Hi vis discussion thread (read post #1)

TheRiverman

Tenzor07 wrote: »

back into "George Hook" territory again...

No,common sense territory.

gctest50

magicbastarder wrote: »

here's one hypothetical scenario which would absolutely happen - people could get trapped in their own houses, only allowed leave them if they drive.
...............

How do motorcyclists manage ? no helmet - no drive ( legally)

flaneur

It's not a bad idea and I don't really see why people are always massively opposed to stuff like this.
it took years to get people in this country to wear seat belts and there are still some drivers who refuse to do so for some bizarre set of "reasons".

Ireland's got a lot of dull/damp weather and very long dark evenings due to the climate and latitude. It's also got plenty of low density quasi-urban areas with dull lighting and sub-optimal conditions for cycling.

The worst I've seen was a guy with no lights and cycling in a black wool coat. This was in Cork's suburbs and under orange sodium lighting. Whatever way the street lighting interacted with the fabric of the coat, it made him look almost invisible.

All you need is some kind of cheap, lightweight reflective bib type device and then people can actually see you without any issue.

Cars are much more visible than they used to be as many now have LED running lights and that's really helping in dull conditions.

A lot of road users: motorists, cyclists and pedestrians have no idea how invisible they are in certain Irish road conditions.

I also don't think it's always necessary to benchmark against what is the most lax continental European practice and assume it's perfect. I lived in Brussels and there were pretty regular near misses / accidents involving bikes due to lack of visibility.

It's also not the 'expert cyclist' who tends to be the issue here. It's the person who jumps on a bike and doesn't give a hoot about the rules of the road, whether they can be seen or not, the colour of traffic lights or anything else and you get quite a few of them around urban areas at the moment. Proper cycling training in schools would be helpful.

If Ireland has a high-vis rule, it actually puts us in a better position than most of our neighbours in terms of safety. I can't see that as a bad thing.

magicbastarder

gctest50 wrote: »

How do motorcyclists manage ? no helmet - no drive ( legally)

i don't see the corollary. driving a motorbike is a regulated, licenced activity which has a laundry list of prerequisites. we're talking about people being *able to walk outside their own houses in the dark*. it's head-melting.

magicbastarder

flaneur wrote: »

The worst I've seen was a guy with no lights and cycling in a black wool coat. This was in Cork's suburbs and under orange sodium lighting. Whatever way the street lighting interacted with the fabric of the coat, it made him look almost invisible.

i've highlighted the relevant bit here. he was already breaking the law.

flaneur

magicbastarder wrote: »

i've highlighted the relevant bit here. he was already breaking the law.

It's a fairly common occurrence in cities and I've yet to see anyone enforcing the law.

my3cents

I live in a just rural location (not far outside town) and while we don't have weekly parties there is regularly something going on either at someone house, a local shebeen, or down the pub. A lot would walk the mile or so to whatever is going off and nearly everyone would be wearing a hi-viz jacket. In fact at the end of the night as people leave there is normally a comment as they go, do you have your hi-viz and a torch.

There are those with common sense and those that need laws making for them.

flaneur

@my3cents:

Where I see it happening all the time is cities and suburbs. It's all fine and well until you find that the street lighting isn't actually making you more visible, and you're blending into the background.

People assume they're visible under those lights. They're often not.

I think in general rural dwellers have a lot more cop on about this issue.

magicbastarder

flaneur wrote: »

It's a fairly common occurrence in cities and I've yet to see anyone enforcing the law.

you do realise that sounds like you're suggesting that we compensate for a law that's not being enforced, with a new law?

Fighting Tao

Deleted User wrote: »

I would include banning walkers and cyclists using headphones while walking or cycling. As a country dwellers, it scares the bejazus out of me to come across a pedestrian on a narrow country road totally oblivious to their surroundings and approaching vehicles.

Does it also scare the bejaysus out of you when you come across a car and the driver can't hear you because of their radio?

flaneur

magicbastarder wrote: »

you do realise that sounds like you're suggesting that we compensate for a law that's not being enforced, with a new law?

No, but I think that reflective surfaces are MUCH more eye catching than a small, dull, red light or a little flickery led which is what a lot of people seem to think is adequate.

You have to remember that when the requirement to have lights on bikes was introduced that reflective materials like we have to day didn't exist. So, the best you could do was a battery powered / dynamo powered light.

The level or urban lighting since then has increased a lot and particularly with the use of those orange sodium lights. It's increasing even more now with LED panel lamps.

