A professional cyclist-led campaign to encourage people on bikes to use lights at all times “feeds into a victim-blaming culture” which places the onus for safety onto the most vulnerable road users, according to a leading road safety campaigner.

The ‘Be Bright Wear a Light’ campaign (link is external), launched this week by pro rider Rachel Neylan and endorsed by two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar and former world champion Elisa Balsamo, has been described by Dr Robert Davis, the chair of the chair of the Road Danger Reduction Forum, as “well-intentioned” but lacking awareness of “what’s required to not being hit by drivers”.

The brainchild of Cofidis rider Neylan, the campaign aims to help cyclists “understand that increased visibility while riding your bike on the road can actually save your life”, and encourages them to change their behaviour and “begin using front and back lights for every ride at all times of the day”.

Earlier this week, the 40-year-old told Cycling Weekly (link is external) that she felt a “real compulsion” to act after several current and retired pros were killed while riding their bikes in recent months.

In November, the recently-retired Italian classics star Davide Rebellin was killed after being struck by a hit-and-run lorry driver, while just last week 18-year-old Spanish neo-pro Estela Domínguez tragically suffered the same fate while training on the outskirts of Salamanca.

“With the recent year, the string of events, multiple tragedies that we’ve had among the cycling community, I just felt a real compulsion to do something about it,” the 40-year-old said.

“Every time a cyclist gets killed, it’s a knife to the stomach. I can’t watch it happen anymore. I’ve been using lights consistently for the last few years, and I know how much it really makes a difference.”

However, the Australian also noted that she recognises that lights are “not a one-step solution to the entire problem”.

“But the reality is that the roads are getting busier,” she said. “Cities and regional towns are getting busier, every single place where cyclists go, even if it used to be less populated by cars. Especially since Covid we’re seeing a lot more travel, and the roads aren’t safe for cyclists anymore.”

Neylan continued: “When you start using lights, you see that cars give you so much more passing space and you avoid near misses. It can make a huge difference from the front and back. If we can save one life, that’s a win.

“As a community we’ve been through enough tragedy now and it’s time to do something. We’re not saying this is a cure, there are obviously enormous other aspects to this problem, but this is one thing we can control, our own visibility.”

Neylan’s attempt to instil a “culture shift” within the cycling community to use lights at all times has so far been endorsed by a raft of current stars, including double Tour winner Pogačar, Italian champion Balsamo, and 2021 Milan-San Remo winner Jasper Stuyven.

“This is the best safety measure I can take. For the amount of time I spend on the road and minimal investment it takes to use a light it’s a logical part of my daily training now,” Pogačar is quoted as saying on the campaign’s social media channels.

However, despite the high-profile endorsements, the campaign has come in for criticism from some cyclists who believe that simply using lights will prove of little consequence in the face of dangerous or distracted drivers.

One of those cyclists, safe cycling campaigner Dr Robert Davis, has described Be Bright Wear a Light’s message as “victim blaming” and evidence of how “racing cyclists can get things exactly wrong” when it comes to everyday cycling and road safety.

Speaking to road.cc, Dr Davis said: “The evidence for drivers being less likely to hit cyclists (or pedestrians) when they wear hi-vis is either minimal or entirely absent. It’s even absent for lights at night with cyclists (link is external), although I wouldn’t argue with you that you shouldn’t have them at night.

“There is certainly no evidence for daytime lights working for cyclists, and comments by what one cyclist (who is already committed to using them) ‘feels’ does not constitute proper evidence.”

He continued: “Broadly speaking, we have an ‘arms race’ with the most vulnerable and least dangerous to others (walkers and cyclists) being expected to make up for the (illegal) errors of drivers not watching out, which the more vulnerable will not win.

“The problem is that those who take part in such campaigns don’t see that it feeds into the victim-blaming culture which causes the problem in the first place.

