Understanding that the first part of this myth is not true is relatively simple – just compare the weight and speed achieved by cars and bikes. The kinetic energy of the bike is so small that even if the rider makes a mistake on the road, mostly endangers himself. A life reflective jacket can save life sometimes.
To overthrow the second part of the myth, let’s try to use more scientific methods. Data that quote, gave Adam once before, but a reminder: Cyclists in 2006-2008 killed 4 people on the roads (not counting cyclists entering someone under the wheels themselves killed), 41 seriously wounded and lightly – 229. For comparison – the total number of fatalities in road accidents in this period is 16,263 killed, 188,444 seriously injured and 200,707 slightly injured. Well over half of these victims were caused by car drivers!
The bike have better reflexes than light
Finally, in contrast, mitt repeated for a portion of cyclists. They noted that the bicycle lights are usually weaker than the headlights and thus become less visible in the background. They also knew that the reflectors reflect the light of strong headlights. However, mistakenly they assumed that reflectors always reflect all the light and come to the erroneous conclusion that it is better to have than the glare lamp. However, the truth is that riding with the same reflectors without lights for cyclists is extremely dangerous!
First – no, even the best reflection, we do not illuminate the road in front of the bike. Even if we are visible to others, we cannot see a hole or a post on its way – even if the same post will glare. Not only that – cycling on the road, we meet another cyclist with the same reflectors – because none of us will have no lighting, glare both remain dark, because I will not have the light, that could bounce. Thus very easy to get a clash of two cyclists dressed in flares up from head to toe.
Secondly – a reflection, to reflect the light, it must be illuminated it, preferably directly. Meanwhile, the majority of bicycle paths, sidewalks or roads outside the cities are not illuminated. Even the streets in cities are not always illuminated. You cannot always count on the headlights of cars going by us or somewhere nearby – bike lights are more reliable in this respect.
It should also be noted that the lights of cars are set down in order to illuminate the road and do not dazzle drivers of oncoming vehicles. Only a small portion of the light beam of headlights is called scattered light, which can bounce from glare. So it’s best to have reflectors mounted or set up low – bands on the legs so they are a better idea than safety vest. You can see it anyway right in the photo above – cyclists on the left, despite a very strong light camera fired, they remain poorly visible, though barely stand a few meters away from the camera.
Thirdly, and most importantly – have the reflections of each other, they reflect only a certain part of the light, the way it strongly scattering. If it were otherwise, by drivers, like the mirror set on the road at night. Therefore usually flares are visible for the driver of a lot closer than the light cycle. Usually it is about 150 meters. For comparison, lamps good quality bike can be visible to the driver even from a kilometer!
For this reason, various actions to distribute reflectors to cyclists who do not have the lighting do not solve the problem! It would give away the lamp. Being quite possible that the cost of such an operation would be lower – inexpensive wholesale bicycle lighting can cost less than the reflective bands and several times less than the reflective vest.