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#21
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark
Elisa
Have you considered that if your colleague is driving so fast that they cannot pick out a cyclist then the appropriate action may be to slow down rather than moan about them wearing dark clothing. When motorists say that a cyclist was invisible or they just didn't see them it is usually because they aren't looking. What you are really complaining about was that there was little time to take avoiding action when seeing a cyclist. That is a car speed issue rather than a cyslist visiblity issue. Cyclists in flourescent jackets enable drivers to go faster. Hence when they do hit a cyclists theor pedestrian they are more likely to kill them. I believe that the responsibility is squarely with the motorist to conduct their driving so that they can avoid any obstacles that are within their vision. That means GO SLOWER. Merry Christmas Rod King "Elisa Francesca Roselli" wrote in message ... In these dark winter months, I am car-pooling with a colleague to get to work. Although I am impervious to cold, I am not happy about cycling because of the poor visibility. My road to work is poorly lit, my eyesight is bad, my balance perturbed by the dancing beam of my front light and my glasses fog up every time I stop. In the car, I really do get to notice what can and cannot be seen from a motorist's point of view. And I am appalled to discover just how hard it can be to see cyclists and pedestrians, and how few of them seem to be aware of this. Much winter clothing is dark or black to begin with. Then many ride entirely without lights, or just a little reflector. Great aurioles of light surround the street lights and the headlights of the oncoming cars, casting everything else around them into a pitch black shadow from the glare. A few days ago, I was standing on a pavement waiting for a bus, looking directly into the traffic. Two cyclists swooped right in front of me - they were less than 30 feet from me before I even noticed them. On mornings and even in the broad daylight of the lunch hour, there is frequently a freezing smog that not only soups up the air but makes the ground slippery. This smog can come on quite suddenly - all is clear, then the car descends into a barely perceptible valley and the windscreen empties like a movie screen with the projector turned off. For night riding it has been my personal practise to wear a reflector vest and blinkie lights on armbands. I have a LED headlight and a small red backlight. But my lesson from this is that perhaps even I need to up the ante. I shall get myself a yellow reflector parka from Glow Dog, and wear that even as a pedestrian. And I need more blinkies, especially in the back. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but for those of you who do cycle in the dark, please make sure you are as visible as you can make yourselves. Perhaps do a visibility test with your gear - ask family or a neighbor for feedback on whether you can be seen and at what distance, especially if you are sharing the road with cars and headlights. Safe riding to all, EFR Ile de France |
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#22
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark or "Is black white?"
Fritz M wrote: wrote: Nonsense. Light/bright colours are much more visible than dark colours when picked up by headlights or any other lights for that matter. That's true, but not true enough. I was driving at night on an unlit street last week. A half-mile ahead of me was a shopping center with bright lights. I nearly hit a cyclist -- I only saw him at the last minute when I saw his silhouette in the supermarket lights. I swerved to avoid him and that's when I noticed the faint outline of his flourescent yellow jacket in my headlights. After I passed I saw that he had a very bright front light. Bright colored clothing is not generally adequate for night visibility. You might as well be wearing black. I don't ride at night without lighting front, back and sides. I generally have reflective material on me, bike, or bags also. RFM http://www.cyclelicio.us/ Obviously there are occasions when a bright jacket is not enough but the probability is that the lighter/brighter the more likely it is to be seen. Even better if the cyclist also has a big bright back light preferably not flashing, and as much reflective material as possible. Seems one has to keep repeating the obvious in this discussion! Look at it this way - if you wanted to move around at night without being spotted would you wear dark non-reflective clothes, carry no lights, perhaps black up your face with burnt cork in the old fashioned way, or would you wear bright light reflective clothing, carry bright lamps etc etc? Clue to the answer - the first approach is called "camouflage" (though I'm not sure how you spell it). Geddit! Or to look at it another way - try drawing a black figure on black paper. Er, how else can I explain this difficult concept! happy christmas Jacob |
#23
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark or "Is black white?"
On 23 Dec 2005 15:20:49 -0800, said in
.com: Obviously there are occasions when a bright jacket is not enough but the probability is that the lighter/brighter the more likely it is to be seen. Even better if the cyclist also has a big bright back light preferably not flashing, and as much reflective material as possible. Seems one has to keep repeating the obvious in this discussion! You'd think so, wouldn't you? As an enthusiastic advocate of lights and bright clothing I've devoted some energy to finding actual proof of the above, to no avail. Guy -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk "To every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken |
#24
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark or "Is black white?"