“So, we have a major problem with ‘SMIDSY’ [‘Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You’], as Cycling UK have correctly called it – an attitude that if a driver doesn't ‘see’ you because they aren't watching out, it's your fault, and this kind of campaign feeds into it and thereby becomes part of this problem.

“I’m sure that the people behind this campaign don’t want this to happen, but I have to be concerned with the harsh reality of what happens on the roads.

“And people who haven’t familiarised themselves with the ideological anti-cyclist bias of ‘road safety’ ideology won’t understand just how negative this kind of approach is.”

This anti-cyclist bias, Davis has argued in the past (link is external), manifests itself in the “red herring” of stressing the importance of culturally-defined safety measures such as lights, which he claims “can act as a diversion from what needs to be done for real road safety”.

That the campaign stems from professional riders, whose experience of riding their bike can sometimes be worlds apart from the average commuter cyclist, only exacerbates this problem, Davis argues.

“Racing cyclists are often very bad judges of what’s good for cyclists (especially ‘ordinary’ everyday utility cyclists) from Jacques Anquetil onwards,” he says.

“If they’re committed to supporting everyday cycling and prepared to consider all the evidence they can change – the perfect example being Chris Boardman, to some extent Sarah Storey, and hopefully Ed Clancy.

“I’m afraid Pogačar is wonderful as a racing cyclist, and the campaigners are no doubt well intentioned, but they don’t get it when it comes to what’s required to not being hit by drivers.

“And no, before you suggest that ‘other measures can be used as well’, this kind of approach reinforces victim blaming and impedes any positive measures, of which there are few if any.”

Davis’ comments come in the same week that Police Scotland found itself at the centre of its own victim-blaming row after a chief inspector urged pedestrians to wear “reflective or fluorescent” clothing following the deaths of six pedestrians on the country’s roads in just 13 days.

Ch Insp Lorraine Napier argued that in light of the incidents, officers should encourage all road users to keep safe, first asking pedestrians to stay visible. And in response to a request for comment from road.cc, Police Scotland confirmed the force had “nothing to add”.

“Pedestrians are considered vulnerable road users and, in winter, particularly when it is dark, pedestrians should wear reflective or fluorescent clothing,” she said.

“I would also urge pedestrians to be mindful of their surroundings and to ensure they are not putting themselves at risk.”

Napier’s comments prompted several accusations of victim blaming, with one Twitter user asking: “How have we got to a point where pedestrians are being advised to wear reflective or fluorescent clothes, in case they need to cross a road?”

https://road.cc/content/news/pro-cyclist-lights-campaign-victim-blaming-culture-299401

On 17/02/2023 07:51 pm, Simon Mason wrote:

> A professional fairy-cyclist-led campaign to encourage people on bikes to use lights at all times “feeds into a victim-blaming culture” which places the onus for safety onto the most vulnerable road users, according to a leading road safety campaigner.

Asking for lights to be used on fairy-cycles is not placing the onus for
safety onto the most vulnerable road-users (pedestrians).

When the Volvo company introduced day-time running lights in the
mid-1970s, they specifically stated that the aim was pedestrian safety,
with the lights not only catching the attention more easily but
allowing a quicker and more accurate estimation of the speed of the
vehicle concerned.
> “There is certainly no evidence for daytime lights working for fairy-cyclists, and comments by what one fairy-cyclist (who is already committed to using them) ‘feels’ does not constitute proper evidence.”

It isn't *supposed* to "work for fairy-cyclists".

It is meant to work for pedestrians. But you lot don't care about anyone
but yourselves, do you?

All our cars have the lights on when in use. It's all done
automatically. I could switch off that automatic action, but I agree
with pedestrian safety. So I don't.

It's a pity that fairy-cyclists are so opposed to pedestrian safety,
isn't it?

The problem with campaigns like this from pro cyclists, or the Police (as per the Scottish example last week) is that all it does is provide drivers with another excuse when they hit, or almost hit, a more vulnerable road user.

"If the police are saying they should be wearing high vis, and pro cyclists are saying they should be running lights all the time, how can it possibly be my fault that I ran into them when they weren't?"

