Hi vis discussion thread (read post #1)

tomasrojo

Scooter-based red-light jumper drew most attention for me. Then the girl with the nice satchel, and what looks like a Brompton.

EDIT: Not a Brompton.

GreeBo

tomasrojo wrote: »

Pop quiz. Of the hundred or so cyclists approaching the camera, who is the most conspicuous?

The one wearing the bright pink sleeves.
Where do i collect my prize?

Not what you wanted to hear?
Even though you used the most contrived example of a bike ride on a closed road it still backfired and proved my point...and not a light to be seen, despite a light being better than clothing in every scenario...apparently.

tomasrojo

GreeBo wrote: »

The one wearing the bright pink sleeves.
Where do i collect my prize?

Not what you wanted to hear?
Even though you used the most contrived example of a bike ride on a closed road it still backfired and proved my point...and not a light to be seen, despite a light being better than clothing in every scenario...apparently.

You can now add the most humourless person ever to post here to your accolades.

AndrewJRenko

GreeBo wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hebsjiVviQ

Pop quiz.
Of the three bicycles who pass the camera on the left, who is the most visible?

Is this the one where we all miss the guy in the gorilla suit?

GreeBo

tomasrojo wrote: »

Scooter-based red-light jumper drew most attention for me. Then the girl with the nice satchel, and what looks like a Brompton.

Hmm maybe you shouldn't be on the road if your attention to detail is so poor?

The question was which cyclist, but thanks for trying.
E for effort.

07Lapierre

GCN tested clothing and lights. Conclusion? Good lights and "reflective" clothing.

https://youtu.be/9ZRXlrJ3Mi0

CramCycle

GreeBo wrote: »

Its not the middle of the day, that's why the vast majority of vehicles have their lights on.

So you are honestly trying to say the dark cyclist is just as visible as the other two? You think a black jacket stands out from a dark background the same way a yellow jacket does?

Well at least you are consistently biased, i guess. Laughably so.

I say again, it's broad daylight. Quite a few of the cars have no lights or DRLs. I can see every car, every pedestrian and every cyclist. If you think that is not broad daylight then I give up, it's optimal visibility, it would be damn near impossible to blend in to the background.

I say this , hand on heart, if you are struggling or think some people were harder than others to see in that video, you need to get an eye test and stop.deiving until suitable corrective measures are in place.

Id have understood if you put up a video at night, or even dawn or dusk but you have put up the perfect example of a time when any aid should be completely unnecessary.

Honest question, did you find some of the cyclists harder to see than others?

07Lapierre

tomasrojo wrote: »

Scooter-based red-light jumper drew most attention for me. Then the girl with the nice satchel, and what looks like a Brompton.

EDIT: Not a Brompton.

The very bright Red traffic light stands out most...and the numpty on the scooter.

Also nice to see the cyclist stopped at the light and only moves when it goes green!

GreeBo

tomasrojo wrote: »

You can now add the most humourless person ever to post here to your accolades.

Again with the personal attacks.
Is that the default behaviour here when someone has the temerity to not only disagree, but back up their view with examples?
You should really try to find something to say to attempt to defend or backup your point instead.
(Cue 'witty' retort)

You are in good company here though, it's not only the wheels on the bus that go round and round it seems.

tomasrojo

CramCycle wrote: »

I say again, it's broad daylight. Quite a few of the cars have no lights or DRLs. I can see every car, every pedestrian and every cyclist.

Yeah, not one of them was hard to see. I had to up the video quality from 144p before it was clear that wasn't a Brompton though. Running a video at 144p is like being quite near-sighted.

GreeBo

07Lapierre wrote: »

GCN tested clothing and lights. Conclusion? Good lights and "reflective" clothing.

https://youtu.be/9ZRXlrJ3Mi0

Msd Ted.
If only someone on here had been saying that since day 1.:rolleyes:

tomasrojo

GreeBo wrote: »

Again with the personal attacks.

