Didn’t really expect much from DrivingUk but honestly the amount of downvotes shocked me. God forbid people go out at night dressed normally without full on high vis.
Reddit Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/drivingUK/comments/1r8fkfo/comment/o65j18p/
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Wear Something reflective when it’s dark if you value your life
This is ingrained into kids since they are 3 years old in Norway
Finland here, third gen professional driver, dad had “Gentleman of the Road” taped to the back of his taxi-van. You couldn’t find a more patient driver (unless he was driving us to a bus and we’re running late or if the liquor store was closing.)
No matter how carefully you drive, human brains just can not pick out a dark thing that’s practically stationary against another dark thing when you’re in a vehicle moving >50kmh.
And our kids walk to the school by themselves if it’s less than 3km iirc, and lots of those roads don’t have sidewalks. Lots do, most probably, but in rural areas not every road has a sidewalk. And it’s dark most of the year.
So you really get taught to wear at least a small reflector. It’s not because of inconsiderate car-brained drivers. It’s because humans don’t have HD thermal vision that keeps perfectly up at high speeds.
This video might illustrate it better. (Pun intended.)
Someone with a reflector can be spotted roughly 150m away, whereas some one without one from about 40 meters. Going 60km/h you travel 40m in 2.5 seconds. The average reaction time for general road users is put around 1.5s. Leaving you a whopping one second (1s) to slam your breaks, and even then you won’t make a meaningful difference. Whereas the driver seeing someone with a reflector has almost 10 seconds, leaving them with 8.5 to reduce speed and dodge the pedestrian a bit.
So while I don’t own a car, but an ebike, and take public transport and am against car-brained culture, in this instance it’s you demanding everyone in countries with long winters spend all of their driving time driving about as fast as one can run, in order to have enough reaction time to avoid pedestrians without reflectors. And I think you understand that while we all dream of better public transport and less car-brain, in this instance wearing a tiny reflector you literally get for free from most places (my bus pass holder is one, for instance, because hauling hailing down buses is a lot more effective with a reflector than a dark mitten) can’t be such a bother. Also you can just take it off when you get to where your going and pocket it if it so bothers you.
Also, what about pets?
Most pets nowadays here have either reflective “clothing” or leashes/bands with small leds. And a lot of the time you just spot a dog in a reflective harness and perhaps a leash hanging in midair until you see the person.
Yeah. And cars aren’t the only ones driving around at night. You got Public transport too. So don’t blame cars
And not just for the humans using the road either.
##Glittering antlers to improve road safety
Employees at Finland’s Reindeer Herders’ Association are testing two different reflective sprays on reindeer’s antlers as a means to make the animals more visible to motorists on Lapland’s dark roads.
Ya’ll don’t have to reason with drcake here you can just call them an idiot and move on. Be better next time!
Stay safe out there beautiful people. The world needs all of you to keep making it a better place.
I’m going to go against the groupthink here.
If I’m driving at night I sometimes come across people wearing specifically dark clothing walking in the street or crossing in poorly illuminated areas, seemly unaware of the cars.
I too, wish we lived in a less car centric society, and I know if I hit them it’s my fault. But wearing all black and walking in poorly illuminated streets unaware of traffic is profoundly stupid.
Im not saying they have to don hi-vis, but the all back is certainly a choice.
I agree with you 100%. As a motorcycle rider and pedestrian/runner, I am all too aware that even if you are in the right as to your personal choices - it will suuuuuck to be unseen from someone piloting a larger vehicle. Responsibility doesn’t solely fall on the pedestrian in this instance - but why wouldn’t someone at a disadvantage want to up their visibility? Had a bicyclist the other night on an unlit Street wearing all black and no lights or reflectors on their bicycle. 25mph zone but two way narrow in-town street. I only knew they was there because the car in front of me crossed the double yellow - and looking in the rear view, had pulled off to the side but was next to invisible…
Part of the problem is many winter coats and a pair of jeans will look all black at night. Couple that with high speeds, poor lighting, and parked cars blocking sightlines and the problem gets hard to blame one specific factor. IMO its mostly a roadway design problem but it is an unfortunate reality that you have be very alert at night and assume every car cannot see you.
Certainly I don’t think the onus is on the pedestrian to solve to overall problem, which exists because of the things you point out. I’m only saying the pedestrian is responsible for their own safety.
If I am responsible for my safety I should be allowed to carry a brick at all times.
As far as I understand, you are definitely allowed to carry a brick.
You are allowed to do that.