You know ... the sort of thing that courts accept as mitigation every day of the week.

swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem with campaigns like this from pro cyclists, or the Police (as
> per the Scottish example last week) is that all it does is provide
> drivers with another excuse when they hit, or almost hit, a more vulnerable road user.

> "If the police are saying they should be wearing high vis, and pro
> cyclists are saying they should be running lights all the time, how can
> it possibly be my fault that I ran into them when they weren't?"

> You know ... the sort of thing that courts accept as mitigation every day of the week.

QUOTE Determinism is often used to mean causal determinism, which in
physics is known as cause-and-effect. This is the concept that events
within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state
of an object or event is completely determined by its prior states.
ENDQUOTE

This tells you why cyclists are arrogant, self-entitled, shout “Get out of
the ••••ing way I’m not stopping!”, scarper when they’ve killed or injured
someone, demand ever more freedoms for themselves and more constraints on
everyone else, blame everyone but themselves, etc etc:

They Just Can’t Help It - It Isn’t Their Fault.

<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism>

--
Spike

Funnily enough I came across a runner in blue and dark red this morning. I was in the car on an nsl. What I did pick up on was some movement not any colours and immediately slowed, then signalled in case others had not picked him out.

The sun was low, so he was partly silhouetted - not sure if lighter colours would have made a much of a difference. What would have made the biggest difference would be to run on the right, facing traffic !

On 19/02/2023 04:52 pm, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

> The problem with campaigns like this from pro fairy-cyclists, or the Police (as per the Scottish example last week) is that all it does is provide drivers with another excuse when they hit, or almost hit, a more vulnerable road user.
>
> "If the police are saying they should be wearing high vis, and pro fairy-cyclists are saying they should be running lights all the time, how can it possibly be my fault that I ran into them when they weren't?"
>
> You know ... the sort of thing that courts accept as mitigation every day of the week.

Gibberish though Mason's "reply" is, it is most definitely a reply to my
post of 04:48 on 19th February.

The news server has it threaded from my post and even though Mason's
response is pitiably pathetic, he saw my post and responded to it
(despite his frequent claims to have written and to be operating a
Google Groups "killfile".

mike the bike replied to Jetmans Dad | 1508 posts | 20 hours ago
0 likes
If court cases involving motorcyclists are anything to go by Mr Jetman, you have nothing to worry about. A prominent lawyer who specialises in traffic accident cases writes monthly in Bike magazine and recently said that he has 'never' had damages reduced because riders have not been wearing the protective clothing recommended by the Highway Code and others but which are not legally required.

Why should this be? Because the other side have no solid statistical evidence to back up such a proposition and judges will not rule without such firm data. Common sense simply isn't enough to sway the learned mind.

swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:
> mike the bike replied to Jetmans Dad | 1508 posts | 20 hours ago
> 0 likes
>
> If court cases involving motorcyclists are anything to go by Mr Jetman,
> you have nothing to worry about. A prominent lawyer who specialises in
> traffic accident cases writes monthly in Bike magazine and recently said
> that he has 'never' had damages reduced because riders have not been
> wearing the protective clothing recommended by the Highway Code and
> others but which are not legally required.
>
> Why should this be? Because the other side have no solid statistical
> evidence to back up such a proposition and judges will not rule without
> such firm data. Common sense simply isn't enough to sway the learned mind.

How shocking! Seeking an evidential approach rather than a ‘common sense’
one. Well, well.

--
Spike

Do you have a big sign on your back advising of the radar .. that's the only way the Garmin radar unit will be influencing other road users behaviour.

The Varia radar light changes its flash pattern when a vehicle approaches: https://youtu.be/yt-PBBFOw78?t=77 (link is external)

It certainly does and as a long-term user (7+ years), on rural lanes, I've known noticeable audible changes in vehicle sounds as the driver presumably has had their attention drawn to a cyclist in front.