You called CramCycle's opinion laughable about three posts back.

07Lapierre

GreeBo wrote: »

Msd Ted.
If only someone on here had been saying that since day 1.:rolleyes:

Your welcome:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=108445850&postcount=1682

GreeBo

CramCycle wrote: »

I say again, it's broad daylight. Quite a few of the cars have no lights or DRLs. I can see every car, every pedestrian and every cyclist. If you think that is not broad daylight then I give up, it's optimal visibility, it would be damn near impossible to blend in to the background.

I say this , hand on heart, if you are struggling or think some people were harder than others to see in that video, you need to get an eye test and stop.deiving until suitable corrective measures are in place.

Id have understood if you put up a video at night, or even dawn or dusk but you have put up the perfect example of a time when any aid should be completely unnecessary.

Honest question, did you find some of the cyclists harder to see than others?

You can keep saying it but it won't make it any truer.
That's what a good camera does in lower light levels.

take any still where the bikes are not directly beside you, the third bike blends into the background, the others do not.

Maybe you are back to talking about seeing bikes as they are beside you?
Personally i prefer to see them in advance, maybe I'm just a better driver than you are.

GreeBo

07Lapierre wrote: »

Your welcome:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=108445850&postcount=1682

Ahem

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=108441652&postcount=1666

tomasrojo

GreeBo wrote: »

You can keep saying it but it won't make it any truer.
That's what a good camera does in lower light levels.

It's also what the human eye does. It's capable of responding to an enormous range of intensity, exceeding about ten orders of magnitude.

GreeBo wrote: »

take any still where the bikes are not directly beside you, the third bike blends into the background, the others do not.

?? They're all perfectly visible. This is a terrible example.

GreeBo wrote: »

Maybe you are back to talking about seeing bikes as they are beside you?
Personally i prefer to see them in advance, maybe I'm just a better driver than you are.

I think you're mixing CramCycle up with me there.

tomasrojo

This is all good fun (not fun), but what statistical evidence is available doesn't really show any better outcome in terms of collisions between people who wear hiviz and people who don't, so it's sort of irrelevant looking at frames of youtube videos.

It's not an exhaustively studied phenomenon, and guess it's possible further studies (not that self-selecting, self-reporting Danish one) might show an advantage to using hiviz, but it's unlikely to be a big one, seeing as the effect didn't turn up in the more rigorous of the early studies.

Duckjob

tomasrojo wrote: »

This is all good fun (not fun), but what statistical evidence is available doesn't really show any better outcome in terms of collisions between people who wear hiviz and people who don't, so it's sort of irrelevant looking at frames of youtube videos.

It's not an exhaustively studied phenomenon, and guess it's possible further studies (not that self-selecting, self-reporting Danish one) might show an advantage to using hiviz, but it's unlikely to be a big one, seeing as the effect didn't turn up in the more rigorous of the early studies.

Indeed. As I alluded to in an earlier post there's really little point in arguing over minutiae of situations and whether or not somebody looks more visible with a hi-vis on.

We can simply look across the water and see places like Netherlands where they've taken an entirely different direction in ensuring safety of vulnerable people on the road, and we can see clearly the proof of how well that approach has worked, with all the associated societal benefits, and nary a helmet or hi-vis in sight.

All that has been achieved in the Netherlands can be done here - it's simply a question of whether people want to follow an approach with a proven success record (well designed, self-enforcing, calming infrastructure, strong legal protection for vulnerable users), or one that has none (armouring people up).

Final thought related to the legal protection issue - I'm quite sure if a barrister in Netherlands court tried spewing out some of the victim blaming nonsense we've heard them get away with in courts here, they would be laughed out of court and their own credibility would come under serious scrutiny.

GreeBo

Duckjob wrote: »

Indeed. As I alluded to in an earlier post there's really little point in arguing over minutiae of situations and whether or not somebody looks more visible with a hi-vis on.