If I am responsible for my safety I should be allowed to carry a
brickhandgun at all times.If we’ve learned anything from ICE, it’s that a vehicle is a deadly weapon, and shooting a driver in the face is sometimes justified.
/s
A line I’ve used before is “It won’t be your fault, but it will be your problem.”
Pedestrians should be able to walk on the roads. It should be down to cars to not hit them. However, when they screw up. The car owner has a dented car, you have shatter bones and organs.
It’s against the grain here, but my personal view is that all school kits should be given a family size pack of high Vis strap vests and taught the risks. It’s amazing how effective an educated 8 year old can be at changing behaviours.
My 6 year old big sister convinced my mother that my father lighting up in the house on the way outside to smoke was not okay and then convinced my father that smoking was bad enough to quit, even if it really was only every one or two pipes a week
I grew up in the far north, winters were very long and very dark. Every kids jacket had prominent reflective materials.
I still look for that when I get a winter jacket.
Being dark isn’t a choice. People, dogs, cats, birds, etc are born that way.
Even clothing sometimes isn’t a choice. It’s pretty common in work attire to require black shoes and slacks. Formal attire also leans dark.
Formal wear doesn’t include helmets, yet we still expect people to put on a helmet if they get on a bike.
We are talking about walking, its the default method of moving. You are suggesting people need safety gear to be able to walk down the street. The police can give you a ticket for not wearing your safety walking gear? Is walking on the street a privellage not a right?
Don’t worry, they will privatize the roads after elections are fixed, and they will make walking a crime.
We shouldn’t though. The responsibility should fall on those who create the danger to manage it responsibly.
I do wear a helmet but if someone chooses not to that’s their business and it’s not their fault if someone else injures or kills them any more than it would be if you failed to wear body armor while walking in a dangerous neighborhood.
I wear a helmet while biking. It’s saved me from a head injury once so far, in an accident that had nothing to do with being hit by a car.
I don’t think it should be legally required, though, because avoiding discouraging people from cycling at all is more important for safety and health in aggregate.
(I was riding along at relatively low speed, looking up at some scenery, and hit the longitudinal edge of a cockeyed metal plate in the road in just the wrong way such that it pushed my wheel sideways and made me fall over.)
Yeah I support helmet wearing. I just don’t think we should blame people for bad things that other people do to them just because they chose not to.
Comes down to if you want to assign blame or prevent it from happening to you.
Yes, if you’re riding without a helmet and hit by a car, the car is (probably) still at fault. But if your primary concern is avoiding brain damage, you wear a helmet.
You’ve chosen hyperbole in your hypothetical in a dangerous neighborhood. More to the point is wearing an expensive watch while in a dangerous neighborhood. If you’re rolled and the watch stolen, it’s the fault of the thief. But maybe a better idea to put the Rolex in your pocket when downtown after dark.
I think my analogy is way more similar than yours.
Make your own decisions about how you keep yourself safe. But once you start victim blaming, expect criticism.
Nope. We’re talking basic common sense precautions. Not “body armor.”
“Common sense” stems from the cultural context. Which in this case is carbrained.
Most other countries do not consider a helmet a necessity for riding a bike.
Most places with functional, safe bike lanes will have most people riding without helmets because accidents are quite rare.
Riding a bike without a helmet is profoundly stupid.
As is driving a car without a helmet, given the number of head injuries that result. But here we are.
I’m sure you meant seatbelt. In which case I agree wholeheartedly.
Seatbelts are good, too, but they don’t protect the head, and head injuries from mild to severe are still quite common. It’s utter stupidity not to wear a helmet in the car.
The entirety of The Netherlands vs this person
Even if safety reflectors become widely adopted- let’s suppose that workers leaving the office at 5pm put one on, clubbers at midnight have them, whatever - then won’t motorists come to expect to see them? And if they hit someone, people might say, “Well, she wasn’t wearing safety reflectors - what do you expect?”
When I go running around my neighborhood at night I actually do wear hi-vis, I don’t even run on the street. People just suck at paying attention in general.
Well shit I guess I need to go get a fuschia tracksuit for my night walks. A whole different set of drivers can harass me for a new reason.
IMO it’s fine to wear dark, but be aware that drivers will have a harder time seeing you and you should be careful crossing the street.
Just don’t cross a road without looking and you should be good.
Fuck off. Email or call your city council member and advocate for better pedestrian infrastructure. Do it, right now.
Both can be true.
It can (and is) true that we need better pedestrian infrastructure. Or more to the point, less car-centric infrastructure.
