Boring q: what colour reflective tape for bollard on MUP?

There is MUP (multi user path) near me. It has a bollard at each end stopping cars etc driving along it – yay! But the bollards are painted black and at a dark corner so people (cyclists) keep hitting into them at night – boo! But the locals have realised it’s dangerous and stick a traffic cone on top of the bollards for visibility – yay! But then other well-meaning street sweepers and locals keep “tidying up” by removing the cones – boo!

My choices are: do nothing; spend months emailing the council and the landowner getting them to work out who should do something; or fix it myself with a chunky 1″ vertical strip of reflective tape off eBay. Being a natural busybody, I’m going with the last option.

But what is the “proper” colour for the strip to be? White? Yellow? Red? Blue?

It looks like one of these – and actually it has a very thin white/silver reflective strip at the top of the bollard’s shaft. ?

Red white and blue, obviously

Bollards to Brexit

I’d go with white/silver. If it’s good enough for traffic cones I’m sure it’ll be good enough for your bollard.

It will only be as good as any surrounding light sources though, so if there aren’t any street lights near by it may not be very effective.

You can buy black tape that reflects white, like this. Stealthy is probably less likely to get removed by a do-gooder or council official.

Serious hat on it needs to be contrasting, so visually impaired can be aware of it. A band of high Vis yellow would be good in conjunction with a white band

If you go for diamond grade reflective material it will pick up light from a long way off, it’s extremely reflective

Lord Alli is probably the person to ask. He’ll sort some glasses out as well 🙂

+1 for the 3m black, reflects white tape. It is really good, we used it on my mums gatepost after a few knocks and near misses. I used some offcuts on my commuting helmet and often got comments about how effecting it was.

Serious hat on it needs to be contrasting, so visually impaired can be aware of it.

Agreed. Do not just think ‘dark and cyclist’.

Bright yellow or red would help a lot, with a white contrast.

I have red 3m reflective tape on an outside post and our wheelie bins(!) and it last 5-8 years before starting to fade. You can buy it by the metre on eBay.

Serious hat on it needs to be contrasting, so visually impaired can be aware of it. A band of high Vis yellow would be good in conjunction with a white band

Ahhh, very good point, I wouldn’t have thought of that. I’ll go for some of the orangey-yellow diamond grade.

I’ve got a ton of the black-reflects-as-white stuff in a box somewhere from when I covered up a commuter frame. If another middle aged busybody peels the orange stuff off, I’ll put the black stuff on. But I suspect if I do it stealthily and tidily it will be fine.

I’ve got one exactly like that near me on Sustrans Route 66. Halfway down a dead end road, where four more block further progress to vehicles.This afternoon it was lying on its side in a plug of concrete and uprooted tarmac. I suspect a driver following outdated satnav had been having a bad day.

Looks like most cycle bollards have white reflective, a few have red.  Get decent reflective, if you search for ECE104 tape that’s the high quality stuff they stick on HGV trailers. I got some recently and doesn’t look like it will fall off or fade any time soon.

I’d clean the bollard if you are going to stick tape to it 🙂

Be careful with red and white. Depending on proximity to the carriageway it could be confusing…red to the nearside is the edge, white is the edge of the off (wrong) side and could cause some swervage if a driver thinks that they missed a bend. Comme ça https://startsafety.uk/collections/verge-markers

Add several stripes, of various colours, just to cover the bases (to a world champion standard)