights and dayglo leaving the ones who remained unlit at a distinct disadvantage.

Tosh! If I can't see the buggers when I'm traveling at cycling speeds how the hell are BMW drivers meant to see them?
 
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ACS

ACS

Legendary Member
domtyler said:
His logic is perfectly sound although it seems to have escaped many people on here. Indeed, were there many cyclists on the roads with no lights or dayglo clothing then drivers would become adapted to looking for them. If many then switched to using lights and dayglo drivers would switch to looking for lights and dayglo leaving the ones who remained unlit at a distinct disadvantage.

Yet again your are assuming that all drivers are local. While St Andrews is recognised as a University town, it is perhaps more famous for being the home of golf. This fact results in a lot of visitors for other parts of the planet. They all know of course that it is acceptable for cyclists in the town to ride bikes at night without lights and therfore it is their reponsibility not to run them over.
 

John the Monkey

Frivolous Cyclist
Location
Crewe
I've seen the argument made along these lines;

"
Put two cyclists together on a dark road. One with a reflective vest, one without. The one without becomes invisible because the other one has reflectives. Without reflectives, both are visible. OK, you might have to slow down a wee bit, but that is surely not a bad thing. The reflectives reduce the danger for one cyclist but massively increase it for the unadorned ones.


If we want to improve road safety, especially at night, we need to get people to take note of their surroundings. Retroreflectives have the opposite effect. They allow people to drive faster whilst paying less attention, and as cyclists we have to visually announce our presence on the road as the drivers are no longer able to look for us in the shadows."

(From the cyclologist column in City Cycling)
 
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