But it can (and is) also true that a pedestrian should take basic safety precautions when around dangerous things. He should likewise look both ways before crossing a bike path (infrastructure we support) and shouldn’t cross train tracks (also infrastructure we support) when the train is coming.
We live largely in a world that caters to cars. I hope that can change. But that doesn’t absolve personal safety responsibility.
I live in the Netherlands. We have excellent pedestrian infrastructure, I can safely walk anywhere.
We also raise our kids explaining them to always look both ways, to never suddenly cross the road and never to assume a driver has actually seen you. It’s basic road safety, you so the same for crossing a bicycle path or railroad tracks.
It’s an insult to tell someone to look before crossing the street in a fuckcars comm. Like no shit. Why do you think we’re all in here. It’s really frustrating because accounting for the externalities of cars is the normative state of being for us, nobody is in here to fool themselves about that fact, we’re here because of it. At least I am. I’m not really down in this thread to entertain the myth of the bumbling jay as some sage counter-argument. It’s not.
Sorry safety interferes with your fashion choices.
I suppose sarcasm isn’t a great way to get through to someone who’s tone deaf.
But sure you really gave all of us black-on-black serial midnight car dodgers something to chew on, we had never thought about how visibility affects our safety ever before. First time!
The OP on Reddit literally admits they didn’t look at the crossing in their post lol and this is what we’re focusing on? In the fuck cars community? Watch the video. There’s no way that would have played out any differently even in broad daylight. And no amount of vigilance would have helped that pedestrian.
might as well vantablack.
“Why should pedestrians have to make themselves visible, it’s cars’ fault” is basically the same argument as “I had the right-of-way, that car shouldn’t have hit me”.
Technically true? Sure! But useless in practice. Stop wearing all black at night, and don’t fucking chase a car that almost hit you.
Right, it’s a matter of physics and actual danger mitigation. Light is absorbed by black colored clothing, making an effective camouflage in the dark. If you camouflage yourself in the dark and walk in the road, you increase your chances that drivers won’t see you before it’s too late.
No sane parent would teach their child that it’s the car drivers’ responsibility to not hit them, placing all burden for their safety on drivers. Instead, we teach them ways to be careful to reduce the danger. Safety precautions are not based on “how it should be” ideals. They are based on practical ways to reduce dangers.
Exactly this. You may be “right” but you’re also squishy. Don’t make it easy
There are graveyards full of people who had the right of way, or however that saying goes.
I mean, you live in a world with cars and you know how color and light works. If you wanna be practically invisible while crossing a street, that seems pretty fucking stupid to me, but you do you I guess. 🤷♂️
I don’t typically wear a hard
hardhat, either, but if I am crossing through a construction zone I might wanna put one on.hard hard
When I’m hard, I’m hard hard.
It’s okay to kill pedestrians if they’re wearing black
Tell that to the judge & jury.
woosh
There’s two sides to this really. A failing on two fronts.
First off, the idiot driving should be paying more attention. You have lights, and I doubt the pedestrian is wearing a vantage black jumpsuit with the hoodie pulled up.
Secondly, pedestrians should be paying attention in general. It’s not a carbrain response to say “you should be paying attention to your surroundings” it’s just common sense. Would you cross train tracks without making sure a train isn’t crossing? Would you hope a bus is going to stop on a dime for you?
Both need to smarten the fuck up.
The driving infrastructure is in place and it’s hostile to pedestrians (and many others). People can act all smug about what should and shouldn’t be all the way into the grave.
We can either take reasonable steps and vote in parties who’ll improve the infrastructure or we can take unreasonable steps such as tactical urbanism where we dig pot holes and leave shit on the road to deter drivers.
I walk early in the morning wearing all black. I am aware that I’m effectively invisible to cars. I drive too. That’s neither of our faults so I make efforts not to be hit by cars. Cars have been told that they’re allowed to drive at a given speed (60km/h) and have no reason to expect to lookout for my black clad arse on the road.
Isn’t there some rule about driving slower when the visibility is poor (such as at night)?
I like to point out that if you can’t see a person wearing black in time, then you can’t see deer in time, or a fallen tree, or a broken-down vehicle, or a garbage bin. It’s not the world’s responsibility to get out of the way when you’re operating your vehicle.
Saying this generally makes drivers very angry. (Well, angrier.)
This is simply incorrect.
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Deer are very visible at night due to their reflective eyes, coat (which is not black) and movement. They can be spotted at >150m distance with high beams on. The reason they (and other wildlife) are dangerous is because they can jump into the road at the last moment from behind cover.
