A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

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drossall
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by drossall »

Psamathe wrote:(Of course this is all my perception as to what I've seen - which may not necessarily be accurate as the mind can be confused and things mis-interpreted).

The "conventional wisdom" is that flashing lights stand out more, but are harder to locate - so the motorist notices that you are there, but runs you down anyway because it wasn't obvious how close you are...

That's broadly consistent with observations in the last few comments.
beardy
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by beardy »

IrishBill76 wrote:+1
We need lights with bigger lenses/reflectors. In the 80's and early 90's I remember lights having the same circumference as a regular mug but all this changed for brighter but much smaller and lighter lights. I'd rather have a bit more presence at the cost of weight.



B&M and Phillips made some fairly large ones. Though I think Phillips are stopping manufacture now.

By coincidence some available right now on the Forum sales board.

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85215
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brizgazelle
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by brizgazelle »

Oh dear! A lot of emotive defensiveness here. Perhaps the OP might have been worded better - I really don't think he/she was apportioning anything like equal blame or 'blaming the victim' (thus we get the Pavlovian response of short skirt = rape false equivalence). :roll: Also I think banning clothing or making clothing compulsory is a bit much, if well-intentioned.

That said, cycle safety is not a zero-sum political game. Any cyclist involved in an accident in similar circumstances to the OP can contribute significantly to the fact by not_being_seen_as_well_as_they_might_have_done_had_they_chosen_a_less_modish_outfit. You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact. And here sadly. gentlemen (and I suspect it is, mostly men who are excercised on this issue) is where the source of a large part of defensiveness on this matter lies: it's the pass where one fellow has thrown 250-plus quid for a designer outfit (prob designed by a non-cyclist) in 'urban' (i.e. dark) colours and it's going to be worn (and black is both mysterious and slimming) come hell or high water. It's the equivalent of the black coupe for visibility and the inadequate man's vanity boost. You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.

For entertainment, some vacuity which was posted up-thread:
[i
I don't own any Hi-viz clothing. I think it looks absolutely daft.

Irrefutable argument, Rita.
Road position and effective bike lights are much better at making other road users aware that you are there.

No, they can contribute to overall safety. Saying they are 'much better' is a fallacious or non-statement which will hardly serve to bolster any anti-HV clothing manifesto. As for 'road position?' What does that even mean?
Most of my cycle clothing is dark, and I ride my bike to uni and back in normal clothes, and I never have a problem being seen

You go to university? :lol:
- because I ride where people will see me / my lights

That's the answer! We must 'ride where people can see us'. A special elevated cyclepath perhaps (being trialled in N.London) for diehard fops whose stylish edginess is expressed in their dark gear and Gok Wan frames.
(1 flashing / 1 solid, front and rear - sometimes even with flashing light on the helmet too - pretty hard to miss if you ask me!) :) [/i]

We will wear rotating lights on our heads if it will preserve our right to wear the ninja outfit (highlighted with jaunty charcoal sections).
Bicycler
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by Bicycler »

brizgazelle wrote:And here sadly. gentlemen (and I suspect it is, mostly men who are excercised on this issue) is where the source of a large part of defensiveness on this matter lies: it's the pass where one fellow has thrown 250-plus quid for a designer outfit (prob designed by a non-cyclist) in 'urban' (i.e. dark) colours and it's going to be worn (and black is both mysterious and slimming) come hell or high water. It's the equivalent of the black coupe for visibility and the inadequate man's vanity boost. You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.

Well, personally, I find practical cycling involves not dressing specifically for cycling. If you are saying that someone dressed head to toe in lycra might as well be dressed in fluorescent lycra then that is probably the case but cycling as a normal practical form of transport is significantly hindered if it requires different clothes everytime you mount a bike. It would be a similar nuisance to pedestrians but we don't expect them to do so. It would be no inconvenience to drivers if all new cars were only sold in fluorescent colours but we don't do that either.

It may not hurt to dress in bright colours but nor is specialist clothing a prerequisite for cycle safety. If we look at the European cities where cycling is safest we see that cyclists in hi-vis are the exception and people often ride in their everyday clothes (even GASP black). There the forum thread would not be about the irresponsibility of a group of cyclists' clothing choices but the irresponsibility of a driver who it something on the road in front of him.

If you are unaware of what others were referring to as road position(ing) it implies you are unaware of current best practice for safe cycling. As this is highly relevant to the issue of cyclists' visibility and their more general safety on the roads, it may be worthwhile seeing if you can get hold of a copy of John Franklin's Cyclecraft which is the text for National Standards cycle training.
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mjr
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by mjr »

Bicycler wrote:
brizgazelle wrote:You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.

Well, personally, I find practical cycling involves not dressing specifically for cycling.

