GCSE Project - Hi-Vis / Safety

[Cunobelin]

The problem will always exist, and as long as we limit the questions to the same old answers then there will nothing new new.

Maybe above this level, but until people stop applying sticking plasters (reflectors, hi-viz, ank.e straps reflective gloves etc , and starts looking at why so many drivers fail to see or respond appropriately to these "safety solutions", we will be stuck in the same revolving door forever

t is unfortunate thatches project needs a physical object as an answer.... an educational pack for driver on how to react to cyclists would be a brilliant outcome

[parody]

Humans eyesight is tuned to detecting relative motion (being predators). Just think how easy where's wally would be if he was waving at you. So how about a light or other high vis accessory which spins or shakes side to side while flashing enough to "jump" out at the motorist.maybe even only starts and stops when it detects a car.

Reflective or hi-vis ankles, perhaps?

Too slow and regular to draw attention, although I'm sure yours move pretty fast

[pedals2slowly]

Hi StinkinMo,
As an ex-DT teacher I apologise for some of the content of some of the previous posts, if you understand it, you can use loads of it for your research part of the project.
If you want to stick to textiles then research 'conspicuity', what are the best colours, contrast against other parts of the garment or background, reflective strips etc. ideas - incorporating LED's, what about a microswitch that turns on amber LED's in the appropriate arm as you signal?
Conspicuity could give loads of opportunity for drawing, graphic design examining what is the most effective garment colouring and design.
If you are keen on electronics I've always wondered about piezoelectric cells in saddles or maybe pedals/cycling shoes that flash LED's in the seat post or elsewhere. (Like those flashing kids trainers)
Ideas for resistant materials have been described above - the 'give me space' arm or what about flags or lights on a pole? What could you incorporate inside a standard bicycle wheel to make cyclists more visible? Lights? Something moving, powered by the wind as the wheel rotates?

Get down to your local cycling club and you'll find loads of ideas.

best of luck!

[[XAP]Bob]

Hi StinkinMo,
As an ex-DT teacher I apologise for some of the content of some of the previous posts, if you understand it, you can use loads of it for your research part of the project.
If you want to stick to textiles then research 'conspicuity', what are the best colours, contrast against other parts of the garment or background, reflective strips etc. ideas - incorporating LED's, what about a microswitch that turns on amber LED's in the appropriate arm as you signal?
Conspicuity could give loads of opportunity for drawing, graphic design examining what is the most effective garment colouring and design.
If you are keen on electronics I've always wondered about piezoelectric cells in saddles or maybe pedals/cycling shoes that flash LED's in the seat post or elsewhere. (Like those flashing kids trainers)
Ideas for resistant materials have been described above - the 'give me space' arm or what about flags or lights on a pole? What could you incorporate inside a standard bicycle wheel to make cyclists more visible? Lights? Something moving, powered by the wind as the wheel rotates?

Get down to your local cycling club and you'll find loads of ideas.

best of luck!

It's a shame there doesn't seem to a mechanism to generate marks with a 'we looked at this and actually it addresses a problem that doesn't exist - or addresses a problem from the wrong angle entirely'. So you end up having sunk an amount of time into a project which has nowhere real to go, so you just make up survey data (I assume all survey data at that age is made up, mine certainly was) and design something that is, basically, pointless...

Beyond a pretty low threshold (that of 'visible from without braking distance') there is no real improvement to be made. It doesn't actually matter if you can spot a cyclist from 37 miles away, and indeed there is a train of thought that being spotted from that far away can be detrimental (because the driver has had ample opportunity to dismiss and forget you by the time they arrive).
Similarly if a driver doesn't look, or doesn't look properly, there is nothing you can wear that will help (other than 1 ton or more of steel and glass).

On Saturday I was driving and pulled up to a roundabout alongside a lorry. The lorry pulled away and was replaced by a car, but I wasn't able to (IIRC the car in front of me was a bit tardy, so I opted to err on the side of caution and stopped at the entrance to the roundabout), it's a busy roundabout and my attention was on the traffic to my right, with half an eye dead ahead to check that my exit lane was clear.
When a gap appeared I started to move into it, and my attention was brought fully forward, at which point I saw the motorcyclist who had, quite reasonably, filtered to my left (where there had been an HGV until recently). I changed my line (because I knew I had space on my right) and reduced speed to make sure that there was no conflict.