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Stationary items are usually a very low threat since the driver has a long time to spot them. Bigger ones (such as a tree, bin or car) are also inherently more visible. Also, the worst case is damage to the vehicle.
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Adding on, it is usually mandatory for broken down/stopped vehicles to have their hazards on and put out a warning triangle ahead if they are in the road.
As an intelligent being, you are ultimately responsible for your own continued safety. The good news however is that most drivers try to avoid hitting pedestrians.
If you spend a lot of time around traffic at night, a simple reflector tag does wonders to increase your visibility and lets you take more space.
I live in Wisconsin. There are tons of deer here. I know wherefore I speak when I say, if you think that deer are all easily visible, you’re Just-Worlding, or kidding yourself. They’re not always looking at you; sometimes oncoming headlights hide them. Sometimes the road curves, and your headlights don’t illuminate them until the last second. Somehow, drivers don’t see them, and there are always roadkill deer on the side of the highway every few miles in season.
But that reminds me of a creature that drivers talk about in near-mysterious terms— black ice. That is usually visible, if you slow down enough to pay attention. It looks like wet pavement.
Just sayin’, it’s not a bad idea to be visible when walking, but the person engaging in the inherently dangerous activity (driving) has the moral responsibility should something bad happen. It also happens to be a good idea to slow down and not overdrive your headlights.
(My college roommate’s brother died that way.)
To clarify, I was referring to visibility of deer and items. The situations you mention here limit the vision of the driver as a whole, and then the visibility of things no longer matters. Where I live we also have lots of deer, but accidents involving deer & other bigger wildlife is uncommon enough to make the local news (and you’ll almost never see such roadkill along the roads). During the season I’ll see animals several times per week, sometimes having to stop more than once on a single drive.
Nastiest run in I’ve had was where a group of deer had gotten in between the wildlife fencing on a stretch of highway
Illustration regarding visibility.
It looks like wet pavement.
That’s the part that makes black ice nasty. The temps can be slightly above freezing with wet spots everywhere. Then suddenly one small spot has slightly lower temperature. Bam, black ice.
I agree that drivers have a much larger responsibility, barring reckless behaviour. What I disagree with is driving being inherently dangerous. It’s a question of system design. As you mentioned Wisconsin, I assume you live in the US. My condolences.
We should legislate clothing after sunset
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Every time I visit reddit now, regardless of subreddit, I interact with the cream of the crop. I remember 15y ago it was this rather niche website where you could easily have insightful conversations. It’s now a nazi kindergarten
Plenty of smaller, subject specific and/or niche subs are still great. But you need to do some hunting for them.
I left because the admins beat those places into submission at every opportunity.
This is a terrible take. Sure, you can walk in all black. You can be hit by a car that does’t see you. You can be right and still dead or maimed. Win?
Cars exist. You bear some responsibility for your own safety as a pedestrian. Heck, I was driving home one night and a person did this exact thing, all dark clothes and long dark hair facing away from me stepping off the curb with opposite direction traffic putting headlights in my face. Saw them literally last second as they finally decided to look in the direction of the traffic flow they were stepping into. Awful decision making. Luckily I got stopped just as they simultaneously realized it was a shitty idea step in front of a car. Yeah, cars suck and are dangerous. Act like it and save yourself some grief.
If only cars had some sort of illumination device, one that would bounce off pedestrian crossings and signs and such…
Not much light can bounce off black clothing though
That’s why I wear a reflective thingamajig
As if it actually matters what colour a pedestrian is wearing. My winter coat is white and I carry two lights - one on my coat and one either on my head or in my hand if it’s too irritating to wear. The other evening I was walking home from the grocery store and this guy kept pulling out of parking lot that crossed my sidewalk, even though I was waving my light right at him but he didn’t even look in my direction until he was already pulling into traffic. He was never looking for pedestrians, only vehicles.
People turning are the worst when on foot or a bike. I will pass crosswalks and cross the street away from them in a great many places because crosswalks are way more dangerous as people turning right will look left, then go with an opening. I only cross in such circumstances after making eye contact and getting a nod from the driver.
Drivers are rather oblivious too, many think they’ve the right of way to turn right or left with the green straight, even as the crosswalk has the walk going straight then too. The walk symbol from pressing the buttons doesn’t change it either, it just gives a visual cues. Around expressway links on buys roads is the worst in cities.