We can simply look across the water and see places like Netherlands where they've taken an entirely different direction in ensuring safety of vulnerable people on the road, and we can see clearly the proof of how well that approach has worked, with all the associated societal benefits, and nary a helmet or hi-vis in sight.

All that has been achieved in the Netherlands can be done here - it's simply a question of whether people want to follow an approach with a proven success record (well designed, self-enforcing, calming infrastructure, strong legal protection for vulnerable users), or one that has none (armouring people up).

And I think we would all welcome that...but in the meantime what do you do?
Give out about motorists or make yourself as visible as possible (or both!)

Duckjob

GreeBo wrote: »

And I think we would all welcome that...but in the meantime what do you do?
Give out about motorists or make yourself as visible as possible (or both!)

You make it sound like that wonderful situation is going to come about by itself shortly, and all we have to do is sit tight for a while and dutifully don our hi-vis while we wait for it to happen. That is not the case.

A pushback is necessary because outside of forums like this there is a concerted effort from certain quarters to dominate the road safety discussion with the question of making hi-vis mandatory as the main way to make our public spaces safer.

As long as the discussion is being dominated by hi-vis discussion, there is no attention, none, being put on other far more pertinent factors such as car-centric infrastructure everywhere and the poor standards of driving and adherance to road laws in this country.

Personally, i don't have any problem with wearing reflective clothing (although as I have posted previous it is not a conventional yellow hi-vis but does the job of reflecting light 10 times better).

I do have a problem with people who should have highest responsibility for duty of care on the road trying to compel me to do so and in doing so diverting attention from where it needs to be directed - bad infrastructure and driver behaviour.

A motorist driving down the road is never going to have his/her life threatened by my not wearing a hi-vis. I have my life theatened on a daily basis by the careless, hostile and sometimes downright aggressive behaviour of some motorists.

07Lapierre

GreeBo wrote: »

And I think we would all welcome that...but in the meantime what do you do?
Give out about motorists or make yourself as visible as possible (or both!)

When driving, drive with due care and attention
when cycling, ride with due care and attention
when walking, walk with due care and attention

RSA, should stop fudging the issue. Stop victim blaming and stop giving out free, sub standard lights and vests and concentrate on promoting safe use of the roads by all road users.
The Gardai should enforce existing ROTR more consistently.
Stiffer penalties for non-compliance with the ROTR for all road users.

In short...we can do a lot, but there is no political will to change the current situation.

kirving

tomasrojo wrote: »

Brake lights are diffuse, decent bike headlights are collimated and far brighter than a reflection of already diffuse light.

There isn't an argument as regards brightness of a light, or the physics behind reflected, diffuse light vs. a collimated beam.

Collimated light, by definition travels in one direction only, and by definition, it's apparent brightness is very quickly reduced to an observer off-axis. This is the reason that cars have additional side marker lamps both front and rear.

So unless the light is pointed directly (in reality ±20°) at the driver or at the right angle against the car's mirror, it isn't very effective.

Reflective clothing, even when illuminated by brake lights, can be very effective as it's a large surface area which is sometimes easier to see than a small point source, and almost always easier to see than black in a city.

Duckjob wrote: »

Indeed. As I alluded to in an earlier post there's really little point in arguing over minutiae of situations and whether or not somebody looks more visible with a hi-vis on.

I content that it's not a minutiae at all. A light can easily be obscured or have it's effectiveness drop off-axis, reflective or bright colours beat black in those cases.

CramCycle wrote: »

You have won this thread Andrew

It's the middle of the day, they are all pretty visible, if you think any of them are less visible I would suggest an eye test. Now some are more memorable but that's a different story,

CramCycle wrote: »

I say again, it's broad daylight. Quite a few of the cars have no lights or DRLs. I can see every car, every pedestrian and every cyclist. If you think that is not broad daylight then I give up, it's optimal visibility, it would be damn near impossible to blend in to the background.

