I agree. We live in the real world though where some people drive faster than they should. I'm taking the message I'd rather be seen sooner rather than later. If being seen sooner doesn't matter to you then that is your choice which you are free to make.
Sadly, I also agree with you, but I think you miss the crux of my point, and you'll see from my other post that I do (often) wear hi vis/reflectives, my point is that we (as in society/campaigns etc.) shouldn't be talking about how reflectives make it easier to be seen, we should be pushing the point about looking and observing, and changing behaviour to suit conditions.
eg:
We live in the real world though where some people drive faster than they should
And yet
most campaigns seem to be about asking other people to mitigate that risk, not about tackling the danger inducing behaviour of the people doing things they shouldn't.
The kind of people who are observing properly are also unlikely to be barrelling along at 60 and will likely spot people lit or otherwise, the kind of people who barrel along at 60 oblivious to the risk are exactly the kind of people who will fail to see (or look for) you regardless of what you're wearing.
The emphasis should not be on making
everyone else become more visible, as this slowly erodes (even at a subconscious level) the level of responsibility required of the driver, it should be about the people piloting motorised vehicles driving to conditions, observing and quite frankly simply not driving into people.
I really don't put much faith in hi-vis, it makes things visible a little sooner for those looking, but it does little to make people who are not looking notice those same things, people are plenty visibile enough to those who look properly, which is why i think any campaigns should focus on the looking, not the visibility of things you are looking for. Reflectives are a little better, but they will only work when your lights are pointing at them, ie: when you're behind, they don't do much for being spotted when pulling out of junctions etc.
In fact, it would be much better if the message that was hammered home to drivers was "sometimes stuff can be hard to see, look properly and slow down if necessary" rather than the current focus of "make sure you're lit up like and xmas tree as drivers often aren't looking where they're going!" or both if you must, but my real gripe is that the
emphasis and focus is lopsidedly biased in favour of drivers and puts undue responsiblity on others to 'not be hit' if you catch my drift? This is especially true in the media, and with reports of cyclists getting hit by drivers containing subtle messages like 'the cyclist was not wearing a helmet or high vis', the former is of no relevance to the collision and the latter subtly apportions blame in the mind of the reader.
One of the things that really gets people wound up round here (Dartmoor) is the number of sheep and other livestock killed on the moors each year. Generally line of sight is pretty good on open moorland, there are signs up saying 'beware of livestock' and 'drive slowly' etc. And yet still, every year there are many many sheep, sometimes ponies, and rarely a cow, killed by cars, how on earth does this happen??!!
Anyone driving across the moors has seen the signs, knows they are there, knows they can be unpredictable, and they are plenty visible enough, it is simply a combination of people driving too quickly and not paying enough attention, yet if you read the comments on some stories you will see some drivers complaining that the animals are 'loose' and shouldn't be allowed to wander across the roads! Perhaps we should spray paint the sheep bright yellow and attach flashing lights to them...
