Tips to Make Yourself Visible

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Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
And the last post from that thread is worth repeating on this one.
The research on relationship of distance of close passing to clothing worn was by Ian Walker, who did find that hiviz did bugger all. A polite jacket was worse, but a blond wig got more space and slower passes. You can google for it if you are interested.
One of the tops I have is an "urban camouflage" design, and weirdly I do seem to get slightly more consideration with that than some of my other bright plain tops. none of which are the "classic flouro green" as that's so prevalent it is subconsciously ignored these days
One of those 'skeleton' tops might have similar 'attention grab'.
 

simongt

Guru
Location
Norwich
Playing devil's advocate on this very diversely opinioned subject, if whilst wearing a hi-viz top, in clear view and you were knocked off and said driver gave the usual response of 'SMIDSY' ( or in Scotland, SPIDSY ), I wonder how that would stack up in court / an insurance claim - ?
 

theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
[QUOTE 5057321, member: 9609"]I very much agree with this - it should be 100% the drivers responsibility not to crash into other road users, but in the bizarre world of driving many think it is 90%+ the responsibility of the more vulnerable road user to take care of themselves. I hate it but feel the need to comply.

And the situation is not helped by the courts who too often side with the motorist, take this case, driver blinded by low sun runs over lollypop man helping pregnant woman crossing the road.[/QUOTE]

The point is, how do we resist this dangerous way of thinking rather than encouraging it by compliance?
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
[QUOTE 5057321, member: 9609"]I very much agree with this - it should be 100% the drivers responsibility not to crash into other road users, but in the bizarre world of driving many think it is 90%+ the responsibility of the more vulnerable road user to take care of themselves. I hate it but feel the need to comply.

And the situation is not helped by the courts who too often side with the motorist, take this case, driver blinded by low sun runs over lollypop man helping pregnant woman crossing the road.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/cri...-killed-82-year-old-lollipop-man-8933201.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-27982163[/QUOTE]
As that exemplifies, complying with the "hi-vis everything" expectation still doesn't even ensure that the motorist gets punished appropriately after they hit you, let alone reduce casualty rates, so why comply?

Personally, it's made me feel the need to campaign for Road Justice, to promote Road Danger Reduction instead of the failed road safety "common sense" at the Casualty Reduction Partnership (alongside others from other Cyclenation, CUK and BC groups, plus local bike shops, the IAM and others) which I'm pretty sure was instrumental in persuading Norfolk Constabulary to start accepting bike/dashcam reports and doing Operation Close Pass here.

However, the motoring lobby and their well-intentioned fellow travellers are still out there, handing reflective yellow stars (edit: to be clear, this is not only a pejorative - I kid you not, last year some of the reflective stickers handed out locally were actually star-shaped, handed to kids as a "gold star" - this year so far, I've only seen circles, so I suspect they've noticed the own-goal) to cyclists, schoolchildren, dog walkers and so on, telling them it's their fault if they don't "be safe be seen" despite us still not even having an eyeball magnet that we can use on motorists. You can't force someone to look at you and if you did, then what about the people they don't look at as much, as a result? If it worked, it would be a great example of Beggar Thy Neighbour, or more likely, Injure Thy Neighbour. Maybe those promoting hi vis don't care about their neighbours but I like mine! If it worked, "look at me" would be the ultimate anti-social approach to road safety when really, if there's lots of people for motorists to look at in an area, we should be focusing on getting drivers to slow the fark down so they have time to look and drive appropriately and punishing them if they do not - but good luck selling that to society when there's so many happy to hand out stab vests instead of disarm the knifers.</rant>
 
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mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Playing devil's advocate on this very diversely opinioned subject, if whilst wearing a hi-viz top, in clear view and you were knocked off and said driver gave the usual response of 'SMIDSY' ( or in Scotland, SPIDSY ), I wonder how that would stack up in court / an insurance claim - ?
I think @fossyant had lights but I don't know about hi vis or how the insurance claim has stacked up so far. I expect there are many others hit while using hi vis. Maybe @Mm87 too? The search on this site doesn't seem great with short words but maybe I'm using it wrong today.
 

theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
[QUOTE 5057412, member: 9609"]
out of self preservation I'm complying :sad:[/QUOTE]
The yellow (high-vis?) face thingy would indicate that compliance isn't making you happy. So let's look at it another way. How do we make you happy, Reiver? How do we change the :sad: to a :smile:?
 

theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
In related news, Cub leaders are being asked to help indoctrinate small children about drivers not being expected to look where they are going, in a campaign revealingly entitled Be Bright Be Seen - Out of My Way...
 

Colin_P

Guru
No doubt coming soon....

Also doubles as crash protection as you are literally a walking (cycling) airbag.

If I saw one, I'd slow down and give it a wide berth.

I think the red one is pondering if it would be a good idea to also fashion a great big massive inflatable head piece. The green one is demonstrating the ease of movement by voguing like Madonna and the purple one is modelling a childs version.

I'd have a red one.

inflatable-fat-suit-costume-1.jpg
 

classic33

Leg End Member
No doubt coming soon....

Also doubles as crash protection as you are literally a walking (cycling) airbag.

If I saw one, I'd slow down and give it a wide berth.

I think the red one is pondering if it would be a good idea to also fashion a great big massive inflatable head piece. The green one is demonstrating the ease of movement by voguing like Madonna and the purple one is modelling a childs version.

I'd have a red one.

View attachment 384922

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQr8YkzEEWQ
 

glasgowcyclist

Charming but somewhat feckless
Location
Scotland
Playing devil's advocate on this very diversely opinioned subject, if whilst wearing a hi-viz top, in clear view and you were knocked off and said driver gave the usual response of 'SMIDSY' ( or in Scotland, SPIDSY ), I wonder how that would stack up in court / an insurance claim - ?

These days SMIDSY seems to be generally accepted as a defence that most jury members will identify with and fall for, regardless of how implausible the circumstances.
 

Lonestar

Veteran
These days SMIDSY seems to be generally accepted as a defence that most jury members will identify with and fall for, regardless of how implausible the circumstances.

Well as a pedestrian today coming up against yet another ignorant motorist I really do think the saying "The car is king" really does fit.
 
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