Cyclists without lights

heartbreak_star

Cyclists terrify me, as a driver. Always have.

HBS x

Idiophreak

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Cyclists terrify me, as a driver. Always have.

HBS x

You should try being a cyclist and see how you feel about drivers. :eek:

Mindless_Clone

Idiophreak wrote: »

That's not exactly common sense, though...

A reflector's better than no light at all...So would common sense be to make riding with reflectors only legal?

I meant common sense in that people were using them rather than steady lights, and a flashing light is better than no light at all and, actually, the flashing lights are fairly adequate (some might say better) at illuminating a cyclist. So it makes sense just to legalise them, rather than have police wasting their time booking people for not having the right lights when the lights they have do the job they need to do.

Tilt

Idiophreak wrote: »

You should try being a cyclist and see how you feel about drivers. :eek:

Thats all very well but how many cars do you see driving around in the dark compared to cyclists?

thelawnet

Tilt wrote: »

Thats all very well but how many cars do you see driving around in the dark compared to cyclists?

Saw one yesterday, pulled out from the side of the road with no lights into my path. I flashed lights and beeped horn but it took the dimwit some time to sus.

adouglasmhor

thelawnet wrote: »

Saw one yesterday, pulled out from the side of the road with no lights into my path. I flashed lights and beeped horn but it took the dimwit some time to sus.

I got pulled by the police in Glasgow city centre a couple of years ago. Apparently they had had a call that I had aggressively flashed my lights, pointed and beeped my horn at a woman sitting in front of me at lights!
Luckily my GF was able to confirm that I had been trying to draw attention to the fact she had no lights on, and I said can you call her back before she causes an accident, driving about on her mobile in the dark.
Paranoid daftie.

Idiophreak

Honestly, *on the road*, I'd say I see around as many cars as I do bikes without lights...and as with the above, I spend ages trying to get them to work out why everyone's flashing them...Normally this is in streetlit areas, but I've seen them on dual carriageways on occasion.

(I even did it myself, once, for a couple of hundred yards...it was after a service and they'd switched my lights "off" instead of to "auto" where they are most of the time...not an excuse, I know)

Most of the lightless cyclists I see at least have the good sense (from their point of view) to cycle up on the pavements...but I do feel for the pedestrians...

thelawnet

One thing I thought was a little off was that they brought her in, clearly an attractive young female

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjbZ2q-k_O0&feature=player_detailpage#t=3202s

They said
"She came from a nice family"

which seems like a ridiculous statement to me. Had she been a 25-year-old male in a souped-up P-reg BMW rather than a girly Mini would they have treated her differently?

If you look at the profile of people that kill using cars, they are very often from 'nice families'. I've seen 'nice' people behaving disgracefully in cars, just take a look earlier in the same episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjbZ2q-k_O0&feature=player_detailpage#t=1029s

The girl has smashed her car into the central reservation in good conditions and claims 'a bunny rabbit' 'ran out in front of her'.

However the cops clearly don't believe this story and it does look at least likely that like she was using her mobile phone when it happened, which is an offence in itself, but it apparently it's ok to drive like an absolute !!!!! as long as you don't hit anyone - this time.

Next time of course she could take someone with her.

Tilt

Idiophreak wrote: »

Honestly, *on the road*, I'd say I see around as many cars as I do bikes without lights...and as with the above, I spend ages trying to get them to work out why everyone's flashing them...Normally this is in streetlit areas, but I've seen them on dual carriageways on occasion.

(I even did it myself, once, for a couple of hundred yards...it was after a service and they'd switched my lights "off" instead of to "auto" where they are most of the time...not an excuse, I know)

Most of the lightless cyclists I see at least have the good sense (from their point of view) to cycle up on the pavements...but I do feel for the pedestrians...

You obviously live a long way from me then because I would say without doubt that where I live on a single night at the most I see only 4 in 10 cyclists (of all age groups) with lights on. If we are talking youngsters then it's about 1 in 10.

As for cars it's the other way around, about 1 in 10 who don't have their lights on when it is completely dark but very rare do I see that on a nightly basis.

Oldfatgrumpy

I live in Cambridge where I estimate around 30% of the thousands of city cyclists go around unlit at night. I find it so hypnotically difficult to avoid my vision being fixed on the ones with flashing lights that I try to look away, otherwise I don't notice other hazards (such as all the unlit cyclists). I was grumbling about illegal flashing lights for years until I realised they were now legal, so I now grumble about legal flashing lights instead!