PDQ Mobile wrote:It is a simple statement of fact that of you walk enough on narrow unpavemented rural roads on a dark nights with dark clothing and no torch then you will eventually one day die.
It is that simple.
And many have died.
With a pedestrian's back to the traffic on a wet dark night and with a car coming the other way it is very hard for a driver to pick out the pedestrian.
I guess this obvious and genuine risk transposes over into a dark cyclist to some extent. Though obviously a cyclist will have a front light at least.
I am not a wearer of hi viz.
But I wear something "cheery" and always have reasonable lights at night with some bits of reflective stuff too. Not masses of reflective but something to give a driver a fair crack at seeing one.
Daytime is less clear cut.
But it used to be said yellow vehicles were safer than grey or fawn.
Where is your evidence, so far the actual real life facts not guesswork prove that people in hi-vis etc are not magically protected, in the mean time due to forcing these safety aids the focus of attention is taken away from those doing the harm. We saw this instantly in Aiustralia post helmet rules.
cycling and pedestrian injury/death rates were coming down, there was a spate of police interventions on speeding motorists just before the helmet rules were brought in, post helmet laws that stopped, the focus was on cyclists not wearing helmets/ Not only did the KSI rate go up significantly for cyclists it went up massively more than for pedestrians, the cycling numbers fell through the floor due to the rule and it's never recovered. Even now in the last few years cycling as a rate has gone backward numerically and yet is more dangerous, impossible given the safety aid they force on their citizens comparing 1985/86 to 2011 cycling in Queensland dropped by 70%, NSW 36% and so on, only Tasmania saw an increase in cycling between these periods. Even one of the more recent studies in Australia says that hi-vis is a load of balony, if the ockers are saying it then it must be true given their love in for helmets!
UK has since helmets and hi-vis have become a thing have seen MORE KSIs of people on bikes, best case scenario if you massage the figures you get a falling rate that is significantly LESS than pedestrians who do not wear helmets or hi-vis (anywhere near like that for those in bikes). Even motorcyclists have fared better in terms of safety rates in the period where these so called safety aids have increased in numbers, that's despite the cycle ways in London and elsewhere, better junction design, that's despite zero increase in cycling journeys across the country!
The facts simply do not support your notion that going about in black on a black night compared to wearing hi-vis and a helmet means you have an increased chance of being killed, this is an outright fallacy.
That the facts also show us that police and other organisations discriminate on the back of zero evidence, using the excuse of 'wearing dark clothing' to let off motorists who are breaking the law and ignoring one of the most important rules in the HC, this means that matters will not improve, they haven't improved despite the increases in wearing of hi-vis and helmets and yet KSI reporting STATS19 will still blame cyclists for not wearing when we know it does not make an iota of difference on the road and erodes away rights and freedoms whilst taking focus away from those doing the harm.