I agree completely. My clothes seem pretty safe, except I sometimes catch a sleeve on a door handle. I'll dress for comfort on long rides but most of the time, I don't dress specially for cycling, for driving or for walking. I wear whatever I'm wearing anyway. Ideally, I may change my footwear and what bags I'm carrying, but not always. That said, I know women who say some clothes don't mix well with some bikes, but even that seems to be a matter of debate (which I've not really gotten involved in).

This is also a huge red herring: according to the OP, the car driver "had just driven into the shade and was not visually adapted" - that is, it was being driven basically blind. In that situation, I suspect that nothing the rider wore would have made much difference, short of protective armour sufficiently strong to resist the collision. I've already mentioned above how much dimmer a bike light would be than the sunlight: fluorescent clothing is even less bright... and the car collided with the bike, which probably already had reflectors fitted.

(Edited to add a missed pronoun which made it slightly offensive IMO)
Last edited by mjr on 25 Mar 2014, 4:57pm, edited 1 time in total.
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reohn2
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by reohn2 »

brizgazelle :lol: :lol: :lol:
IMHO you're spot on.
Though in some situations black can stand out better than HiViz,but generally,conspicuous clothing whilst no guarantee you're not going to be seen,certainly helps.Along with prominent road positioning plus one or more rear flashing red lights.
Last edited by reohn2 on 25 Mar 2014, 5:12pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Vinko
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by Vinko »

Cunobelin wrote:Next time you go to Tesco / Asda / Waitrose / Coop / Morrisons etc will you wear a HiViz vest to walk from the car to the shop

After all there is a formal risk assessment in all of these cases that say the car park is dangerous and HViz is necessary.

If a site requires PPE for safety then ALL users of that site should be wearing it. You don't have building sites which differentiate..... hard hat, boots etc apply to all whether they be visitors, employees or delivery men

Why is a customer going to be seen in the supermarket car park, but an employee not?

It is about time that these customers took their safety seriously and complied with the same standards

Can we have a national campaign pleading for HiViz in supermarket car parks please


Yes...of course and hard hats in the public library :lol:
I think we should go further with this. I regularly go swimming and find that people seem to keep bumping into me rather than stick to their lanes. There is a suggestion box at the pool and I will suggest we all wear Hi-Viz in the pool.

Seriously though, I wear a number of different types of clothes, dependent on my moods and the weather...both when on a bike or not! Often I will wear a long Carradice Duxback cape in the rain. It is green wax cotton so dark, that was the only material it came in and I liked the feel and quality of it. Yet my arms are inside it so I can not get a Hi Viz jacket over it should I want to! It does have reflective stripes for the night time though.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by [XAP]Bob »

brizgazelle wrote:Oh dear! A lot of emotive defensiveness here. Perhaps the OP might have been worded better - I really don't think he/she was apportioning anything like equal blame or 'blaming the victim' (thus we get the Pavlovian response of short skirt = rape false equivalence). :roll: Also I think banning clothing or making clothing compulsory is a bit much, if well-intentioned.

That said, cycle safety is not a zero-sum political game. Any cyclist involved in an accident in similar circumstances to the OP can contribute significantly to the fact by not_being_seen_as_well_as_they_might_have_done_had_they_chosen_a_less_modish_outfit. You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact. And here sadly. gentlemen (and I suspect it is, mostly men who are excercised on this issue) is where the source of a large part of defensiveness on this matter lies: it's the pass where one fellow has thrown 250-plus quid for a designer outfit (prob designed by a non-cyclist) in 'urban' (i.e. dark) colours and it's going to be worn (and black is both mysterious and slimming) come hell or high water. It's the equivalent of the black coupe for visibility and the inadequate man's vanity boost. You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.


Practicality != fashion sense

I dress for comfort, and for my destination. Not for "cycling", unless I'm on a circular leisure ride. I don't wear high viz in the car, in church, in the supermarket, on the pavement, at work, on the bus... - why would I wear it on the bike
I am driving a vehicle - which has reflectors and lights and those are visible from significantly further than any concrete block, cow or other random obstruction which car drivers are, of course, alert for... Oh wait - they don't bother driving within the distance they can see to be clear.


Frankly if a driver is driving blind (i.e. just driven into shade and hasn't adapted speed/vision) then NOTHING you wear will help (short of an ursus bear suit maybe).

Amazingly I can see pedestrians on the footway from hundreds of yards away, even at night, even when they are in business suits. It's not that clothing is invisible it's that motorists don't give a flying fig tree...
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
drossall
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by drossall »

brizgazelle wrote:You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact.

You appear to have missed the bits up-thread where evidence was mentioned to controvert it...