The result of that is you're often just shining a dull little lamp that isn't remotely as bright as a car's tail light panel and people don't see it.

When you're driving around a suburban area these days you're looking at a pretty oddly lit scene with either pools of LED lighting or an orange toned sodium lamp. You've also lots of other distractions like lit signage and nowadays VERY bright LED traffic lights. In fact, I find some of those actually are now so bright you can't see past them in certain conditions, which makes it hard to see a dully lit pedestrian crossing for example. The system used in Dublin in particular is often totally blinding, particularly if you're on a dull street.

You will generally pick out a bright reflective surface.

LeinsterDub

iguana wrote: »

I learned to driver fairly late in life and it's been shocking to realise how hard it is for drivers to see pedestrians and cyclists at night, even in suburbs with comprehensive streetlights. The lights on bikes aren't usually very good and can be easily obscured. The varying standards of lights make it hard to gauge how far away the cyclist is if all you can see is a dot of light. Considering the speed cars and cyclists travel at, it can often be at the very last second that a driver realises how near they are to a cyclist. It's extremely dangerous for a cyclist to not wear hi-viz if they will be cycling on a road or even across driveways. It's a good idea for pedestrians, even in cities, to wear it too.



Sure, but that still leaves cars travelling at 50-70kph, which is still makes it hard to react to a pedestrian that you see later than you could have. And still leaves a huge chance of fatality or life-changing injury.

I'm sorry but if your having the much trouble identifying cyclists you shouldn't be driving.

rollingscone

TheRiverman wrote: »

No,common sense territory.

Common sense = no don't think about it!

Common sense is an excuse not an answer.

What we're talking about is criminalizing walking and cycling so people who take on control of dangerous machines can abdicate responsibility.

magicbastarder

Fighting Tao wrote: »

Does it also scare the bejaysus out of you when you come across a car and the driver can't hear you because of their radio?

<mod note - folks; please can we leave any discussion about headphones, etc., out of this thread as it's got enough potential to turn messy as is. this also very much includes any posts which are general complaints about cyclist behaviour. any more of those, i'll be deleting without comment or explanation.>

PeadarCo

flaneur wrote:

No, but I think that reflective surfaces are MUCH more eye catching than a small, dull, red light or a little flickery led which is what a lot of people seem to think is adequate.

Then why not update the law to specify legal minimum. As you've mentioned lighting technology has advanced alot. Why not just update the law.

magicbastarder

i just find it bemusing that the notion that people should have to change their colour to be allowed cycle or walk at night, when the source of the danger - i.e. motorised vehicles - have in any study performed, been found to have a correlation between colour and risk of collision; yet we never hear talk about banning the colour black from cars.
and that is less of an imposition as the colour, once applied, is a permanent part of the car. there's no risk that a motorist can be caught short without the bright colour of their car, such as having forgotten to bring it with them when they leave the house in daylight, and being delayed and not being able to go home till night has fallen.

AndrewJRenko

iguana wrote: »

It's extremely dangerous for a cyclist to not wear hi-viz if they will be cycling on a road or even across driveways. It's a good idea for pedestrians, even in cities, to wear it too.

What colour is your car, Iggy?

NBar

next it will be limiting the lumenation of lights on bikes, its all about education and learning to live with all road users, the way things are now the motorist is being heavily restricted and as soon as they see what appears to be a clear road it becomes a drag strip and god help anyone who gets in the way. The road structure in Ireland is a joke and Ross instead of solving the problems like better cycle lanes etc and improving country roads with better illumination its thrown back on the user.

Ross how about zero VAT on safety equipment and clothing first before you want to make things mandatory

cython

flaneur wrote: »

No, but I think that reflective surfaces are MUCH more eye catching than a small, dull, red light or a little flickery led which is what a lot of people seem to think is adequate.

You have to remember that when the requirement to have lights on bikes was introduced that reflective materials like we have to day didn't exist. So, the best you could do was a battery powered / dynamo powered light.

The level or urban lighting since then has increased a lot and particularly with the use of those orange sodium lights. It's increasing even more now with LED panel lamps.

The result of that is you're often just shining a dull little lamp that isn't remotely as bright as a car's tail light panel and people don't see it.

When you're driving around a suburban area these days you're looking at a pretty oddly lit scene with either pools of LED lighting or an orange toned sodium lamp. You've also lots of other distractions like lit signage and nowadays VERY bright LED traffic lights. In fact, I find some of those actually are now so bright you can't see past them in certain conditions, which makes it hard to see a dully lit pedestrian crossing for example. The system used in Dublin in particular is often totally blinding, particularly if you're on a dull street.

