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A mate has the black NiteVision and it is fantastic - but as everyone has said, at night it is lights that get you noticed - at least one fixed and one flashing at either end, and preferably ones that offer side visibility as well.
Pedal reflactors are also great - the movement attracts attention. I have some on the SPDs on my commuter.
As for yellow in the day time, I tend to just wear a bright solid colour - red, bright blue and orange are in my current wardrobe. Not been hit yet in 6 years of commuting!
*touches wood*
As a driver, I've been impressed by those Schwalbe tyres with the reflective sides - a lot of the reflective bits on coats, panniers, rucksack etc tend to face mostly backwards or forwards, two big glowing hoops works well to make cyclists stand out, for example crossing t-junctions.
They are wonderfully visible, the trouble is that like wheel reflectors they're all but useless from a road safety perspective. That's because they'll only reflect if they're in a headlight beam, and by the time you come into the beam of a car coming from a side road, the driver has already made his decision on whether or not to pull out. If the driver has time to react to seeing the tyres, you'd have already been clear anyway.
Pedal reflactors are also great - the movement attracts attention. I have some on the SPDs on my commuter.
Platform SPDs, or have you got some of those clip in things that come with new bikes which make your pedals single sided? Or is there some other way I've missed? Fortunately my shoes and overshoes all have reflective stuff on them, which must do just as good a job.
Usually wear black, have done since I started commuting by bike back in the '90s. Includes commuting across London, Reading and Bristol over the years.
Bright proper off-road lights slow drivers down and make 'em take notice.
I reckon if you wear yellow, you get targetted!
I reckon for most drivers the only thing that would slow them down is to make a sign out of 3M tape to look like this:
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and stick that onto your rucksack/back
new colour for night vision:
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I do wear reflective and yellow, mainly a road workers reflective summer top with the sleeves cut short for commuting. It isn't waterproof, but goes over everything else that is, and it's light enough to not get to sweaty when it's warmer
As for Lights, as other have said, have at least 2 each end. The only thing I'd add is to split them up. I have bar & seatpost as well as F&R on the helmet. Seen too many with everything on the bars and they can get lost. The P7 on the helmet is great for seeing over cars to stop people turning in front of me (on intermittent strobe you really get noticed 😆 )
As TinMan syas - I put a flsahing LED on the helmet. The idea being that people can see me above cars in front of me.
Just took delivery of a yellow Night Vision jacket and its very bright.
The other reason for 2 at each end is in case one fails / falls off
I also have those schwalbe tyres but not sure if they work after a week or 2 of road spray has greyed them out a bit.
just picked up some flashing reflective armbands from Aldi for £4 for 4.
seem quite good little things.
I've never bothered with bright clothing, usually wear black. Hope vision 4 on the front, cateye ld 610 on the rear seem to do the job. I'll probably fit a set of [url= http://www.zyro.co.uk/product-category/Lights/Light-x0020-Sets/id/CA490SL12.aspx ]these[/url] to my pompino but my other commuting bikes unfortunately have incompatible wheels.
Just to chuck my two penny'th in regarding orange and yellow, as a poster above mentioned about the yellow losing it's visibility on t'moors, orange is the colour of choice for rescue purposes, the MA1 pilots jacket has a reversible bright orange lining, International Rescue Orange or some such name, because it's the last actual colour the human eye can make out in dim light; it's why serious divers watches have orange hands or face as an option, like the Bell & Ross ones, and it's not a common colour in natural suroundings, also rescue aircraft always used to have bright orange markings rather than yellow, 'cos yellow 'fades' to a whitish colour with distance. Personally, I rely on reflectives and very bright lights at night, and don't bother with dayglo, as I'm usually wearing a bag of some sort that covers most of a jacket or vest up. My Timbuktoo bag has the entire centre panel in reflective white, and that is very bright.
Don't forget the wheel reflectors! Yes, they look crap in the daylight, but they rock at night - great for side-on visibility. Also, I reckon these and pedal reflectors really say 'cyclist' to the driver's subconscious. Well, they do to me when I'm driving, anyway.
I picked up some black retro-reflective tape from some US website, damned if I can remember the name now though.
I stuck some on the rims before I got the wheel reflectors, and they do a good job. Plus, because it's black you can't tell it's there normally. I also stuck some on the back and sides of my helmet, in a chess-board pattern. My mrs says it's quite eye-catching when driving behind me at night. And again cos it's black it doesn't look crap at other times (and let's face it, we're (almost) all a bit vain about bike gear!). I also wear a road-worker style orange hi-viz vest with loads of 3M retro-reflective stripes, and the helmet has a flashing 1W LED on for getting attention at side roads and roundabouts, when the other 1W flashing LED isn't necessarily pointing towards an oncoming vehicle.
And... that bottle in the cage is the reservoir for an Air-Zound - 115 decibel air horn. It's saved me from a couple of crashes when drivers have pulled out on me despite all the flashing lights and retro-reflectivity. Makes them think something motorised is a hell of a lot closer than they thought, and they slam the brakes on 🙂
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Will, all that and no mudguards? 😕
Movement is a key to visibility, as mentioned before. As such, ankle bands are great, as are pedal and wheel reflectors.
My plan is lots of lights, 4 red ones, going to put a couple of the little flashing ones on my pack, and have my ayups on helmet and bars, plus a cheapo one to make me roughly legal.
My pack has a fair bit of reflective on it but will probably put a yellow Hi-vis over the top of it, lets face it if they cannot see over 600 lumens of light from the front I am screwed either way.
Rozzers might not be quite so impressed though
[url= http://www.kleins.co.uk/3m-scotchlite-reflective-tape-trim-28-p.asp ]This stuff looks worth a go too[/url]
Meters of scotchlite tape
Will, all that and no mudguards?
There's a crud-catcher on the down tube and a home-made one on the underside of the pannier rack (being pushed out of shape by the lock). Once I'd got the hi-viz vest, the wheel reflectors and the skinny tyres, I figured I couldn't look any more of a div, so the mud-guards went on!
I also use the crappy plastic clip-in reflectors that came with the spuds on the bike - great for being able to clip in and still have pedal reflectors. Even though they don't weigh much, it's enough to make them automatically rotate to the underside so the cleat is always on top.