Why does ‘cyclist wearing dark clothing' exist as a contributory factor in KSIs

[PDQ Mobile]

How about the "modification" of behaviour be aligned with the danger presented?

What do you suggest?

I've linked on one or both of the running 'hi vis' topics a link to https://pyoraliitto.fi/wp-content/uploa ... safety.pdf this presentation.

One the illustrations that I especially like is Marjut Ollitervo_1RS.jpg

This shows where we currently put the responsibility for the safety of vulnerable users, and where the risk is from. Ideally, we should do more to separate vulnerable users from the origins of risk. Failing that, speed limits should always be low where they have to share.

Anything is a help to other road users.

Anything is a help? Jumping up & down and waving my arms about is more likely to attract notice than many other preventive things. Should I go about all the time, jumping up & down and waving my arms? Or perhaps I should just not go out. That certainly helps other road users, even if it will harm my health. Or maybe I should drive, instead of walking or cycling. That's a help in some ways, but of course, it makes more pollution. Yes, of course my answers are sarcastic, but these campaigns to 'be seen, be safe' are literally making it my responsibility. It's not. it never should be.

And it will save your life, potentially.

Save my life? really? There is plenty of evidence that folks in reflective stuff can be seen from further away at night. No evidence that it results in lives saved.

With respect I didn't really mean jumping up and own waving arms. It is a rather difficult action to perform on a bicycle!!
Although I suspect a pedestrian might well benefit esp. if armed with a torch.

I certainly waved a torch at fast approaching traffic last week. There was a man lying in the road. It was pitch dark and foggy.
And do you know what, I succeeded in getting the traffic to slow down -right down.

[PDQ Mobile]

...
That not all drivers are as supremely competent as "Alaninwales" is sadly a fact of life.

What I described (and what I am) is not "supremely competent", but the bare minimum that all drivers are supposed to be trained to and abide by: To maintain due care and attention on driving a potentially lethal machine, ensuring that there is no-one in the path of that machine. It's quite a simple and basic test.

Older drivers (and others have less than 20/20 vision. Oncoming lights momentarily lead to reduced vision.
Rain and mist always reduce visibility at night.

At which time the driver apples the basic test of "Can I see my path to be clear?" and slows sufficiently to ensure that they do not pass through any space that they have not seen to be clear.

And there are a fair few really bad and dangerous drivers.

Who should be banned from driving. Since there are so many bad and dangerous drivers that my feat of driving 20 miles on a grey, misty night without collision is described as "supremely competent", why is there no campaign to remove all of them from our roads? Why is that not a better solution than trying to get every other user of the roads to dress up in weird colours (which must be "hi-viz" but not blend into the background of "hi-viz" road furniture, trees and eventually wildlife)?

To assume the driver involved here is one such and a "criminal" is assuming in the other direction much of the same as what I stand accused of by you.

To be aware of risk is normally to mitigate it.

Which is what every driver should be doing: Mitigating the risk of driving over someone by ensuring the path they will drive their machine over is clear of obstruction. Are you telling us that you don't apply this test? That you cannot?

It was not your feat of driving 20 miles that I described as supremely confident. I did it myself just yesterday and last week.
But rather an inference that a great many drivers are constantly at fault.
And that you never make a mistake.

((It is difficult to ascertain the magnitude of our collective feats without viewing the roads in question.))

Quote from you upthread.
"I am aware that some people are challenged in regard to their ability to concentrate sufficiently to perform such a feat . It now seems that their potential victims all bear responsibility to drag these people's attention back to the task in hand (driving safely) from wherever it has wandered. Personally I am old-fashioned enough to believe still that these people have no inherent right to be driving."

What had I said was that there is a responsibility on all public road users to share in the making of the highway a safer place.

The motor vehicle is a fact of life.
Some drivers are better than others.
Not all are supremely competent.
Just ok.
Some people are better at one thing, some better at others.

Some cyclists are better than others.IMV.
But to camouflage oneself on dark rural roads is less than wise.


But hey as I said upthread it's a free country- more or less.

[Ellieb]

If you call it fishing, you're clearly not here for an honest debate. Bit sad, but you won't be the last to do so.

[and your answer to the first statement is very bizarre - good luck with that approach ]

Well, I am here for an honest debate, but you have quite clearly worded those questions in such a way for a reason. You were clearly hoping for a particular answer, I'm not entirely sure what that answer is, so I've just replied in the unlikely event that someone would come out with the second statement. Should I have said to the first statement. 'Thanks for that, but the council has a statutory responsibility to maintain the roads to a safe standard so I'll just ignore the potholes?'

