Conspicuity

Now that the days are darker as I leave for work and come home from work, I've been concerned about how visible I am to other drivers. I once saw a person on a silver bike with silver gear on disappear into the distance against the road. Since I also have a silver bike and silver gear (pants and jacket) I've really wondered how invisible I might be at dusk. I've added the spotlight bar with lights and that has definitely made a difference. I notice people notice me sooner. Fewer folks seem tempted to pull out in front of me - they come to a complete stop as opposed to a rolling stop and then a quick braking when they finally see me. Or maybe they can judge my distance better with the three lights. Or maybe they see me as a larger vehicle and tend to stop because of that. Whatever the reason, it has made a difference.

My jacket and pants both have reflective bits on them. The pants have piping down the sides and a bit on the back of the legs. The jacket has a reflective strip (across the back) and a triangle logo (between my shoulder blades).

Last night I met hubby for dinner and on the ride home he followed in the car (Honda Civic HB). This was a good test to see how visible I am on the road. I wore the retro-reflective Illuminite bicycling vest I bought to increase my conspicuity. It is a slip over thing with velcro on the sides but it isn't very large so I can't put it on by myself over my jacket. That's a problem for sure.

Turns out, I am not very reflective after all. Hubby says the lights from the car don't hit my upper body so the retro-reflective stuff doesn't illuminate. When a taller vehicle was behind him and the car wasn't in the way, those lights lit up the vest. And the high beams on the car also lit up the vest. But, otherwise, I'm not very visible.

So, I think I'll buy some reflective tape to put on the back of my saddle bags. Those are lower and will reflect the low lights of a small car. Also, my duffel bag that I use at work covers a red reflector on the back of my seat back rest. I'm thinking about using the vest material to cover the straps on the bag and maybe the sides of the bag. Might be a better use of the vest. He also thinks that the reflective stripe on the jacket, which was covered by the vest, would be more visible than the vest because it isn't retro-reflective and works in lower indirect light.

So, that was disappointing but a good test. Now I know I need to work on being more conspicuous.