Does Hi-Viz gear really make you more visible to other motorists?

[BigOgre]

Even with lights flashing drivers still seem to veer towards police cars that are pulled to the side of the road.This is one of the reasons many states have laws that require you to move into the next lane when approaching emergency vehicles.

Do you know by any chance if this has always been the case? Or is this a more recent phenomenon since the advent of the hyper-bright LED type police lights? I know that on more than one occasion coming up on an accident or pullover at night when it is pitch dark and my eyes have adjust to the low ambient light that I find those bright, blue strobe lights to be blinding, and have trained myself to look away. I wonder if it is the high intensity strobing that causes the effect, or some other distraction factor (like being blinded or looking away)?

First I heard about this was back when the old, low-intensity strobes first burst onto the scene. (No pun intended.) Believing the drunk, or whoever, would fixate on the lightbars mounted up on the roofs and steer into it, a possible fix was a thought to keep the lights more eye-level so as not to look away from the road. (Think about how we mount our GPS' and stuff.) Gradually the emergency cars (PDs, EMS, etc.) like the Crown Vics started seeing additional light packages on the back dash. Those adopting SUVs around that time also incorporated eye-level lighting, usually cutting right into body panels. This was long before lighting packages were available to upgrade the stock lighting.

 

[Geezer]

So, does anyone make a TOXIC Hi-Vis helmet yet? If so, that's my next helmet.

 

[gixxerjasen]

So, does anyone make a TOXIC Hi-Vis helmet yet? If so, that's my next helmet.

Custom paint job perhaps?

 

[Knifemaker]

Yes, target fixation can cause non indangered motorists to drive towards bright lights. This taken from the fact of the police noticing the oddly high number of cars that crash into their squad cars when they have pulled another car over.

Even with lights flashing drivers still seem to veer towards police cars that are pulled to the side of the road.

This is one of the reasons many states have laws that require you to move into the next lane when approaching emergency vehicles.

I can attest to this phenomena from living in the city. Crossing the street I sometimes paused at the center yellow line to wait for an oncoming car to pass. I could actually see the car veer slightly towards me. Most drivers of course correct this enough not to hit you, but they do seem to move towards you initially.

Interesting.

Do you know by any chance if this has always been the case? Or is this a more recent phenomenon since the advent of the hyper-bright LED type police lights? I know that on more than one occasion coming up on an accident or pullover at night when it is pitch dark and my eyes have adjust to the low ambient light that I find those bright, blue strobe lights to be blinding, and have trained myself to look away. I wonder if it is the high intensity strobing that causes the effect, or some other distraction factor (like being blinded or looking away)?

That concern was actually the main reason that I wired an on/off switch into my Whelen flashing 3rd brake light, though I have never actually used it to disable the light.

I'm not sure it's due to the lights themselves or just folks rubbernecking. I remember one report of a guys car getting hit from behind simply because he stopped to help another motorist. The driver that hit him says he thought there was an accident and was just "trying to see what happened". Seems like classic target fixation. Only reference to that and the "move over law" I could find was this:

https://www.fyidriving.com/article/should-you-move-lanes-when-you-see-an-emergency-vehicle/

My thoughts here are that bright visable colors make you get noticed better, but you don't want to dress so bizzarely that folks actually stare....and thus become "fixated" on you.

So high Vis colors will make you safer. Riding with a naked woman on back might get you killed....

 

[bgross]

Yes, target fixation can cause non indangered motorists to drive towards bright lights. This taken from the fact of the police noticing the oddly high number of cars that crash into their squad cars when they have pulled another car over.Even with lights flashing drivers still seem to veer towards police cars that are pulled to the side of the road.

This is one of the reasons many states have laws that require you to move into the next lane when approaching emergency vehicles.

I can attest to this phenomena from living in the city. Crossing the street I sometimes paused at the center yellow line to wait for an oncoming car to pass. I could actually see the car veer slightly towards me. Most drivers of course correct this enough not to hit you, but they do seem to move towards you initially.

You saved me a lot of typing!

Had several LEO friends over the years who swear (and curse!) that, the more drunk a driver is, the more they target fixate and crash into bright/shiny/flashing things.

My "theory of survival" is simple: half of the motorists don't see me; half of the ones that see me are trying to hit me. So if I wear hi-vis, I flush out the ones who are trying - and I escape.

