A letter sent in to the RIDE mag Hi Viz Won't Help. I'm a motorcycle police officer and ride throughout the year on my fully marked BMW R1200RT and it's a superb machine that always brings a smile to my face when i'm out on it. Being a police bike it has all the familiar yellow and blue high conspicuity chequered pattern that causes most motorists to slow down and drive like angels. Both of the headlights are on permanently dipped beam and I have to wear my white helmet and the regulation yellow high visibility reflective jacket. Despite all this I was T-boned by a car coming out of a junction writing off the bike and putting me in hospital. Luckily I was only doing 25mph. The first words out of his mouth were "I'm sorry mate, I didn't see you". It doesn't matter how much you wear or how visible you are if the other driver doesn't bother looking. Simon Cherrington
There was some research done a few years ago on this subject. It was found that in some circumstances a plain white helmet made it appear that the bike was being ridden by a headless rider whereas someone who wears a multi coloured helmet remains constantly visible. The same applied to someone wearing block colours of hi viz, that it can actually cause some form of blindness, whereas those who wear multi colours actually remain more visible. Dipped beam headlights in bright conditions cause all sorts of problems, but in particular what is caused the Halo affect where other road users suffer a depth perception problem because the bike becomes hidden behind the halo of light surroundiing and blocking out the physical presence of the bike, so what happens is that a driver looking to emerge from a junction sees the headlights, realises that a motorcycle is approaching, but thinks (as an example) that it is travelling at 30 MPH and is half a mile away when it is in fact doing 60 and is only a quarter of a mile away, hence why there is often so many crashes deemed as SMIDSY but in fact they did see the bike but missjudged speed and distance. I have dealt with many crashes like this and the motorcycle manufacturers have not helped the situation by hard wiring headlights so that they save about 50p on their production costs. It has nothing to do with safety or legislation. The best form of conspicuity is the colour of the actual bike itself. Bright colours on the bike have been found to be visible far more easily, or a combination of bike, helmet and kit colours so that insread of being uniform throughout there are always different colours that stand out. One of the reasons I ride a sllightly older bike is because I at least have the option of deciding where and when I use my headlights, and on a day such as today when we (in Reading anyway) have a bright sunny day, it is very much a headlights off day
That’s made me more paranoid than I was already, I ride a black bike with black leathers and a black helmet, oh and the lights are permanently on? I will have to be vigilant?
I think all of us on here have known that bikes with headlights on during the daytime are almost impossible to judge speedwise. I know when I come to a junction and see a bike I just wait. Crap knows what sort of brain dead arsehole comes up with some of these legislations, but I wouldn't have thought they had ANY experience of what they are deciding on. Shouldn't be allowed.
Black bike, black leathers, white helmet. I always assume that I haven’t been seen and try position myself on the road as best I can to make myself visible. Always move into the view of cars rear view and side mirrors before overtaking etc.
Not sure this is relevant here or not, however. I read somewhere that the visibility issue is drivers are looking for and expecting to see hazards as horizontal objects, like other cars and lorries etc. Items like lamp posts, street signs and other general street furniture tend to be vertical and are not considered a threat or hazard usually being static items. A category us as bikers fall in to. So even though you have made eye contact with the driver about to pull out they may not have registered you as a hazard to avoid and continue to pull out.
Did i not read somewhere it is good to make a 'swerve' in the road as you approach junctions with cars coming out? something to do with because you are not riding 'straight' they are supposed to notice the movement hence noticing the bike and rider and not be looking but not seeing? sh1t, doest what i just wrote actually make sense? i know what i mean to say just not sure if what i've said is legible!!
I'm sure i read an article years ago along the lines - that multi coloured leathers and helmets break up your outline whilst solid block colours give you a defined shape (think tigers stripes). A bit like one day some beer is good for you and next day it's not.
