Mick F wrote:So why is Hi Vis recommended and sold?
If research shows that it doesn't reduce the chance of injury, why does it exist?
Why do the police and emergency services wear it?
Why is it sold? Why is anything sold? Because people will buy it. A bike specific example is tyres with tread. Consumers think tread is necessary, so it ends up on almost all tyres. There are other examples, such as when you got to any pet shop and on display you will see tiny 14 litre fishtanks. The hardcore fish keepers will tell you that such a small tank is not suitable for keeping fish, no matter how few. Toxic substances rise to high levels very quickly, and it's not enough space, from a humane point of view. Why do they sell these, then?! Because it's not illegal and people think a small fish tank is easy to care for, and they're cheaper, and parents will buy these and let their children go through a phase of keeping a few goldfish that die one after another (I wonder why!) and then it ends up in the jumble sale. Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there, but you get my point, hopefully? For those that are interested, the minimum recommended size of fish tank for beginners is about 30 litres.
Why do police/emergency services wear it? I would suggest that there's a whole industry based around it. Some higher ups greased some other higher ups and now hi-vis is a legal requirement. Meanwhile the CEO of 3M/scotchlite is doing rather well out of the whole thing. I can imagine that the sales to companies that need to supply hi vis to their staff hugely outnumber a handful of cyclists that buy hi vis clothing. This is all just a theory and postulation, but I would not be surprised in the least. Let's think about the official police motorcycles for a moment. Around 5-7 years ago the contract to supply police motorcycles went out to tender (not sure whether this was country-wide, but I think it was). Guess who won it - BMW! I do believe that Triumph, a british company also went for the contract and was in fact offering their motorcycles for less to the police, with bikes built locally, and certainly a good local infrastructure to fix anything that went wrong with a huge fleet of motorcycles. In the end they went with BMW. I don't know about you, but I think a few palms got greased here and there in order to make that happen!
It's been a huge, tangent laden post. Thanks for reading.