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#25
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark
"Tony W" wrote . My experience on country lanes is that the greatest danger is being blinded by oncoming traffic and losing the edge of the road. It is then easy to veer either into the middle of the road or into the ditch. Neither are good. On country lanes a light that says to the driver 'dip you *******' is required. Do I ever agree with that! Most of my commuting route has streetlights of greater or lesser adequacy, but always enough to cut the glare from the lights of oncoming traffic, which usually isn't using the bright beam anyway. But get on a dark lonely road and encounter an oncoming car with the brights on, and it's stunning how quickly and badly you can become disoriented relative to the edge of the road! I have already stopped altogether and waited for the traffic to pass, and shouted some "encouragement" for the driver to dim his lights. I'm also part of the choir being preached to on this whole thread. My home commute in the winter is in the dark. I use a bright chartreuse vest with several reflective strips like highway dept workers use, plus a flashing rear light (less helpful than the reflective vest) and a Cateye Opticube front light - low power but 5 beams of blue light that are easier to see than to see by. My TREK gloves and shoes also have reflectors, but they're only good down to about 15 F. My understanding is that the two biggest contributors to bike rider fatalities are failure to yield right of way and riding invisibly at night. |
#26
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark
In rec.bicycles.misc Claire Petersky wrote:
Elisa, I've done this too -- while driving in the dark and passing a pedestrian or a cyclist, made a note of what it is that I see first. Usually it's some sort of reflective clothing. snip I have often done this as well. The things I notice most often are spoke and pedal reflectors. I'm sure that's because of the way they move. The things I am least likely to notice are dark clothing and fixed reflectors. I'm not sure I have EVER had my eye caught by one of those useless front reflectors. A few weeks back I was riding on one of the darker stretches of my early morning commute, and suddenly there was a pedestrian in the street squarely in front of me. He was dressed in dark clothing, crossing away from the crosswalk. I saw him in time to lean the bike a bit and pass behind him, but I don't think he even knew I was on the same planet with him. Most likely he was listening for cars instead of looking for traffic, in which case he'd have seen my headlights.) I couldn't resist giving him a friendly toot on my marine air horn. He jumped so much I could hear the stuff in his backpack go "whoomp." Of the four main visibility items (brightly colored clothing, reflective clothing, reflectors, and lights) my definite preference for night riding is all four, (except that I took off my front reflector to make room for my headlight). Bill -------------------------------------------- | As long as people believe in absurdities | | they will continue to commit atrocities. | | --Voltaire | -------------------------------------------- |
#27
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark
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#28
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark
Zoot Katz wrote:
I causally, at 2am, stopped a couple of perforated and studded punks on the street and asked them if they thought my belt was cool. He liked the belt. She liked the buckle. Then they looked closer at six of the others I had and realised they were recycled bicycle parts. That got them both excited and I respectfully listened to what they had to say. (hmmm) They're not so blind they can't spot kool zut when they see it. Somewhere, on some alt.punk newsgroup, s/he's posting about this strange old biker coot who, roaming the alleys at 2 AM, made them look at his "belt" (hoping it's not a euphemism). Weirdo! eg |
#29
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Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark
"Rod King" wrote in message ... Elisa Have you considered that if your colleague is driving so fast that they cannot pick out a cyclist then the appropriate action may be to slow down rather than moan about them wearing dark clothing. ... I believe that the responsibility is squarely with the motorist to conduct their driving so that they can avoid any obstacles that are within their vision. That means GO SLOWER. Right. IOW, "don't overdrive your headlights". If you cant see something in your path in time to stop, you're speeding (violation of the Basic Speed Law). That's true of driving in the dark, of course, but it's also the case when you drive faster than the speed on the yellow diamond-shaped sign with the curving arrow and the "35 mph" on it. That sign means that the sightline of the road ahead is such that, if you're driving faster than the posted speed, you cannot stop in time to avoid an object in the roadway. Sometimes it's a deer, sometimes it's a cyclist, and hereabouts, sometimes it's a big-assed combine or hay-wagon. But expecting people to drive within the capability to see the road ahead is sort of futile, isn't it? I mean, look at all the "chain-reaction" accidents where motorists speeding down the freeway at 80mph heedlessly hurl themselves into a fog bank? |
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