And my hi-vis startles the ones who happen to glance up from their cell phone, they crap their pants - and try to hit me!

There are no guarantees: and even the things that we do to gain an advantage MAY backfire and put us in the crosshairs!

"I may be going to hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoying the ride." ~ Grateful Dead

 

[Redleg]

From reading stickers on little black shorty helmets on black leather-clad cruiser-riders, I've learned that Loud Pipes Save Lives. Apparently that is sufficient.

 

[Buzby]

That said, I love my Aerostich yellow jacket and new Neotec Borealis. I see people's eyes and heads move to more often than with non Hi Viz.

+1. After being rear-ended last summer by an inattentive cager, I go nowhere without my Neotec Borealis and HiViz jacket. As others have commented, I can actually see drivers notice me. As I've said to friends, I'm on the bat-cycle with my own built-in bat signal. I still ride as though I'm invisible to everyone, but my fashion sense has taken a back seat to HiViz. The stuff is annoying as hell to see on the road - and yet that's the point!

 

[LAF]

I think it may help but is not the cure all. You can not cure stupid. You are not seen from the rear if you have a top box so that really does not help there. From the front or sides it may help. But as I said you can not cure stupid.

I think lights and rider awareness are the only two things that can give you any peace of mind. And even then it wont stop stupid or drunk or road rage.

I like reflective a lot, but daytime it just don't work well.

I do ride as invisible and play the "what if" game a bunch. I see a person getting ready to pull out and say what if he does? How will I avoid it? Am I at a safe speed to take any kind of evasive action? Do I have space?

We indulge in a high risk sport so we need to take care of ourselves and not count on anything other then ourselves, our skill set, and our bikes.

 

[SacramentoMike]

We indulge in a high risk sport so we need to take care of ourselves and not count on anything other then ourselves, our skill set, and our bikes.

That's the whole point. Original question (and thread title): "Does Hi-Viz Clothing Make You More Visible . . . ?" Answer: Yes. Definitely. Absolutely.

Secondary, implied question: "Does anything you can do, wear, or install--Hi-Viz Clothing, or Bright Lights, or Loud Horns, or Loud Freaking Pipes--guarantee you'll be safe on the road, no matter what? Answer: Don't be ridiculous.

So should you bother to even try to do anything to improve your chances? Hmmm. Tough one.

 

[Mike Aldea]

I have to rely on a Hi-Viz vest and Hi-Viz rain jacket when working my part time job directing traffic and hope patrons, most who have been drinking, see me and don't hit me with their vehicles.

I wear a Hi-Viz Tourmaster Transition Series 2 jacket when riding. Before I removed the Rifle Windshield System from my Concours, riders I was following in a group ride said they could not see my jacket. Which I'm sure meant on coming motorist could not see it either. On an FJR that should not be as much of a problem.

But the reality is people see what they are looking for and don't see what they aren't looking for. Test your awareness by watching this video.






I experienced this personally the other night when leaving work around Midnight in my car. My office is in an Industrial Park that late at night has no traffic and if I see anything at all before I reach the roads outside the IP it will probably be deer. So I drive out using my high beams.

As I approached the first intersection on my way through the IP I saw a furry movement on one corner and thought there is a deer. Oh there is another on the opposite corner. Wait a minute those are not deer they are German Shepard dogs!

At this point I stopped about 10-15 yards from the intersection to see what the dogs were going to do. It was then that I finally saw the man who was standing in the middle of the intersection, directly in front of me, between the two dogs. He was facing me, wearing a Hi-Viz vest with wide reflective stripes and a headlamp! But I hadn't seen him because I was not looking for pedestrians and could have easily hit him.

The average motorist is not paying that much attention when they drive and are not expecting to see a one track vehicle. So they are not looking for it and are not going to see it. If we are lucky the contrast of Hi-Viz gear to the background might get there attention but I wouldn't count on it after my experience from the other night. Still I just bought a nice Hi-Viz helmet to go with my jacket.

 

[Excaleng]

I purchased my FJR from a UK motorcycle cop and he had stuck these on his panniers. I've left them on as it is very noticable how vehicles aproaching from the rear slow down long before they reach me. Those that aren't texting that is.