I say this , hand on heart, if you are struggling or think some people were harder than others to see in that video, you need to get an eye test and stop.deiving until suitable corrective measures are in place...


...Honest question, did you find some of the cyclists harder to see than others?

tomasrojo wrote: »

?? They're all perfectly visible. This is a terrible example.
.

All strawmanning. GreeBo said "most visible". I saw them all too, but the guy in black was least visible.

I'll tell you what, try and write a computer vision algorithm to pick out the cyclists, and see which is the hardest to detect.

Whatever about contrived situations of cyclist in the park, in the real world, in murky grey urban environments, bright clothing stands out more in nearly every circumstance.

conkennedy

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Whatever about contrived situations of cyclist in the park, in the real world, in murky grey urban environments, bright clothing stands out more in nearly every circumstance.

Maybe so, but it still doesn't stop motorists from running you over becasue they are not looking out for you - even in broad daylight.

kirving

conkennedy wrote: »

Maybe so, but it still doesn't stop motorists from running you over becasue they are not looking out for you - even in broad daylight.

I don't get what you're trying to say?

You can do your best, and still fail, but that isn't a reason not to try.

Weepsie

It's precisely what he is saying. con (I hope you don't mind me saying), was hit in a broad daylight side on, while wearing one of brightest, easiest to see jackets you could possibly imagine.

I've been hit in broad daylight (twice). HiVis is rarely, if ever a factor in any of these accidents that are occuring on our roads. If it were, there would be daily bloodbaths.

Inattentive and careless road users are the problem.

magicbastarder

not that this illuminates the debate much, just gave me a chuckle earlier when i passed:
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.521316,-6.4128545,3a,38.2y,34.77h,89.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUT3-R844ALTbRQP2pfEVcg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

which is more visible; the traffic lights, or the sign telling you there's traffic lights 100m straight ahead?

tomasrojo

Kevin Irving wrote: »

There isn't an argument as regards brightness of a light, or the physics behind reflected, diffuse light vs. a collimated beam.

There is when you're talking about reflection. A collimated beam pointing straight at a reflector returns more light than a diffuse one.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Collimated light, by definition travels in one direction only, and by definition, it's apparent brightness is very quickly reduced to an observer off-axis. This is the reason that cars have additional side marker lamps both front and rear.

No, collimated light has a bright centre, but it's never perfectly unidirectional.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

So unless the light is pointed directly (in reality ±20°) at the driver or at the right angle against the car's mirror, it isn't very effective.

That's far too narrow an angle. If that was true, I couldn't see the headlight of my headlight when standing off to one side. I can.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Reflective clothing, even when illuminated by brake lights, can be very effective as it's a large surface area

It's not a large surface. It's just a couple of strips. Unless it's one of the proviz tops, which isn't what most people are wearing.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

All strawmanning. GreeBo said "most visible". I saw them all too, but the guy in black was least visible.

It's not strawmanning. If another cyclist appeared at the end trailing a giant helium balloon with a strobe light attached to it, they'd be the most visible. It doesn't make any of the other three suddenly irresponsbile. They're all pefectly visible.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

I'll tell you what, try and write a computer vision algorithm to pick out the cyclists, and see which is the hardest to detect.

See above. It's irrelvant. They're all visible. They've done enough. That's been the point all along. I never actuallly said anything about people being more visible or not. People only have to be adequately or, preferably, very visible. They don't have to be "as visible as possible",which is a moving target anyway.

magicbastarder

tomasrojo wrote: »

No, collimated light has a bright centre, but it's never perfectly unidirectional.

well, there's no such thing as a perfectly collimated light beam (except in a vacuum IIRC), but that's probably splitting hairs. for the purposes of this debate, i guess it might be easier to refer to how tight or focussed the beam is?

tomasrojo

Yeah, fair point. Collimated isn't really the correct term.

tomasrojo

I was trying to find a decent image of a headlight pattern, but this came up instead: