in message . com,
') wrote:


Simon Mason wrote:
"Elisa Francesca Roselli" wrote in message
news:43abba84$0$20854

Much winter clothing is dark or black to begin with.

In defence of dark clothing - bright colours don't really work in the
dark. One of my colleagues looked at my dark silver jacket and asked
why I didn't have a yellow one on until I explained that the silver
was made of reflective material and therefore far more visible than
any bright colours.

Nonsense. Light/bright colours are much more visible than dark colours
when picked up by headlights or any other lights for that matter. Thats
what "light" or "bright" mean more or less i.e. more visible. DARK
CLOTHING IS WHAT YOU'D WEAR IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SEEN. Or are you
arguing that black is white?

Yes. All cats - even white ones - really are black in the night time, and
so are all jackets. On a dark night a person in a white or fluorescent
jacket is just as visible as a person in a black one - i.e. you might
see their silhouette against the sky if you're lucky but that's all
you'll see. In good moonlight the white jacket will be most visible, but
still only a very vague blur. Starlight alone is not normally enough for
human eyesight to tell black from white.

Fluorescent clothing is good in daytime poor light, because ultra-violet
penetrates mist and cloud much better than visible light, so on a dull
or foggy day fluorescent clothes look extra bright. But they're
completely useless at night since the moon reflects relatively little
ultra-violet.

Neither white nor fluorescent is anything like as good when illuminated
by headlights as retro-reflective, and when not illuminated each is
exactly as black as any of the others. If you do wear retro-reflectives,
piping along seams is particularly effective because it makes a visible
'stick man' image from which the observer can infer your position and
actions.

If you don't believe me, just ask any of your friends who goes hunting.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; "If I were a Microsoft Public Relations person, I would probably
;; be sobbing on a desk right now" -- Rob Miller, editor, /.