You also appear to have missed the bits where various people said that, in practice, they wear light-coloured, hi-vis and/or reflective clothing, as indeed do I most of the time.

However, over-stating the need for such clothing still tends to lead to a transfer of fault from the person who was insufficiently observant to the person who could have looked even more like a Christmas tree. There would still be objects on the road that were not brightly clothed, even if all cyclists did as you suggest.
AlaninWales
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by AlaninWales »

brizgazelle wrote:Oh dear! A lot of emotive defensiveness here. Perhaps the OP might have been worded better - I really don't think he/she was apportioning anything like equal blame or 'blaming the victim' (thus we get the Pavlovian response of short skirt = rape false equivalence). :roll: Also I think banning clothing or making clothing compulsory is a bit much, if well-intentioned.

That said, cycle safety is not a zero-sum political game. Any cyclist involved in an accident in similar circumstances to the OP can contribute significantly to the fact by not_being_seen_as_well_as_they_might_have_done_had_they_chosen_a_less_modish_outfit. You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact. And here sadly. gentlemen (and I suspect it is, mostly men who are excercised on this issue) is where the source of a large part of defensiveness on this matter lies: it's the pass where one fellow has thrown 250-plus quid for a designer outfit (prob designed by a non-cyclist) in 'urban' (i.e. dark) colours and it's going to be worn (and black is both mysterious and slimming) come hell or high water. It's the equivalent of the black coupe for visibility and the inadequate man's vanity boost. You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.

For entertainment, some vacuity which was posted up-thread:
[i
I don't own any Hi-viz clothing. I think it looks absolutely daft.

Irrefutable argument, Rita.
Road position and effective bike lights are much better at making other road users aware that you are there.

No, they can contribute to overall safety. Saying they are 'much better' is a fallacious or non-statement which will hardly serve to bolster any anti-HV clothing manifesto. As for 'road position?' What does that even mean?
Most of my cycle clothing is dark, and I ride my bike to uni and back in normal clothes, and I never have a problem being seen

You go to university? :lol:
- because I ride where people will see me / my lights

That's the answer! We must 'ride where people can see us'. A special elevated cyclepath perhaps (being trialled in N.London) for diehard fops whose stylish edginess is expressed in their dark gear and Gok Wan frames.
(1 flashing / 1 solid, front and rear - sometimes even with flashing light on the helmet too - pretty hard to miss if you ask me!) :) [/i]

We will wear rotating lights on our heads if it will preserve our right to wear the ninja outfit (highlighted with jaunty charcoal sections).

Emotive defensiveness? Modish outfits? Mostly men who are exercised? Really, you should try addressing the arguments rather than attacking the people making them.

"You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact" Is simply not true, like a lot of 'common sense' arguments, it fails at the first test of analysing what it actually means: What is meant by "seen better"?

In real-world cycling terms, "seen better" does not mean "In contrived tests can be picked out from the background by someone expecting the task and paying attention", it means "Will attract the attention of people who are (usually driving and) paying more attenton to what is going on inside their heads than what is going on around them".

Both anecdotal experience and research based evidence are against your statement:
I like many here have been 'completely overlooked' by drivers when wearing significant amounts of reflectives, hi-viz and lights. Others - particularly drivers, frequently report 'seeing dark-dressed cyclists without lights' - what is worrying is that the people reporting this stem from the same population as the drivers who 'overlook' hi-viz, which may be just too common nowadays to be noticeable. It's a similar effect to the gorilla experiment - gorillas are not common in basket-ball games, but what people are not looking for they frequently fail to see (not notice - see!).
Others have already provided links to research which demonstrates that hi-viz makes no difference to close passes (what really matters is how drivers react rather than whether they've seen you 300 yards away - and then forgotten about you). Additionally TRL research has recently collated previous findings and putting them into context*, found
TRL wrote:The results are interesting in that they show the previously held assertion that a bright reflective jacket will improve rider conspicuity may not always be true ...

[T]he message seems to be that the most conspicuous outfit will be dictated by the lighting conditions and local environment at the time, which may be extremely variable within the confines of even a fairly short ride.

So when people are telling you that black can be the best thing to be seen in and that yellow/orange (or worse multi-couloured bright clothing which breaks up your shape) can be worse, they have the backing of the Transport Research Laboratory.

* The easiest link to this is http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... luorescent
Tonyf33
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by Tonyf33 »

Hahahaha, the most hilarious post of the month, you couldn't make it up, even funnier that the author is seemingly serious about everything they wrote..oh dear, more emotive defensiveness indeed and not a single factoid or shred of evidence in sight..2/10 8) :lol:
brizgazelle wrote:Oh dear! A lot of emotive defensiveness here. Perhaps the OP might have been worded better - I really don't think he/she was apportioning anything like equal blame or 'blaming the victim' (thus we get the Pavlovian response of short skirt = rape false equivalence). :roll: Also I think banning clothing or making clothing compulsory is a bit much, if well-intentioned.