 

[FJR Flyer]

Its the distracted driving that will get you. I had to take the cage into work on wednesday. On the drive home I was on the Suitland Pkwy trolling along in the left lane, moving with traffic. SUV in front of me starts drifting left. Showing no signs of correcting, I slowed down and backed way off. SUV then jumps the curb, with two wheels in the grass, over corrects, does a four wheel slide across both lanes, through the gap between the van in the right lane beside me and the car in front of him, over the curb on the right side, and into the bushes. I was amazed he stayed upright. Best bet is the guy was texting, but can't prove it. May have had a coronary, who knows. Traffic was too heavy and still moving too fast to stop.

Every day on the commute home I see people on their phones, even cops. Its illegal in both DC and MD. Gotta pay attention and assume they're all out to kill you. I've got motolights up front and the trunk has running lights and a flashing brake light.

 

[Spud]

Cell phones are probably the biggest risk bikers have ever had to face. Same here-I see cops on cell phones all the time, despite our new law. Sat behind one the other day when a light turned green--cop texting, and yes I honked at him.

Riding in Canada--drivers DO NOT use cell phones there. And Canadian riders I've talked to here can't believe how everyone does. Long haul truckers w/CDL's, etc. OK, rant over...

 

[Fred W]

We indulge in a high risk sport so we need to take care of ourselves and not count on anything other then ourselves, our skill set, and our bikes.

That's the whole point. Original question (and thread title): "Does Hi-Viz Clothing Make You More Visible . . . ?" Answer: Yes. Definitely. Absolutely.

Secondary, implied question: "Does anything you can do, wear, or install--Hi-Viz Clothing, or Bright Lights, or Loud Horns, or Loud Freaking Pipes--guarantee you'll be safe on the road, no matter what? Answer: Don't be ridiculous.

So should you bother to even try to do anything to improve your chances? Hmmm. Tough one.

OK, so it seems from the discussion that everyone (with very few exceptions) wants to agree that HiViz is easier to see in certain lighting circumstances, obviously not in some others, but (sane) people can't necessarily agree whether it is "worth" wearing it.

So suppose that wearing it only improved your chances by one in a million opportunities. (I'm intentionally making this as absurdly insignificant as possible). Why wouldn't that still be worth going after?

That might be really important if you happened to be that 1 guy in a million that it did make a difference on, and so you lived 50 years longer because of that one missed event.

And, what exactly is the downside of wearing HiViz? It doesn't really cost any more. It mostly violates your own personal sense of "style", whatever the heck that is. Yes, it does get dirty faster than black, but again that is just a "style" thing, that we like to look clean to other people.

I don't believe that wearing it is nearly as ineffective as one in a million opportunities. Maybe it's one in a thousand, or maybe one in a hundred, or maybe it's even as high as 50 in a hundred (50:50!). Who really cares what the actual rate of increased safety is.

If it's any increase at all, isn't it worth going after?

 

[mcatrophy]

...If it's any increase at all, isn't it worth going after?

Can't fault the logic, but I'm still not going to wear it.
Illogical, but then, so's riding an over-powered, under-protected, unstable machine that requires many strange skills, and do that amongst a load of heavy, armour-plated vehicles many of which are not under any sensible sort of control, at speeds way beyond what evolution has prepared us for.

That's no criticism of anyone who goes for hi-viz. And yes, I wore a helmet before it was a legal requirement.

My name isn't Mr Spock; don't ask me why I choose the way I do.

 

[Fred W]

Dammit, Bones!

Well, I guess that you can't make fun of the no helmet crowd anymore then.

 

[mcatrophy]

Dammit, Bones!...

Hope I don't need his services

.

...Well, I guess that you can't make fun of the no helmet crowd anymore then.

I don't think they're funny, I think they're stupid uninformed

. But, then, who said I was logical

?

[edit] Isn't it time this was in NEPRT? [/edit]

 

[user 213]

Interesting thread Fred. Not sure what you'd like to accomplish with it, but in your terms, if you convince even one rider to switch to hi-viz gear, you've possibly improved one rider's safety margin.

