dark cycle kit!!

[e-rider]

What is it with the new fad for buying and riding around in black kit during the winter months? I get that it is slimming and you get to look like a ninja or such like, but a bit of common sense wouldn't go amiss.
Less vanity more visibility!

hi-viz is the new fad

I'd rather get hit by a bus than wear it

 

[vernon]

So i may as well ditch my lights as well if these drivers aren't looking ?

Ditch the bike too and drive a car. Cyclists will spot you more easily.

 

[Black Sheep]

That explains so much.

My daughter's previous driving instructor told her she should disregard cyclists as they aren't registered (true) don't have insurance (not always true) and "don't pay road tax and so have no rights to be on the road" (chortle)

My daughter now has a new driving instructor. I wonder how your driving instructor's advice plays itself out on the roads with those who don't also cycle or ride a motorbike.

I think you miss-understand what I'm recounting.

My instructors point is, sooner or later, being on the road on any vehicle is a risk and it is one that you take when choosing your route, your time of journey and your positioning. What she was meaning is, you are waiting to pull out of a side road and it's constant traffic, a gap emerges and you have to calculate the risk since there is an element of the unknown. in this situation the risk is less on the bike than in the car, the bike is smaller, lighter and accelerates into the gap meaning I can take it, in the car I assess the risk and decide the gap is too small, on the bike in the wet I decide not to take the gap as I could slip and cause a car to hit me.

my instructor was trying, and succeeding to teach me to think for myself, not to just take a gap because it is there.
Her advice to my brother two years previous had been different but effective for him instead of advice being from a standard script.

I have taken gaps that were big enough to get a van out, pulled out, matched the speed of the vehicle in front (with a safe braking distance) and found the car behind me be right up my back bumper, having sped up simply because I dared to fit myself into a distance between cars the length of a bendy bus, plenty of space in a 30 limit. A calculated risk since decisions on the road require people to be predictable or continue as they are.

 

[Fnaar]

For some reason (and by accident rather than design) all my winter cycling kit is black, but with reflective trim.
My winter cycling is in the countryside, in the daylight (though I have lights on, in case of punctures/mechanicals which might keep me out till dusk/dark). However, I've taken to wearing a summer top (L/S, with lots of yellow in it) over my winter top, just for added visibility.
For winter commuting (on a different bike) which inlcudes some town riding, but has been rare so far this winter, I am probably visible from space.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

You appear to consider cyclist conspicuity as the vital factor in reducing the risk of motor vehicle /cyclist collisions. I would suggest other measures could be taken to reduce collision risk such as reducing motor vehicle speed limits, eye tests for drivers, reducing the size of door pillars in motor vehicles, heavier sentencing for drivers colliding, road design changes, etc etc.

You probably intend it under road design but just in case: you forgot much more effective and copious streetlighting that illuminates the road as well as the path and retro fitting lighting to every single stretch of every single road in the country. epecially the countryside ones where there is no ambient light spill to give even a tiny bit of a clue theres a ninja hiding in primary. Unfortunately right now they're turning off the streetlights not adding to them.

also what is you timescale for all of these admittedly overdue and perfectly sensible changes as opposed to a quick trip down to Evans or even B&Q for some way of helping yourself in an otherwise apathetic to cyclists lives political climate

 

[shouldbeinbed]

and it still happens even with high viz http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/10112001.Cyclist_killed_in_road_crash_on_major_city_route/

but I'd still rather take the chance than not.

RIP to another one.

 

[Berties]

Reading of the cycle death in Southampton the rider was well visible and still met his maker!
wear what you want when your times up its up!
Sorry to say all my gear is black !don't know why!

 

[MontyVeda]

It looks good, it goes with everything, and it doesn't show up every speck of grime..

it does show every speck of dandruff though.

 

[Archie_tect]

Not if you wear your co-ordinating black swimming cap....

I see you've driven away another [relatively] new contributor ... congratulations everyone.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

hi-viz is the new fad

I'd rather get hit by a bus than wear it

Really?????

It isn't an either or I hope

 

[vernon]

Not if you wear your co-ordinating black swimming cap....

I see you've driven away another [relatively] new contributor ... congratulations everyone.

(S)he started it....

 

[theclaud]

Not if you wear your co-ordinating black swimming cap....

I see you've driven away another [relatively] new contributor ... congratulations everyone.

Oh, come now. Who has been driven away?

 

[Archie_tect]

That's fantastic....
OK, you can have the last jammie dodger, but just don't dunk it.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Not if you wear your co-ordinating black swimming cap....

I see you've driven away another [relatively] new contributor ... congratulations everyone.

Perhaps they are doing some work... it does happen...

Anyway the OP got their retaliation in first

What is it with the new fad for buying and riding around in black kit during the winter months? I get that it is slimming and you get to look like a ninja or such like, but a bit of common sense wouldn't go amiss.
Less vanity more visibility!

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Oh, come now. Who has been driven away?

They are both wearing black. That just won't do.