That said, cycle safety is not a zero-sum political game. Any cyclist involved in an accident in similar circumstances to the OP can contribute significantly to the fact by not_being_seen_as_well_as_they_might_have_done_had_they_chosen_a_less_modish_outfit. You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact. And here sadly. gentlemen (and I suspect it is, mostly men who are excercised on this issue) is where the source of a large part of defensiveness on this matter lies: it's the pass where one fellow has thrown 250-plus quid for a designer outfit (prob designed by a non-cyclist) in 'urban' (i.e. dark) colours and it's going to be worn (and black is both mysterious and slimming) come hell or high water. It's the equivalent of the black coupe for visibility and the inadequate man's vanity boost. You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.

For entertainment, some vacuity which was posted up-thread:
[i
I don't own any Hi-viz clothing. I think it looks absolutely daft.

Irrefutable argument, Rita.
Road position and effective bike lights are much better at making other road users aware that you are there.

No, they can contribute to overall safety. Saying they are 'much better' is a fallacious or non-statement which will hardly serve to bolster any anti-HV clothing manifesto. As for 'road position?' What does that even mean?
Most of my cycle clothing is dark, and I ride my bike to uni and back in normal clothes, and I never have a problem being seen

You go to university? :lol:
- because I ride where people will see me / my lights

That's the answer! We must 'ride where people can see us'. A special elevated cyclepath perhaps (being trialled in N.London) for diehard fops whose stylish edginess is expressed in their dark gear and Gok Wan frames.
(1 flashing / 1 solid, front and rear - sometimes even with flashing light on the helmet too - pretty hard to miss if you ask me!) :) [/i]

We will wear rotating lights on our heads if it will preserve our right to wear the ninja outfit (highlighted with jaunty charcoal sections).
Vinko
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by Vinko »

Well, how about this for a solution then...

http://youtu.be/wEEVWNIhNuo

:D
drossall
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by drossall »

We may be going in circles here. We've already talked about the AA's admission that it's not (always) about hi-vis but about eliciting a reaction.
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by Vorpal »

brizgazelle wrote:Oh dear! A lot of emotive defensiveness here. Perhaps the OP might have been worded better - I really don't think he/she was apportioning anything like equal blame or 'blaming the victim' (thus we get the Pavlovian response of short skirt = rape false equivalence). :roll: Also I think banning clothing or making clothing compulsory is a bit much, if well-intentioned.

That said, cycle safety is not a zero-sum political game. Any cyclist involved in an accident in similar circumstances to the OP can contribute significantly to the fact by not_being_seen_as_well_as_they_might_have_done_had_they_chosen_a_less_modish_outfit. You can be seen better with bright clothing -- that is an incontrovertible fact. And here sadly. gentlemen (and I suspect it is, mostly men who are excercised on this issue) is where the source of a large part of defensiveness on this matter lies: it's the pass where one fellow has thrown 250-plus quid for a designer outfit (prob designed by a non-cyclist) in 'urban' (i.e. dark) colours and it's going to be worn (and black is both mysterious and slimming) come hell or high water. It's the equivalent of the black coupe for visibility and the inadequate man's vanity boost. You dress for cycling, first and foremostly, according to practical safety considerations; fashion sense should come way behind.

For entertainment, some vacuity which was posted up-thread...


Please don't make assumptions about the sex (or gender, if you prefer) of others on the forum, and please don't insult us. If I had seen this post earlier, I would have removed or edited it. However, there has been a fair amount of (mostly) reasonable response, so I will leave it.

As it happens I am a woman. And I also dress for cycling. I don't have any modish outfits, but clothing that is comfortable for commuting, cycling with children, and adverse conditions. My most expensive bit of clothing is an £89 EBC hi vis jacket (unless you count the hiking boots I usually cycle to work in).

That said, I'm largely in agreement that it is victim-blaming to implicate the cyclist in an accident like that described in the OP. When I drive from sun to shade, whether it is into a tunnel, or just shady lane, I *expect* to have a moment of substantially reduced visibility, so I slow down so I have plenty of time to stop. Bright colours don't always help. I've seen a bright yellow jersey be effective camoflage on a sun-dappled lane when spring green is coming in. I've also seen black stand out better than day glow colours against a snowy background.

If you want people to adopt anything on the basis of safety, there should be some evidence that it does, in fact, improve safety.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: A Plea for BRIGHT Clothing

Post by [XAP]Bob »

I don't even recognise the word modish.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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