[mjr]

Ok.
In reply to "mjr.".

A reply avoiding quoting, which avoids setting off notifications - maybe in the hope that it will not be seen? Why avoid making your reply more visible? Camouflage in the hope it will keep it safe from logic?

I have a simple Aldi single LED well bright enough on miles of narrow and unlit lanes to see and be seen well.

If your eyes are fine but you couldn't see people walking three abreast, then the light is not quite good enough to see with IMO. Unlike Lidl, I don't think Aldi here have sold any decent to-see-with lights in many years.

It is dead straight, a mile long, totally unlit and commences with a gentle downhill for 20 or 30 meters. So one gains a good lick -perhaps 17mph.
And one has just left street lighting so eyes are not fully adjusted to the full dark.
At the far end away are the not bright lights of a railway yard.
Most folk carry a light.
IMV wisely.

Maybe it's wise, but is that only because idiot cyclists are riding blind dangerously fast in the belief that other users will carry marker lights?

I am used to unlit peds on the route and I have always seen them up to now!
One keeps one's light "dipped" so to speak because of oncoming others.

Dipped? That makes it sounds like it's a torch-like round beam with its bright centre pointed too close to the front wheel to enable you to see a good way ahead.

However the point is, and you don't seem to grasp it, is that they were hard to see.
Harder than needs be.
Not so tragic on a bike but deadly in some other situations.

I grasp that you feel they could/should be festooned with marker lights and reflective things. I don't grasp that they were hard to see in and of themselves. For example, I seriously doubt that they were any harder to see than the road which you should be able to see is clear before riding onto it - but I've had this sort of conversation with other riders on here before and some will simply never accept that riding into a large unlit object is always at least partly their blame, unless it's some sort of booby-trap that has been concealed - and people are not booby-traps and merely not being festooned is not concealment.

[...summary of experience, then...] Do not call my cycling competence into question because I hold a different opinion of the issue of being visible.

No, I call your cycling competence into question because you seem to be riding blind at 17mph into dark lanes! I do not accept so-called "proof by appeal to authority".

[mattheus]

How about the "modification" of behaviour be aligned with the danger presented?

We went through this at length in the "Black..." theread earlier this month.

PDQ danced around and about it, but consistently avoided addressing this very simple point.

Always happy to address a specific point.
Maybe you should write exactly the point in question and not insinuate vacuous stuff.

I have a full and busy life.
I cannot remember what you describe.
Pop it on and we'll look.

OK.
I've put it in bold. Just wanted to show that Vorpal is one of many to make this point. I'll rephrase it a little, might be helpful:

Many of us think that the road-user creating most of the danger should make most of the effort to reduce this danger.

What do you think?

[Ellieb]

Whether they should or not is beyond doubt. But they don’t: Given that state of affairs as a cyclist I have the option of attempting to mitigate the risk, or do nothing ‘because I’m not the one responsible for the creation of the risk’
Do I leave my front door unlocked because it’s the burglar who is the one breaking the law?

[Mike Sales]

Whether they should or not is beyond doubt. But they don’t: Given that state of affairs as a cyclist I have the option of attempting to mitigate the risk, or do nothing ‘because I’m not the one responsible for the creation of the risk’
Do I leave my front door unlocked because it’s the burglar who is the one breaking the law?

You might be a bit annoyed if the only perceptible police anti-burglar activity was remind you to lock your door.

[mattheus]

Whether they should or not is beyond doubt. But they don’t: Given that state of affairs as a cyclist I have the option of attempting to mitigate the risk, or do nothing ‘because I’m not the one responsible for the creation of the risk’

But PDQ won't comment on that, and all his (extensive) posts suggest we should SHARE the responsibility. Have you read his account of an injured cyclist lying in the road? My post wasn't about "what is the best mitigation of this risk?." Pick someone else to argue that with.

[Ellieb]

You might be a bit annoyed if the only perceptible police anti-burglar activity was remind you to lock your door.

I’m sure you would.
On the other hand, what if you took note of their advice & it prevented you from being burgled?

[Mike Sales]

You might be a bit annoyed if the only perceptible police anti-burglar activity was remind you to lock your door.

I’m sure you would.
On the other hand, what if you took note of their advice & it prevented you from being burgled?

It might work, but then again, perhaps he then jemmied the door, or broke a window? Rather like Hiviz or lights. Preventing the danger in the first place would be better. Catch the burglar, or deter him with a bobby on the beat.

[Ellieb]

It might work, but then again, perhaps he then jemmied the door, or broke a window? Rather like Hiviz or lights. Preventing the danger in the first place would be better.

