Reflecting on reflecting

Riding to work this morning I passed a woman dressed in running gear with a hi-viz on. She was crossing the road, a normal suburban residential road, quite busy with slow moving traffic, at a zebra crossing with her young son, schoolbag in hand, also wearing a hi-viz.

It made me wonder what it says about our society that this person had felt it was necessary (regardless of whether it was or not) to wear hi-viz clothing just to walk (or run) down the pavement of a normal road in broad daylight without getting run over.

About 30 seconds later on a much quieter, wider, straight residential suburban road, in broad daylight with clear views up and down the road, a car reversed out of a drive into my path. Not a dangerous situation – I saw it coming from far enough away to slow down – but it struck me as ironic.

/musing

the real problem is we know many of our fellow citizens are not aware/ not bothered by our safety so it encourages us to take more preventative measures to stop them being dicks

they are not that effective and the best defence, as you did, is pay attention.

I dont cycle busy roads much anymore as the standard of driving – even when you are in the car- is pretty low these days and its just not fun having to pay that much attention in case of dicks being dicks.

the real problem is we know many of our fellow citizens are not aware/ not bothered by our safety so it encourages us to take more preventative measures to stop them being dicks

this.

I walk my kids to school. Between autumn half term and roughly easter I get them to wear high vis, as do about half the other parents who walk their kids to school. The reason is that the school is on a busy 40mph road with narrow pavements in places that are overhung by trees. About 1 in 10 drivers pay no attention to what’s on the pavement and consistently swerve towards the pavement to avoid potholes or create a bigger gap to the vehicle on the opposite side. If I’m on the pavement at the time I am very aware that the vehicle’s wing mirror is very close to me. So anything to make us more visible, especially on the dark under-tree narrow pavement area feels like a step to help this.

I might be wrong though as the 1 in 10 dozy gits may still be just as dozy.

It is very frustrating that pedestrians, cyclists and other road users have to go to extreme measures to stay safe. Super bright lights, reflective clothing, safety fences at junctions, etc. Mostly because a large number of people in cars put actually driving the car about 7th on their priority list of things they are doing and the welfare of those around them doesn’t even make the top 50. Dare to go out cycling wearing black or not wearing a helmet and you get lambasted, heaven forbid forget your light and you are a super villain. There has been a 20mph speed limit put in around here (Bristol) in most parts of the city. It makes things much safer and nicer for other road users, it is noticeably better. You’d think the mayor had gone round and kicked each driver in nuts from the comments that pop up at the bottom of news feeds. Sorry pointless, waffley mini rant. 😡

Institutionalised victim blaming. The thing is, on lit streets in towns cyclists don’t even need lights to ride safely. The only point of bicycle lights in such circumstances is to absolve some of the responsibility from the people who introduce the danger to the roads.

What a shit society we live in where we have to bow down so much at the alter of an object which is purported to give us freedom.

I get angry whenever I see a group of tiny kids with hi-vis vests or whatnot on. Nevermind “awww cute”, they’re kids for goodness sake, just don’t run them over! Is it really that hard?

they’re kids for goodness sake, just don’t run them over! Is it really that hard?

Well it shouldn’t be. But for the 1 in 10 drivers I see on the school run, it clearly isn’t top of their list of priorities. And how a close pass to a narrow pavement with kids on it is preferable to the very slight discomfort of driving over some potholes is beyond me.

I stopped cycling to my kids school on the road when the same driver , for the second time, hit me in the exact same place doing the same dumb thing as last time.

FWIW she was turning right into a road and cutting the entire corner so she was completely on the wrong side of the road both times

I was to blame for being there obviously

She was also very sweary despite schoolkids being about

She also threatened to beat me up which was quite amusing/tragic.

My local council are actually going to the extreme of closing the road outside my son’s school to traffic during that hours of 8am – 9am and 2pm – 4pm unless you’re a resident, because so many of the school run drivers drive like complete dicks.

Not quite sure how big the exclusion zone is going to be yet, but it looks like at least half a mile. I can’t wait, it’ll be awesome to see the frothing,

+1 to just about everything on this thread. It’s comforting at least to see that I’m not the only one that thinks this way (or at all :twisted:) even if we are a minority.

About 1 in 10 drivers pay no attention to what’s on the pavement and consistently swerve towards the pavement to avoid potholes or create a bigger gap to the vehicle on the opposite side.

This reminded of how often when passing a car coming the other way on a narrow space with cars parked on one or both sides, I notice the driver giving more space to the inanimate object on his nearside, lest he damage his/her precious wing mirror, or someone else’s, than they give me, a living, breathing human being.

so many of the school run drivers drive like complete dicks.

and they drive because it’s not safe to walk without realising that they are the actual cause

At my kids school the drive down a dead end then send 30 mins of stress and shouting trying to get out

you can park all of say 75 m away without entering the road and there is parking as far as the eye can see.

I don’t think most people do need to we’re hi viz any more than they used to. I think something else is going on here.

In times gone by, people simply did what everyone else did, which is what everyone had always done. Accidents were shrugged off as unfortunate things that aleayd happened. Plus, hi viz or whatever was not redily available.

In these modern times though people are encouraged to think for themselves, to take charge of their lives. People read bout accidents, so they feel that they need to be proactive; they don’t want to be one of those statistics. Hence hi viz. Also, there is more shit to buy in any given area, including the pedestrian visibility goods market.

People are probably safer than they were 50 years ago, for a whole host of reasons I’d imagine.

People are probably safer than they were 50 years ago, for a whole host of reasons I’d imagine.

Definitely agree… although I wonder if the whole is much less than the sum of the parts through complacency; everything’s so safe I can just drive down here at speed without really paying attention can’t I, because everyone’s wearing hi-vis, I’ve got my seatbelt on, the car has airbags and ABS, anything actually hazardous has been sorted out, hasn’t it?

There’s a phrase for it, comes up about helmets a lot, can’t remember what it is now though… risk somethingorother?

Risk compensation

Simply put, the safer you feel, the greater risks you take.

I find it interesting that despite presumably being on our side you describe pedestrianisation outside a school as “extreme”. That’s how much we’ve all been brainwashed.

I’d love to see schemes like that in use. Or better still, more uptake of shared surfaces, woonerf and the like to force all road users to think more about decision making.

Edit – interesting examples here.
http://www.hamilton-baillie.co.uk/

(I’m not connected – no plugging!)

I find it interesting that despite presumably being on our side you describe pedestrianisation outside a school as “extreme”. That’s how much we’ve all been brainwashed.

It’s not pedestrianisation.

It’s deliberate exclusion of any vehicle that doesn’t reside on the road for a very specific reason. It will still be a through road for the several hundred houses that are in the estate, and one assumes, deliveries etc for this houses. It simply does not allow the extra volume of traffic caused by the school run.

Pedestrians will have no more rights over the main carriageway than they would normally. Certain cars will have less.

Whatever – I still don’t see anything extreme about that.