But the rider was dressed like a flipping lemon. I hadn't seen them because I hadn't been looking in that direction. There is nothing they could have worn (or not worn) that would have made me see them earlier (except maybe a foghorn).

[De Sisti]

I hadn't seen them because I hadn't been looking in that direction. There is nothing they could have worn (or not worn) that would have made me see them earlier (except maybe a foghorn).

DON'T JUST GLANCE , move your head to look left, right, and ahead more than once.

[Cugel]

It's a shame there doesn't seem to a mechanism to generate marks with a 'we looked at this and actually it addresses a problem that doesn't exist - or addresses a problem from the wrong angle entirely'. So you end up having sunk an amount of time into a project which has nowhere real to go, so you just make up survey data (I assume all survey data at that age is made up, mine certainly was) and design something that is, basically, pointless...

Here you recognise an endemic problem with all education since time immemorial - it necessarily focusses on the unquestioned assumptions of the day as the basis for generating everything else in the educational schema. As history demonstrates, there have been huge schools of thought and practice that were basically delusional, for centuries. The schoolmen of the middle ages are infamous for having spent huge amounts of time and effort getting the educational establishments of the day to discuss "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin".

In this day and age, the problem is even more difficult, since there are hundreds of competing world views to choose from. Once upon a time we would only have known about the world view bandied about the village, generally imposed by the local church or other religious institution who owned "learning" and "The Truth". But now the interweb and other organs of the mass media present us with many, many alternative descriptions of reality, usually with hundreds of contesting or even mutually exclusive basic "truths".

Even that bastion of "objectivity" the scientific method is prone to this syndrome of delusional "truth", despite part of the basic scientific method being, supposedly, the recognition that there is no absolute truth, only a best-understanding of the moment. In practice, as Thomas Kuhn illustrated in his fine wee book ....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Structure-Scie ... evolutions

..... science too is subject to the utter subjectivity of humans and the various influences of the wider cultures in which it's practiced.

*****************

So, the OP has been given some assumptions regarded by many (most) as basic and "obvious truth": cyclists must make themselves more visible to inattentive motorists. We would prefer another basic truth - motorists and cars are dangerous things that should be used with more care and controls, with serious penalties for not doing so.

As with all ideologies and religions, you will struggle to establish your preferred small-believer-numbers truth against the everyone-believes this-so-it-must-be-the-case truth.

Cugel, holding yet another set of queer truths.

[[XAP]Bob]

I hadn't seen them because I hadn't been looking in that direction. There is nothing they could have worn (or not worn) that would have made me see them earlier (except maybe a foghorn).

DON'T JUST GLANCE , move your head to look left, right, and ahead more than once.

It's not that I glanced and didn't see them. I didn't look to my left at all.

In fairness to me, I can't move directly left, so don't really need to look in that direction very much. I also took off at a speed where I had checked the road ahead of me... The motorcyclist was in-between the two lanes of traffic, and so in a relatively small gap, he had enough space... barely. I moved to give him more (because I'd have been uncomfortable in that space, it wasn't (IMHO) guaranteed to stay open from either side.

Today there was a motorcyclist whom I saw approaching from the rear, there was another car behind me. As we approached a roundabout I was taking the RH lane, and actively checked for the m'cyclist on approach - good thing, he was (as I had anticipated) filtering past. He was further through the manoeuvre than I had predicted though - still, I knew I had space to my right to move into, did and received a 'hand raise' of thanks.
He was dressed all in black, so clearly must have been invisible, despite the fact that I saw him, in my rear view mirror, from many tens of yards away...

[pedals2slowly]

It has very little to do with HiViz and "Safety" products : much more to do with the attitudes and behaviour of road users - cyclists and especially those in control of motor vehicles.