Yes. That's the point. It doesn't guarantee that the bad thing won't happen. There might well be more effective ways of preventing it happening. However it does reduce the ways in which the burglar can get in so that sometimes you won't get burgled when you otherwise would've done. Rather like Hiviz or lights.
It's about risk reduction.

[Mike Sales]

It might work, but then again, perhaps he then jemmied the door, or broke a window? Rather like Hiviz or lights. Preventing the danger in the first place would be better.

Yes. That's the point. It doesn't guaraantee that the bad thing won't happen. However it does reduce the ways in which the burglar can get in so that sometimes you won't get burgled when you otherwise would've done. Rather like Hiviz or lights.
It's about risk reduction.

The point under discussion was that police advice is confined to only one method of risk reduction. They advise the victims to protect themselves (though there is no good evidence hiviz works) but neglect to take the action which it is their job to take. They do not even bother to remind drivers of HC 126.
That motors pose danger to others is taken as a given. If police made no effort to deter burglars I think householders would be outraged.

[Ellieb]

The point under discussion was that police advice is confined to only one method of risk reduction. They advise the victims to protect themselves (though there is no good evidence hiviz works) but neglect to take the action which it is their job to take. They do not even bother to remind drivers of HC 126.
That motors pose danger to others is taken as a given. If police made no effort to deter burglars I think householders would be outraged.
Top

If we go back to the OP: this was about dark clothing being a contributory factor, not the sole or indeed most important factor. Furthermore the contributory aspect does not necessarily mean imply responsibility, which a lot of people on here seem to infer. Ultimately nobody is perfect, even in something like aviation, which is highly regulated, has people who are subject to detailed selection , extensively trained & who have the benefits of protective automation, people still do not perform exactly as they should. It is no surprise that safety on the roads is considerably worse.
You can argue whether pdq is cycling safely or not, but the fact is that in making the case that he isn't you are tacitly accepting that a lack of lights along with his (alleged) poor cycling means that there is a greater risk of collision than if people were well lit up.
EDIT Any collision that did take place in the scenario above might well be the cyclist's fault, but the lack of lights contributed to it.

[Mike Sales]

The point under discussion was that police advice is confined to only one method of risk reduction. They advise the victims to protect themselves (though there is no good evidence hiviz works) but neglect to take the action which it is their job to take. They do not even bother to remind drivers of HC 126.
That motors pose danger to others is taken as a given. If police made no effort to deter burglars I think householders would be outraged.
Top

If we go back to the OP: this was about dark clothing being a contributory factor, not the sole or indeed most important factor. Furthermore the contributory aspect does not necessarily mean imply responsibility, which a lot of people on here seem to infer. Ultimately nobody is perfect, even in something like aviation, which is highly regulated, has people who are subject to detailed selection , extensively trained & who have the benefits of protective automation, people still do not perform exactly as they should. It is no surprise that safety on the roads is considerably worse.
You can argue whether pdq is cycling safely or not, but the fact is that in making the case that he isn't you are tacitly accepting that a lack of lights along with his (alleged) poor cycling means that there is a greater risk of collision than if people were well lit up.
EDIT Any collision that did take place in the scenario above might well be the cyclist's fault, but the lack of lights contributed to it.

And my point is that all the effort is put into getting cyclists into hiviz. When the same weight is given to trying to make drivers take more care we might well find it more effective.
You point out that much effort goes into regulating pilots. It might be that we should put more effort into making sure drivers are fit to drive.
Eyesight would seem to be a useful factor to look at in the problem we are discussing. The eyesight test drivers have to pass is trivial, and has not changed since the thirties and has no scientific basis. Roadside test show that between one and two million drivers could not pass it. It does not test for peripheral vision. Eyesight deteriorates with age, but no effort is put into checking older drivers. Night blindness is another, untested factor. One estimate is that one in five drivers suffers from low luminance myopia.

I have not discussed pdq's case.

There is great effort put into helping drivers see hazards on the road. Reflectors, cats' eyes, chevrons etc. Drivers come to expect that they can drive faster, with less attention, because of this. "Safety" improvements are inevitably consumed as performance improvements. This is why it is a futile chase, and we are victims of this approach.
Like the fat tenor in the insurance advert, everything will work out fine, so long as you have insurance.

[Ellieb]

It might be that we should put more effort into making sure drivers are fit to drive.

Yes we should. However even if it improved safety, it would still be the case that there would be incidents when 'cyclist wearing dark clothing' contributed to an RTC.... because, as with pilots, no driver is perfect. (& you would still get nowhere near the level of scrutiny/regulation that aviation has)