Are you happy wearing black?

[awavey]

As an observation I was walking my dog this evening in my local park, there was no direct lighting and I wasn’t using a torch - so just using ‘night vision’. Coming towards me was a light/white coloured object which turned out to be part of a plastic carrier bag, the owner wasn’t visible and (when nearer) I eventually found that he was wearing all dark coloured clothing. It’s a straw poll result but, for me at least, it was a nice demonstration of the effect (potentially helpful visibility) of having a light/white item with you in the dark.

well youd hope the visibility is provided by lights, when its evening or in the dark.

[awavey]

its alot more slimming a colour for sure, which always makes me happy

it depends on the circumstance, I mean you can be riding on a road in the height of summer with the sun setting in front of you and regardless of what colour you are wearing, the driver behind will only see you in silhouette, ie black.

does wearing black make a difference at night, not really, because you should be riding with lights & reflectors anyway, though I see far too often many will ride with hi viz tops, but no lights, lights at night are not a choice imo.

in winter when its often overcast and dull during the day Ill always favour brighter tops, as much as to give me my own boost of mood than as a visual aid for others, though I recognise it helps to be visible on the roads, but it doesnt mean I go overboard and ride around like some luminous banana, even though you can buy such clothing, for those complaining only black is available, you need to look more closely at the options that are available.

but for me the issue has always been you can be as visible as you like, but youre still relying on people to look first, its when they dont that causes the problems, its not when they look but somehow cant see you because of your clothing.

[Audax67]

Last time I rode home in the pitch dark I had an 80 lux dyno light up front, set so as not to dazzle car drivers*, I was on the local shared path when a face suddenly appeared in the air two or three metres ahead. It turned out to be a runner in dark kit, whether black or blue or a fetching shade of deep fuchsia I couldn't say, I just know that the bloke's face was the only pale thing about him. I surmise that he had had his head down for some reason - fiddling with his watch, maybe - and had only just looked up.. Fortunately we both swerved to our respective rights** and nothing else happened, but it was an excellent object lesson on how not to dress in the dark. I hope he learnt it.

* hothouse plants who don't mind blinding us at their convenience
** ici on parle français.

[TrevA]

Last time I rode home in the pitch dark I had an 80 lux dyno light up front, set so as not to dazzle car drivers*, I was on the local shared path when a face suddenly appeared in the air two or three metres ahead. It turned out to be a runner in dark kit, whether black or blue or a fetching shade of deep fuchsia I couldn't say, I just know that the bloke's face was the only pale thing about him. I surmise that he had had his head down for some reason - fiddling with his watch, maybe - and had only just looked up.. Fortunately we both swerved to our respective rights** and nothing else happened, but it was an excellent object lesson on how not to dress in the dark. I hope he learnt it.

* hothouse plants who don't mind blinding us at their convenience
** ici on parle français.

There are quite a few night joggers where I live, but they seem a bit more “switched on”. They all wear hi-viz running vests and there’s a group of them that have front and rear LED lights attached to their jackets.

[Blondie]

My home is approached via an unlit lane.
When driving at night I sometimes encounter cyclists in dark clothing with no lights - I can get very close before they become visible.
Those in reflective clothing can be seen from a long way off even without lights.
Pedal reflectors are excellent.

It's a long time since the CTC lost it's fight against compulsory rear lights arguing that it was the responsibility of the overtaker to ensure safety.

Personally I will always endeavour to be as visible as possible.

You will only pick up reflectives if your car headlights are being reflected back at you. In which case you should be able to pick out non reflectives as well if paying attention.

I can see both but reflectives are visible at a longer distance.

]

Which may mean you’ve turned your attention to something else by the time you reach them.

[bjlabuk]

Interesting video by Derbyshire Police

https://www.facebook.com/derbyshirecons ... 744208000/

[drossall]

I can see both but reflectives are visible at a longer distance.

Which may mean you’ve turned your attention to something else by the time you reach them.

I think this is at least worth asking. I'd quite like to see a study in which motorists drive normally, passing various cyclists, and are asked afterwards how many they saw. The point would be to test whether they noticed better the cyclists with or without lights. Certainly the number who have obviously seen plenty of lit cyclists on a trip, but seem genuinely to believe that all cyclists were unlit, suggests that something is going on. Whether it's possible to be seen too early (when there's just more time to forget you) would be the next stage.

It's obvious that cyclists with lights and reflectives are more visible, but the aim is not to be visible, but to be seen. Being seen involves both parties - the cyclists in making themselves available to be seen, and the motorists not only in seeing them, but in reacting to their presence. There have been many comments about occasions when road users appeared to see others, but then to dismiss them from mind and proceed as though they had not been there.

I've come across alarming statistics, suggesting that the proportion of unlit cyclists involved in accidents is very low. That suggests either that all the talk of ninja cyclists is rubbish, or that lit cyclists are disproportionately likely to be hit - because unlit cyclists are so annoying to motorists that being unlit guarantees getting a useful reaction that outweighs the fact that seeing them was harder in the first place.