Beware these sort of cyclists, they probably ride around in black Alpaca jackets and still expect everyone to see them in low light levels.....................

[NUKe]

Quite disappointing really you had someone 14 to 15 years old looking for a project to do with cycling and you lot bickering about the rights and wrongs has as usual frightened them off. He was looking for something to design and build. It wasn’t a PhD student looking to write a thesis. It wasn’t somebody looking to survey you on the rights and wrongs of conspicuity, just a young person looking for a project for DT, something to make.

[Cunobelin]

Quite disappointing really you had someone 14 to 15 years old looking for a project to do with cycling and you lot bickering about the rights and wrongs has as usual frightened them off. He was looking for something to design and build. It wasn’t a PhD student looking to write a thesis. It wasn’t somebody looking to survey you on the rights and wrongs of conspicuity, just a young person looking for a project for DT, something to make.

So given that any discussion of the merits and demerits of H-Viz is wrong, what should have been done...... everyone answer "Hi-Viz is stunningly brilliant, if you wear it it will guarantee your safety"?

[Cugel]

Quite disappointing really you had someone 14 to 15 years old looking for a project to do with cycling and you lot bickering about the rights and wrongs has as usual frightened them off. He was looking for something to design and build. It wasn’t a PhD student looking to write a thesis. It wasn’t somebody looking to survey you on the rights and wrongs of conspicuity, just a young person looking for a project for DT, something to make.

When I was 14 to 15, my education generally consisted of learning rotes and various potted "truths". In practice, my generation (being of the 50s and 60s) was highly suspicious of any and all authorities, so tended to regard the rotes (especially the history and civics rotes) as somewhat questionable.

Are yoofs today so delicate that they can't deal with contentious views and vigorous arguments? Perhaps they have all been coddled and can no longer deal with the cut & thrust of real human society, so must be kept in a safe classroom with fluffy seats and a felicitous teacher? I think not!

Learning is about coming to understand stuff you didn't understand before, particularly the nature and resilience of your current assumptions. Well, it is outside the dogma schools of the various faiths and the brainwasher schools found in various dictatorships. Even two year-olds can do it, if allowed to.

Cugel

[NUKe]

Quite disappointing really you had someone 14 to 15 years old looking for a project to do with cycling and you lot bickering about the rights and wrongs has as usual frightened them off. He was looking for something to design and build. It wasn’t a PhD student looking to write a thesis. It wasn’t somebody looking to survey you on the rights and wrongs of conspicuity, just a young person looking for a project for DT, something to make.

So given that any discussion of the merits and demerits of H-Viz is wrong, what should have been done...... everyone answer "Hi-Viz is stunningly brilliant, if you wear it it will guarantee your safety"?

I really don't think this young person needed a lecture on the merits of hiviz, they wanted something to make in DT. It used to be a lamp or table in my day. you are not telling the world to wear hiviz at this point.

If this had been post grad research or as so many of the Surveys we see on here are undergrad research I would say fair game. Particularly Post grad research counts it is used. But Someone at 14 years old just wants a project to make. It is more about the materials and the technology at this point in their scholastic careers.

What should have been done a few suggestions of things to look at that can be built either materials or electronics

[meic]

and the general public should not interfere by exposing the surrounding (normally retrofitted) design process as a mere charade rather than a bona fida process.

[[XAP]Bob]

It has very little to do with HiViz and "Safety" products : much more to do with the attitudes and behaviour of road users - cyclists and especially those in control of motor vehicles.

Beware these sort of cyclists, they probably ride around in black Alpaca jackets and still expect everyone to see them in low light levels.....................

Beware comments like this - otherwise you'll never move in London for all those inconsiderate and invisible businessmen hiding in black suits as they walk to work in the morning...

The colour of a jacket doesn't make someone invisible - Particularly not when they are riding a bike, which would have a variety of reflectors and lights.
Also be careful about those unlit kerbs, trees, cows, concrete blocks, bridges etc...



As for a Design project - one of the key aspects when I was at school was identifying something useful to design. Probably why most 'surveys' consisted of made up data (if it was good enough for Mendel)