Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- The Urban Fringe
The danger is with doing unproven things for safety's sake is that they can often have the opposite effect.
For example,as far back as the 80s Suzuki, and then Honda, independently discovered that over-bright day time lights increase the likelihood of a collision (I've explained the mechanics behind the phenomenon on here so do a search if youre interested.)
This got very little publicity in the UK, really only reaching a small motorcycling audience as Superbikes magazine ran a piece on potential then forthcoming European law affecting motorcyclists and they touched upon it.
And yet despite this, we see cyclists slapping on stupid bright daytime lights on like some kind of forcefield, breaking up their visible outline, depriving the observer of the visual cues required to accurately judge speed, and then wonder why they still get wiped out.
It has also been proven that yellow fluorescent have a camouflage effect against a green background, rendering them potentially useless against the green background of a hedgerow or rural environment. This is why search and rescue teams wear red Keela jackets, or dual-colour fluorescents is liable to be near traffic. And yet who slips on a yellow florrie for a rural bike bimble without giving it a second thought, thinking about how jolly safe it makes them?
If a thing doesnt have a reasonably proven safety benefit then best not to do it, regardless of how strong common sense on the matter may seem, as theres a fair change of it doing the opposite. True safety is not intuitive, and commkn sense should not be used anywhere near it.
Stuck to a lucky rabbits foot - at least its unlikely to do you any harm.
For example,as far back as the 80s Suzuki, and then Honda, independently discovered that over-bright day time lights increase the likelihood of a collision (I've explained the mechanics behind the phenomenon on here so do a search if youre interested.)
This got very little publicity in the UK, really only reaching a small motorcycling audience as Superbikes magazine ran a piece on potential then forthcoming European law affecting motorcyclists and they touched upon it.
And yet despite this, we see cyclists slapping on stupid bright daytime lights on like some kind of forcefield, breaking up their visible outline, depriving the observer of the visual cues required to accurately judge speed, and then wonder why they still get wiped out.
It has also been proven that yellow fluorescent have a camouflage effect against a green background, rendering them potentially useless against the green background of a hedgerow or rural environment. This is why search and rescue teams wear red Keela jackets, or dual-colour fluorescents is liable to be near traffic. And yet who slips on a yellow florrie for a rural bike bimble without giving it a second thought, thinking about how jolly safe it makes them?
If a thing doesnt have a reasonably proven safety benefit then best not to do it, regardless of how strong common sense on the matter may seem, as theres a fair change of it doing the opposite. True safety is not intuitive, and commkn sense should not be used anywhere near it.
Stuck to a lucky rabbits foot - at least its unlikely to do you any harm.
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