Why only cyclists should wear hi-viz in the dark? Cars can too!

"You can't make stupid people safe."

🤣

It's less state dependent than you think. The feds have the last say in the safety equipment that comes on your car from the factory. They write the regulations on safety equipment for all highway vehicles.

What is interesting is that the NFPA, (the US National Fire Prevention Association), which writes the guidance for US public safety departments, has learned that you can have too much flashy-flashies and woo-woos and sparkles hanging on your vehicle. We used to hang as much as that stuff as we could on fire trucks and ambulances. Now, new rigs are toning it down to reflective chevrons and marker lights on the back end to prevent dazzling and confusing traffic as they approach a scene. The NFPA national tracking has shown a marked decline in tertiary accidents.

Reflectives and markers are important, but you can do too much can have worse outcomes because of it.

From my experience, usually they don't. Even the ones that do aren't to the same degree as a car is required to. I want biking to be better than driving, so this is not an anti-bike comment. Maybe we need to add a requirement for bikes to have lights like we require for cars?

That's legally required? Every bike has a light on it by law?

Unless you're in the Netherlands, where 2/3rds of the bikes will have the shitty "this is legally a light" LEDs from the convenience shops... Oh, and 2/3rds of those will be either out of battery, or installed facing the wrong way.

Ideally. In the US you regularly see peeps riding without even reflectors. It’s insanity.

Where? I haven't seen a bicyclist using lights in months.

also grey and silver are boring as fuck

They just disappear without any kind of lights on

My area has a law where you must have lights on when raining

That is not a requirement, you to have to have front and rear reflectors, I don't remember if side reflectors are required or not.

One thing that a lot of bikes has that is illegal here but ignored by the police, is a flashing front light.

Rear lights can absolutely be flashing, but front lights can't.

Their visibility is quite different tho

Places I've lived in the US people keep them off as the default. Here in Seattle people don't even turn them on at night half the time, I guess they think the street lighting is good enough. I try and signal people to turn on their lights if I'm biking at night and so far none that I know of have actually turned them on

Here in the U.S., (and I'm assuming it's the same elsewhere, but just explaining for simplicity), cars used to have a simple headlight switch, which also lit up the instrument cluster on the dashboard. It was an easy heuristic: If you can't see the gauges because it's dark, turn on the headlights.

Now, every car has a marketing-gimmick dashboard lit up all the time with all sorts of multi-color lights. In the cars I've been in, the headlight indicator just a small, green light in the corner. Drivers accustomed to the old way think that their headlights are on because the dashboard is lit up. The Toyota Prius was notorious for this when it was new; I used to joke that they didn't come with headlights as a way to save fuel.

It's not as bad now, but people just forget o sometimes. It's worse when cars have day-time running lights, because then the drivers see light coming from the front of the car and think all the marker lights are on.

Yes, here in Austria you are allowed to drive without headlights in bright conditions, only are required to turn them on when there is impaired visibility (night, rain, snow, fog, etc.).

E g. Germany

Only for motorcycles it is mandatory all day

With modern cars, you mean cars since some time early 2000s? Actual modern cars (5 yo cars), are the only ones I see not have headlights turned on during day time.

Apparently, it's not required under EU law to have the headlights turned on during daytime, and manufactures will rather have a couple of cm longer milage...

Corner markers?

I remember that Volvo had those for a few years here, but that was in the very early 2000's I haven't seen the on normal cars for a long time.

Seems like a good idea though.

IIRC there was only a short window when turning the rear lights off was a thing, and the law has since gone back to having to turn them on when the car is turned on. While there are still people in cars like that, they're a minority.

A cyclist us never to blame for a car hitting a cyclist. It is always always always the drivers fault, because they chose to drive a car.

That's an insane take, right? If I as a cyclist blindly ride across a road directly in front of a heavy vehicle, surely it's on me. In what way would that be the heavy vehicle drivers fault?

No, that's a dumb take in all of the ways.

Apparently (this is like 2nd/3rd hand and I could be misremembering) - BMW motorbikes are ‘Beemers’, while BMW cars are ‘Bimmers’ (rhymes with dimmers).

Fair point that roads should be designed a lot better, but in the mean time, if you're going to be driving on roads that got put down originally 50 years ago without cycling paths and no lights in the middle of farmland. Wear the high Viz gear or make sure you have working lights and reflectors.

Congratulations! I'm now blind and have a legitimate reason to run you over.

Your standard bicycle has light too

No it doesn't. It has reflectors but not actual lighting. I've almost hit a few cyclists who relied only on the reflectors on the wheels, front peg, and rear peg.

Hint: seeing the lights on a bicycle is easier when your wind shield isn't 2 meters of the ground.

I'm not arguing pro cars here. My point is keep yourself fuckin safe. Don't be stupid just because "bUt CaRs ArE tHe PrObLeM"

You can't say they're a problem and then act like they're not a problem.

Complain all you want it's perfectly valid. But do the shit you have to do to keep yourself the fuck alive.

I mean, OP says it's satire but then says they're mocking the advice to wear hiviz. As if it isn't the law pretty much everywhere to have functioning lights on a vehicle.

North America. Very common on sports cars or with people who like to modify their cars. They do still light up when the bulb is on although not as bright. My bigger issue is that light won't reflect off blacked out lights the same way it does off a regular tail light. It is a massive safety hazard but "my freedom" seems to be a valid reason for it.

There you are right. Anything but black, gray, and white has become nearly extinct.

I don't understand what this bot is for...