Sorry, I don't have a published study to share, but I do have a couple of things for you to consider. I rode with hi-viz for about 18 months when I got back into riding in '03, including the period when I got my FJR. After one too many incidents with police officers that responded to my question of why they choose to pull me over, out of a group of motorists all traveling at the same speed, with "your yellow jacket stood out more", I changed to black. Most of the officers admitted that all the other motorists were just as guilty as I was, and I was never the lead motorist, but essentially said that because my hi-viz gear caught their attention, they selected me for the traffic stop. Only one jerk flat out said "because I hate motorcyclists". I've been stopped on the bike once since then, in the following 8+ years of riding. (200k miles)

Pre-internet, in the early '80's CalTrans did a study, (which I can't find any internet reference to), where they got a group of drivers that had been involved in car/motorcycle accidents to under go hypnosis. All of these drivers said the same thing after the accident, "I never saw the rider". But, under hypnosis, every single one admitted to seeing the motorcyclist, then ignoring them. The study concluded that the drivers subconscious mind was aware of the rider, but did not see it as a threat, so dismissed it as important information, before the conscious mind ever recognized it. A motorcycle will not usually threaten someone in a 3000 lb steel cage, all by itself.

In that same period of time I was riding on and off base. On base we were required to wear a hi-viz safety vest, but off base we didn't have to. When this started, I wore the vest all the time and had quite a few near misses off base. Then one day I forgot to put it on after stopping at a friends house and rode back to base w/o the vest, figuring I would stop before the gate and put it on. I noticed an odd thing, people gave me more space w/o the vest. Often a lot more. With the vest people were always crowding me and lane splitting was more difficult and just at intersections people would stop closer to me than w/o the vest.

Eventually I figured out the phenomenon. In black leather, I was a "biker" and therefor a threat. In hi-viz, I was a "motorcyclist" and therefor not a threat, so safe to ignore/crowd/cut off, etc. I actually heard people in cars say things like "don't get too close to the biker" when wearing black leather. I was riding a '79 Honda CX-500, so not anything a rider would take as a hard core biker.

I don't see anything wrong with wearing hi-viz. But I don't wear it because my experience is that if I am perceived as a threat, mostly because they think I'm a cop now days, then I am noticed more. Black jacket, white helmet, funny looking big bike with odd reflective stickers on the back and something most can't identify, (fuel cell), plus CB antenna and I get noticed a lot by drivers. Cops here and the PacNorWet don't wear hi-viz, though I am starting to see some of it lately.

Yep, anecdotal stuff. I'm not rationalizing my choice, I choose to ride w/o hi-viz because I feel it makes me more noticed. As far as the fashion aspect, I couldn't care less what color things are. Form follows function for me. I just bought a new jacket and it's gray, mostly because darker colors are hotter in the sun, so I'm taking the small margin that a lighter color may offer and going to try that and see if it's significant. It will be interesting to see if this negatively impacts people noticing me or not.

Riding the FJR with black gear and a white helmet I got a lot of 'cop effect' and even did a couple of traffic stops where the people I pulled over believed I was a cop. These were incidents where safety issues were going on an the drivers were oblivious. Trailer tire on fire & loose load on trailer. I just put the flashers on, got in front of them and did my best impression of the old Chips show with the arm pump motion to pull to the side of the road while slowing down. I never claimed to be a LEO, but the maneuver effectively got their attention and they pulled over.

And remember, it doesn't matter if they don't see us, WE SEE THEM. It's our responsibility to see the idiots and take action. You can't expect them to ever do the right thing or even the predictable thing.

 

[Fred W]

I'm not really trying to convince anyone else to do anything new. Just trying to have a discussion about it, is all. Maybe I'm trying to rationalize my decision to use it? I dunno.

You make some interesting points that had not previously been expressed. Especially about "SMIDSY" possibly not being a "rider visibility" issue, but rather being a driver motivational one.

So, back to the initial question: Does the HiViz make you more visible? Unquestionably, yes.

But, the implied question, as has been stated: Does that help, hinder or do nothing at all for you?

edit - as for this being a NEPRT, I can't recall this subject ever being discussed on this forum previously. But it very well may be "never ending," since each rider needs to make up their own mind about it.

 

[LAF]

I guess the real question is does Hi Viz get you noticed more and I can say I agree with yes.

The real question is will it stop a distracted driver, or a person who makes poor driving choices, or someone who just dislikes "bikers" from doing you harm?

I do not believe it does.

I do not think it matters what you are wearing if a distracted driver is into that cell phone, or fussing with the kids in the back seat, or any number of reasons which would include drunk driving and road rage.

Yes people who are paying attention will see you, but are they the people we really have to worry about?