SUMMARY – solving the SMIDSY collision may sound simply but it’s not… whilst there is limited evidence that conspicuity aids reduce the collision rate, their use is far from a guarantee the rider will be seen… even when seen, drivers may still misjudge speed and distance… pink hi-vis, the night-time ‘ghost jacket’ and yellow lights would seem to be more effective than conventional hi-vis and DRLs…. but whatever strategy we do adopt, there’s no guarantee we will be seen…

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – collisions between cars and motorcycles increase when it’s dark… drivers misjudge ‘time to collision’ more often when motorcycles have single headlights… retro-reflective material is often too high up or the approaching bike is at the wrong angle for the car’s lights to illuminate it… garments used at night feature blocks, stripes or even random patches of retro-reflective material and fail to create a recognisable shape…

 

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – it’s long been recognised that a dipped headlight is not the most effective day-riding light… making the bike stand out has become a more difficult problem now cars also have day running lights… an effective DRL has to work under multiple conditions… DRLs are most effective at dawn and dusk but less effective in daytime conditions of bright sun… single headlights offer poor help to drivers in judging speed and distance… but DRLs also have to provide a ‘visual signature’ so drivers realise they are seeing a motorcycle and drivers are quick to recognise single headlights as belonging to a bike… twin lights may be mistaken for a car… the ‘triangle of lights’ is ineffective in terms of daytime conspicuity but help drivers judge speed and distance more accurately… unusual lights risk not being recognised as being fitted to a PTW… like hi-vis clothing DRLs are not ‘fit and forget’…

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – the 1975 Ride Bright campaign in London encouraged riders to ride lights-on in daytime… studies proposing safety interventions nearly all state that dipped headlights are effective in reducing collisions… but the claim is often based on laboratory studies or poor quality evidence from the roads… when legislation forced riders to switch on headlights in daytime in Malaysia, 80% complied but the overall reduction in collisions was only around 7%… the pan-European MAIDS study found that in collisions with drivers who did not see the motorcycle, 69% of riders were using their lights… we cannot rely on day riding lights to be seen…

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – to be conspicuous, we need to present a recognisable shape… although motion draws attention, we still need to recognise what moved… disruptive camouflage breaks down shapes to hinder recognition… clothing and bikes with multiple colours create a form of disruptive camouflage… many garments sold as ‘hi-vis’ are disruptive patterning… single colours produce a strong silhouette and are likely to be more rapidly recognised by drivers…

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IMPORTANT:

The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – colour has been exploited for conspicuity for thousands of years… the first bike safety campaign was ‘Ride Bright’ in London in the mid-70s… conspicuity clothing must generate a contrast to be effective… hi-vis is only effective when it is a DIFFERENT colour or shade to the riding environment… counter-intuitively, dark colours show up against light backgrounds… for an effective colour contrast use the colour wheel… if using hi-vis choose a colour appropriate to the riding environment… pink is a good all-round choice for daytime use… but there is not likely to be a one-size-fits-all solution… don’t expect to be seen even when using hi-vis clothing…

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – visual salience and cognitive conspicuity have both been investigated as potential causes of collisions between cars and PTWs… the conspicuity theory is widely accepted at face value… but there is no compelling statistical evidence that shows a reduction in collisions resulting from ROWV at intersections… as the SMIDSY collision happens worldwide in hugely different driving regimes, the implication is that the crashes are a ‘human factors’ problem, NOT a conspicuity issue… ‘Think Bike’ campaigns have limited effectiveness… the most effective option is likely to be improving rider understanding of drivers’ visual perception issues and cognitive problems, helping the rider adopt a better defensive riding strategy at intersections… 

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – motorcyclists may believe that drivers don’t care about bikes or see them as a source of danger… they further believe the lack of empathy means they don’t look hard enough… this belief does not appear to be founded on any solid evidence, just speculation… gap acceptance studies show no right-of-way violations in thousands of passes… statistically, one study indicates that car drivers crash with other cars just as often as with motorcyclists and that they do not crash with motorcycles more often than motorcyclists with other motorcyclists… 

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – sometimes the driver sees the motorcycle but miscalculates ‘time to collision’… the rider may make it difficult for the driver to judge speed and distance by travelling faster than surrounding traffic… the size-arrival effect means smaller, nearer objects are incorrectly judged to arrive LATER than larger, more distant objects…  compared with cars and vans, the ‘time to arrival’ of motorcycles is estimated to be significantly later… riders exceeding speed limits are more likely to be killed in a collision…

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The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491

SUMMARY – with experience we tend to use more rapid ‘pre-programmed’ search patterns at intersections… these search patterns are based on prior experience and expectation… experienced drivers search for gaps at a predetermined distance from the junction… failure to search ‘backwards’ towards their vehicle can lead to detection failures when there are vehicles closer than the observed gap… the failures are rare, which leads us to believe our strategy is a good one…

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IMPORTANT:

The material is free to all to access and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. That means you can share it with your family and friends, and re-use it for club magazines and websites, so long as you acknowledge the source and author and include the same Creative Commons license in the derived works.

Please note, this Creative Commons license excludes commercial use. If you wish to use any of my work for commercial purposes, including (but not limited to) articles in pay-for magazines or commercial websites, please contact me.

Kevin Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Photo credit Paul Townsend https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/20001313491