Oh yeah, no I just backed up and waited for him to go, sometimes I’ll dramatically bow at people who don’t stop for me but this guy was particularly infuriating because I was already walking on the sidewalk and he just went anyways. Too many drivers act like the fact that they can kill me gives them the right of way and a lot of the comments here are behaving the same way, it’s actually concerning. Like, sure wearing brighter colours can help, but it literally does not matter what you wear because the driver is going to make excuses anyways - “they dressed too dark”, “they came out of nowhere”, “I didn’t see them” - all of them amount to “I wasn’t paying enough attention to safely manage my murder machine but I can’t accept accountability because me!” And I’ve proven that fact by wearing bright colours, carrying lights, and being patient and giving up my right of way and they still almost hit me every day.
As I bicyclist I never feel like I have trouble spotting pedestrians at night, no matter what they’re wearing, even though I have significantly less lights on my bike than a car has. Maybe because I try to stay aware, and slow down if I feel like my speed starts to endanger other people. On the other hand, in the past two years I have almost been driven straight into four times, in the middle of the day:
- I was riding in the bike lane, when a car exiting from a side road forgot to check whether it was clear, and instead continued straight ahead. Car had a yield line.
- I was riding inside a roundabout, when a car tried to enter, almost hitting me.
- I was riding in the same roundabout, when a bus forgot to check for traffic, swinging left (going against the direction of traffic) as if it was a regular intersection, and almost hitting me. This is a tiny roundabout, so this is technically the way a bus is supposed to navigate it, but obviously only once it is empty.
- I was riding down the road (no bike lane) when a huge lorry suddenly turned from the other lane, going straight towards me while yelling. I still have no idea what was going on there.
If someone is distracted or otherwise driving unsafely, it doesn’t matter what you wear. Unfortunately, a lot of people are using their phones while driving, going above the speed limit, not slowing down when conditions are bad or simply not treating driving with the needed respect.
As a girl, a defining moment for me, was when I heard about an exhibition showcasing what rape victims were wearing when they were raped. Some were wearing children’s-sized nightdresses and ugly waterproof clothing. I think a similar exhibition showing what pedestrians and cyclists were wearing, as they were run down, would be an eye-opener for many people. I try to be reasonably careful, both as a woman and as a vulnerable road user, but I have long ago decided not to treat my fellow citizens as potential rapists or murderers.
What personal safety precautions you take when you’re in a vulnerable position, is a personal matter. When your actions endanger other people, it becomes a public matter.
On a bicycle, you’re out in the same environment as pedestrians and your eyes are attuned to the light level.
Motorists are in an enclosed cabin, the things they look at are predominantly sources of light - the dashboard, traffic signals, or the reflection of their headlights off objects in the environment.
A motorist’s pupils are contracted, so they have perception of contrast in poor light conditions.
yep
all of those things, however, are issues that the driver must overcome since they chose to put themselves in that position.
I have no trouble seeing out of my nearly two decades old car with halogen headlights and a dim interior
I never feel like I have trouble seeing people as a driver or as a cyclist or as a pedestrian
it’s mostly driver error. always has been.
As someone from Sweden. Where the dark night is very long in the winter. Do wear a reflective strap or something so cars can see you…
Wearing all black in the middle of the night and crossing the road is not a fantastic idea. I would not expect a car to see me until it’s too late. Don’t be an idiot. Make sure you can be seen.
Sincerely. Someone that bikes more than they drive a car
It’s good advice. But when it’s coming from drivers it comes of as shifting responsibility to VRUs, or victim blaming.
Drivers have responsibilities too. Pay attention to the road, get off your phone, drive at slower speed if you can’t see what’s in front of you.
Yes. They do have responsibilities. But how can you expect anyone to stop for something they can’t see?
This advice is coming from a pedestrian. Wear your reflective patch. Snap one over your arm, have one hanging out of your pocket, pin it to your coat. Whatever. Just have something on you so you can be seen if you’ll be around traffic.
Yup, I’m a train/e scooter commuter and I have added reflective and lights to all my gear because I care about my personal safety. While the cars should see me and should be traveling at a safe speed (especially when visibility is low), I don’t expect them to because they’re fucking car brains. It’s self awareness and preservation, I know the cars are mostly looking for other cars because they’re more common and a larger threat to the driver. I can help them not fuck me up by clipping a couple cheap lights and reflective stickers. Honestly even with that I’ve almost been struck, so I recently installed an electric horn to my scooter and I’m constantly hooting at dumbass Uber drivers more focused on their phone than the road (I also find the disproportionately loud horn from the scooter quite funny).
If everyone still drove old Timey cars with sealed beam headlights I would be more charitable
The fact that every manufacturer is strapping spotlights to the front of these death traps erases any sympathy and that’s even before all the godawful aftermarket bumper lights and junk
