Hi vis discussion thread (read post #1)

i wonder if this drivers name is Darwin?

For a thread where many regulars call out low brow comments on journal.ie (and others) comments like above should also be condemned.

It's in the same vane as some of the low ball comments on the Twitter link.

There's probably a man dead there.

I think that part of the problem is that people fail to anticipate stationary vehicles on a motorway if there isn't a queue of vehicles. And that perhaps the perceived size of a stationary object does not increase linearly with distance - so if you're approaching a stationary vehicle at speed you may not perceive that it is not moving until it's too late to stop.

A few years ago when the M50 was being widened I was driving in lane 1 at 100 km/h. There was very little traffic and it was moving freely. The car in front of me had its brake lights on, which is nothing unusual as people often apply the brakes for no apparent reason. I was getting closer and then I realised that the car was not just moving slowly, it had come to a complete stop. Fortunately I had been keeping plenty of distance and was able to safely move into lane 2. As I passed, the driver had the rear offside door open and was standing outside the car with both offside doors open, leaning into the back of the car as though they were getting something from the back seat.

Had I been driving as close to that car as people normally do on the M50, I would probably have been doing 80-90 km/h when I drove into it.

I will always remember the surprisingly short interval that elapsed between "that car is moving more slowly than I'd expect" and "that car is not moving at all".

I know (very well I know) that no one is interested in wrist lights, but they do a great job of making hand gestures conspicuous, and they do seem to cut down on people pulling out of side roads. The bio-motion of arm movements is also something onlookers seem to register very quickly.

I'd go so far as to say that in urban scenarios, I'm happy enough to have a fairly mediocre front light, once I have wrist lights as well, as in urban contexts the be-seen effect is more important than the to-see-by, and they're more versatile in the be-seen sense.

I would've said the motion aspect was well known/ well discussed, hence reflectors on pedals. I'd nearly have some time for the argument if the demand was reflective ankle bands rather than builders vests when the torso is probably the worst place for reflective detail in an urban context.

On many major road work sites , the guys are wearing orange hi-viz suits with reflective strips around the lower arm /wrists and and lower legs-

The dayglow colour is really only any good if it contrasts from the background - you may easily distinguish one hi-viz wearing pedestrian who's walking on the road ...

But won't see him at all if he's walking along side a stream of hi-viz wearing pedestrians on the foot path -

Well "hi viz"/ reflective panels were of limited use this morning given the amount of motorists with no lights (never mind the number with DRL only)

I heard it mentioned when there was a push (used to be annual) for motorists to use their lights at all times over the winter/ clock changed period. It has seemed to die down - both the requests and the campaign against it (maybe it was just a battle lost). fwiw I don't feel the high percentage of DRL has made any difference on the bicycle - biggest issue is still people not looking, or going when they're not 100% sure.

Section 8.6 is the relevant section of manual for mobile lane closures.

There is a reason it is so detailed; having vehicles stopped on a high speed road will lead to high speed impacts if there are shortcomings in terms of planning, training and implementation of controls.

Typically driving on a motorway, especially off peak (which is a requirement for MLCs) doesn't require a lot of input from driver and perception reaction time is typically longer than in a lot of other situations.

Some drivers on motorways (in particular) are really poor at anticipating traffic ahead of them.

Here's the accident location (from the co ordinates on the tik tok video). It's the M2 near junction 3

https://goo.gl/maps/xioBX4smmUbtCwqn7

says Evelyn Cusack, Met Eireann

Yeah, that's my assumption; that dressing like a "cyclist" (whether that's road gear, or "safety" gear) brings up the punishment passes and the prank passes, as opposed to dressing like a "normal person". I don't know if there is much research on it, apart from Ian Walker's study, which didn't really show any statistically significant difference between the various ways of dressing he tested.

More from Cllr Brady

She wants it, said so in Cavan county chamber - the first line of newspaper article.