Over several months, one cyclist wore seven different outfits on his daily 50km commute between Berkshire and outer London. Using an ultrasonic distance sensor he recorded how much space passing motorists gave him, logging data from 5,690 vehicles. The outfits ranged from racing kit to a reflective vest with ‘novice cyclist’ printed on the back. Some of the outfits included high-visibility jackets and vests.
"It’s unlikely that cycling outfits could ever provide a sustainable solution to rider safety," Walker says. "The optimum solution to the very closest overtakes will not lie with cyclists themselves, and instead we should look to changes in infrastructure, education or the law to prevent drivers getting dangerously close when overtaking cyclists."
It’s worth thinking about what actually causes accidents. Walker adds. ‘There are only three possible reasons a motorist could hit a cyclist: 1 Failure to spot the cyclist; 2 Saw the cyclist but misjudged the maneuver; 3 Deliberate aggression. In the best of all possible worlds, hi-vis could only ever address the first. The fact it doesn’t seem to fix things suggests that most collisions happen for reason number two.
Reflective clothing is even more effective than fluorescent clothing because it fires right back at the motorist,’ Rubin agrees. "Shoes with fluorescent or reflective panels would also increase visibility. Movement does capture attention – our visual system is more sensitive to a moving target." Case closed, you might think, and in 2014 a study in Canada found that while wearing light (not necessarily fluorescent) clothing decreased the risk of an accident in daylight.
The researchers believe this could be down to ‘risk compensation’ – the fact that cyclists may know how visible they are and the level of protection offered by reflective clothing and so take fewer risks in traffic.
So should you wear reflective clothing? Science says it’s more noticeable to the eye but, in the complex world of riding on the road where you are dealing with a variety of human factors, it is not proven to protect you.
