The red ones are all standard (not superbright) LED lights, certainly nothing like the wattage of the normal rear lights (not brake lights) on a car. It's possible that the scotchlite strips on the coat can be quite bright if their headlights are aimed too high though, I hadn't thought of that.
Still, if they think I offer less light at the front they are in for a nasty shock.
As regards the blue light idea, the white LED lights are very white (can you have degrees of whiteness?) compared to halogen lamps, which have a yellowish tinge. They certainly can appear bluish when compared to a normal car headlamp.
|
Still, if they think I offer less light at the front they are in for a nasty shock.
:-D
|
What is the obsession with being in front of a cyclist? >>
Simple, a cyclist in front is a hazard, a constantly changing perhaps unpredicatable hazard, a cyclist behind is a hazard passed thus enabling the driver to concentrate on the road ahead. Overtaking a cyclist might not always be the correct thing to do though that is the thought process going on behind the wheel.
|
Once again cheddar, if you'll pardon the pun, you take the biscuit. Or should that be cracker?
Every car in front is a potential hazard. "Officer, I was on the wrong side of the road at 120mph to avoid the potential hazard represented by the 40 or so cars queuing in front of me."
This constantly changing and unpredicatable (sic) hazard is travelling at the same speed or faster than the prevailing traffic so the natural reaction is to overtake it? If that really is the case I'll be doing the gene pool a favour if I drag the next motorist to do this from his car and bludgeon him to death with my bike pump.
|
Every car in front is a potential hazard. "Officer, I was on the wrong side of the road at 120mph to avoid the potential hazard represented by the 40 or so cars queuing in front of me."
Stop it, $$. You're giving me ideas!
|
|
|
Once again you are ignoring the point made and being, to give you the benefit of the doubt, at best patronising. Cut it out!
I am also a cyclist and motorcyclist, I am certainly not making excuses for other motorists however it is clear that the average driver percieves, as I said, a cyclist in front is a hazard, a distracting hazard that is best passed as soon as possible.
|
Once again you are ignoring the point made and being, to give you the benefit of the doubt, at best patronising. Cut it out!
Granted, I was being a mite disingenuous with my response, for which I apologise. I genuinely hope that this isn't what is causing people to undertake such a malicious and dangerous manouvere but I fear there may well be an element of truth to it. To draw a parallel, both my wife and I frequently find people pull into our path on motorways and dual carriageways if we are in the L200. There's a glance in the mirror followed by "ooh, that's a pickup so it must be moving slowly, I'll pull out". It's likely that the conditioning that says pickup = slow is being applied here.
I am also a cyclist and motorcyclist, I am certainly not making excuses for other motorists however it is clear that the average driver percieves, as I said, a cyclist in front is a hazard, a distracting hazard that is best passed as soon as possible.
There were 5 motorists in 4 miles who did this, so not an average response, but enough to have me clenching the saddle in a most unexpected fashion.....
Steptoe's point is one well made. It is perhaps a symptom of our exercise-averse society that relatively few people ride a bike after their 16th birthday when the scooter licence is obtained and anyone on a bike is seen as some kind of green, tree-hugging freak with no money. A wider appreciation of what it's like to ride a bike on our appallingly maintained roads would certainly help.
|
|
|
|
|
If a condition of issue of a provisional licence was the holding of a cycling proficiency award cyclists might have a better survival rate.
I am sure it is just ignorance rather than malevolence that causes motorists to behave as badly as they do. Oddly enough, though, eye contact, if this is possible, will often do the trick, though this didn't help with the female BMW driver who used to regularly overtake me in the mornings at 40 on a twisty 8 foot country lane.
----------------------------------------------
One mans junk is another mans treasure
|
I am sure it is just ignorance rather than malevolence that causes motorists to behave as badly as they do. >>
Agreed.
|
|
Its not just cyclists that these people have to overtake. On a number of occasions I have been overtaken, sometimes dangerously on a bend only for them to turn off immediately afterwards with me only a few yards behind. I am left wondering what was the point.
|
|
With rider-driver education in mind, I continue to dream of the day when you can't purchase a bicycle until you have taken a riding and road-awareness course, and you can't obtain a provisional motorbike licence without holding the certificate from that course, and you can't obtain a provisional car licence before you have acquired a full motorcycle licence. I know, dream on.
|
|
|
|
I know I've posted this before, but with regard to cyclists I admire your bravery/think you're all mad.
The only place I am prepared to get on a bicycle is Cambridge. It scares me witless anywhere else.
|
My 'safe cyclist of the year' award this year goes to the one I saw ( just) last Wednesday evening.
Cycling in the New Forest ( i.e. no streetlighting, very, very dark) just after pub closing time, dwon the road from a pub, with no lights whatsoever. No relective clothing, no visible reflectors on the bike. I just hope they were'nt going far :-/
|
Working for Royal Mail means that I do bike deliveries as often as i do van ones, and i know which i prefer.
Its suicidal going on bikes, even with high visability jackets,people just do not look at you .
We have this large American working with us and he reckond this woman looked him straight in the eye, then "smack" knocked him off and drove off.
Going off on a tangent,walking away from the Post Office either way you cross either the High Street of the square and i started to notice something.
So the missus did not think I was being a chauvanist i made come with me.
We would wait for a man to drive down the road and look to cross, 9 time out of ten he would gesture for you to cross.
If a woman drove down the road and we went to cross 9.9 times out of ten we had to leg it , why?, it is the same on road junctions in slow traffic , a bloke will let you merge in, a woman (not always, but nearly) will not let you out.
They seem to have perfected the art of non usage of their periferal vision, they just stare ahead and do not let anything get in their way.
Not just a chauvanistic taunt but a real experiment, there was the odd woman who let you cross but not many.
No doubt i am in trouble know.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