To stick to the original topic, I still won't be wearing black, and I still use good lights at night, because I'm not going to act on supposition. But I do think that the long history of:

• Cyclists need to do this to be more visible
• It's not working
• Cyclists need to do this too be more visible

of which the rear lights business was just the start suggests that something more sophisticated is needed.

[Audax67]

The famous selective attention test implies that no matter what we do we're on a bum steer.

Confession: I missed it first time through.

Observation: cars have so many doo-hickeys in them these days that a hefty portion of a driver's attention is diverted to using them. On my 1988 car I had a single lever for passenger-compartment air temperature and two more for distribution. They stuck out of the middle of the dash and I could find and set them without taking my eyes off the road. They worked perfectly. My current car has button to twist, and doing so lights up a screen with a number on it, and I then have to select the temperature I want to the nearest half-degree. To control the distribution I have to find a flat black button on a flat black panel, push it and then twist a knob until the arrows on the screen point where I want the air to go. In other words, the car I drove in the early 90's was a hell of a lot safer than the one I have now, and the one I have now weighs at least 25% more and is wider.

"Yes, officer, I realize I ran over that cyclist, but on the positive side the temperature in my car is much more comfortable now."

[Blondie]

There’s certainly something about yellow hiviz having less effect as you just appear to be road furniture. Plus of course yellow isn’t great against rape crops or the sun.

[drossall]

Also high is a relative term. Hi-vis is at its most effective when no-one else is wearing it. It's similar to the reasons why you get lighting arms races on the road.

[Rob D]

Whilst I favour drab colours when walking, I cannot understand any reluctance by cyclists to be visible. So many times, I've seen (just!) cyclists in colours such as grey or black, which just blend into the surroundings. It aeems to me to be accidentswaiting to happen.

We're just back from 7 weeks touring in Albania, Macedonia and mostly Greece. Greek car drivers especially were quite scary - we saw this first hand in a few taxi rides. Often on the phone, not concentrating. Their bigger roads often have a sort of hard shoulder, of varying widths - which can suddenly peter out. Cars etc are not allowed on them, but for cyclists, they're great. But we often found cars or trucks using them, apparently highly illegal. So if I'm on one of these, I want drivers who might be using them to see me from a long way off. FWIW, we used reflective vests almost all the time, and a flashing front light. This also helped alert oncoming overtakers. That way, we felt we'd done our utmost to be visible. Several tons of fast-moving steel vs me on a bike - it's a no-brainer IMO.

[mjr]

I've come across alarming statistics, suggesting that the proportion of unlit cyclists involved in accidents is very low. That suggests either that all the talk of ninja cyclists is rubbish, or that lit cyclists are disproportionately likely to be hit - because unlit cyclists are so annoying to motorists that being unlit guarantees getting a useful reaction that outweighs the fact that seeing them was harder in the first place.

I've seen that statistic too: unlit cyclists are underrepresented in collisions. Two other possible explanations are: that motorists expect cyclists to be unlit so they don't perceive cyclists with lights, like the so called invisible gorilla in the famous film. Alternatively, it's because cyclists with lights have a bad habit of thinking motorists see them, whereas those without lights ride more like nobody can see them and so give way to motorists even when they don't need to legally which saves them from the far too many collisions (left hooks, right crosses, T-bones, sideswipes, ...) where motorists ignore the rules of the road and usurp priority.

[drossall]

Whilst I favour drab colours when walking, I cannot understand any reluctance by cyclists to be visible.

I find this lack of understanding a bit inexplicable. Most cyclists, unlike those on this forum, are probably utility riders going somewhere. Exactly like most pedestrians. The obvious thing to wear is what is appropriate to where we are going (or what we were wearing anyway), with the possible addition of coats for warmth.

Utility travellers by foot, public transport, car or bike will naturally prefer to wear the obvious. We wear specific travel clothing instead either because we are travelling for the sake of it (sports and touring cyclists, for example), or because we feel compelled to do so by safety considerations. But it's fundamentally inconvenient to have to wear special clothing for a utility trip.

I cannot understand why you think people's mentality would change simply because of their mode of transport. Pedestrians, cyclists, transport passengers and motorists are often the same people making different travel choices on different occasions. Why would they then suddenly change behaviour for a single particular travel choice, and not for the others?

And yes, of course, I do wear hi vis, but I'm very aware that it's a special cycling thing when I'm just nipping down to the shops.

[Bmblbzzz]

The last time I wore hi-vis was to help bumpstart a car! Actually, it was my hi-vis but I didn't wear it; it was simply suggested that someone was needed to hold up the traffic (busy, narrow road, bad street lighting and obviously no car lighting) and as I lived closest (not my car though) and had a hi-vis, I ran back and got it.

[[XAP]Bob]

Whilst I favour drab colours when walking, I cannot understand any reluctance by cyclists to be visible.

Are you suggesting that cyclists are peculiarly invisible?

Wearing black doesn't make you invisible - particularly not when the vehicle you're riding has appropriate lighting.

Makes no difference to me, because I'm either completely enclosed, or the most of my clothing you can see is a touch of the shoulders around the sides of the seat.