You will generally pick out a bright reflective surface.

Except that retroreflective materials as are used in high-viz are designed to reflect light strongly back at the source, and not in other directions - test it yourself if you doubt me, put a high-fiz on a fence post, point a light at it, and walk around it in a circle. By the time you move even 45 degrees away, the amount of light reflected becomes very small. In an urban environment your headlights should be dipped, meaning little to none of the light from them will strike a high-viz until you are practically on top of the wearer already. Similarly, they will not reflect much from the orange sodium streetlights, so in practice so called high-viz gear is actually not as highly visible as people think, unless they are driving with the wrong lights for the conditions, or poorly adjusted lights.

flaneur

magicbastarder wrote: »

i just find it bemusing that the notion that people should have to change their colour to be allowed cycle or walk at night, when the source of the danger - i.e. motorised vehicles - have in any study performed, been found to have a correlation between colour and risk of collision; yet we never hear talk about banning the colour black from cars.
and that is less of an imposition as the colour, once applied, is a permanent part of the car. there's no risk that a motorist can be caught short without the bright colour of their car, such as having forgotten to bring it with them when they leave the house in daylight, and being delayed and not being able to go home till night has fallen.

Dealt with by a 2008 EU directive that came into force in 2011, mandating running lights on cars.

All cars made from 2011 onwards are legally required to have day time running lights and all busses and trucks since 2012.

flutered

in my experience the hi viz on pedestrians on rural roads during daylight hours is immense, never mind at night, they attract the eye immediatly, btw i drive a white coloured car

cython

flaneur wrote: »

Dealt with by a 2011 EU directive that came into force mandating running lights.

All cars made from 2011 onwards are legally required to have day time running lights and all busses and trucks since 2012.

That directive and its implementation are a farce, with the net result that an abundance of drivers now neglect to turn on their lights at dusk because they have lights on the front and think it's enough, forgetting that they have no lights at the rear by default!

magicbastarder

do i recall that it's not been implemented legally in ireland anyway?

flaneur

It's aimed at car makers. Unless someone physically disabled the running lights, they're there.

The directive isn't a farce, the drivers who go around with no headlights on after dusk are the farce. The directive aimed to increase visibility in all conditions by having DAY TIME running lights. They did not intend people to drive around with their headlights off in dark conditions (which is illegal).

Donal55

flutered wrote: »

in my experience the hi viz on pedestrians on rural roads during daylight hours is immense, never mind at night, they attract the eye immediatly, btw i drive a white coloured car

Same here. I wonder is that why the gardai and emergency services wear hi viz when working on the roads.

Kaisr Sose

That's it Shane, legislate for chaos. The Garda don't even have the resources or tools to enforce existing law. Often, when they do secure a prosecution, the judiciary give the offender a poor box donation rather than convict for dangerous driving, stating the motorist needs their car for work – and I can't put them off the road..next we hear of another life lost to dangerous driving ....

Joke ...joke...

Lumen

I would actually wear hivis if I was regularly walking on narrow country roads, but only because it's less awkward that fitting lights to my clothing.

I have no such problem with my bicycles, which have semi-permanent mounts for lights that keep them shining in the right direction.

Hivis is a poor substitute for good lighting, and legislating for it will only normalise poor lighting.

This has been done to death on the hivis thread, but as usual we have the know-nothing non-cyclists posting ****e about stuff they're clueless about.

Icepick

I am of the view that despite certain obstacles, this measure is worth pursuing, if it could save even one life.

what irrational nonsense

There are hundreds of measures far more effective and efficient if saving at least one life is the goal. For example, investing much more in cycling and public transport infrastructure.

cython

flaneur wrote: »

It's aimed at car makers. Unless someone physically disabled the running lights, they're there.

The directive isn't a farce, the drivers who go around with no headlights on after dusk are the farce. The directive aimed to increase visibility in all conditions by having DAY TIME running lights. They did not intend people to drive around with their headlights off in dark conditions (which is illegal).

That may have been the aim, but the net effect has still seen reduced visibility in some conditions, which is a farcical implementation given the aim as stated. The law of unintended consequences is almost as inviolable as the laws of physics, and far more so than the law of the land, but this could easily have been precluded by including rear lights as a requirement. Bearing in mind the proposal under discussion seems to stem from legislating for the lowest common denominator here as well, if that approach had been applied to that directive, rear lights would have been common sense.

P_1

Nonsense suggestion in my eyes. The builder jacket fetishism continues.