Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hit-and-run victim

Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by Confusion on Saturday October 02, 2010 @04:50AM (#1750091)

  As for reflectors; they only work when there is a clear
  path from an illumination source to the reflector and back
  to your eye. Sometimes that happens, but more often than
  not, it doesn't.

Firstly, reflectors are designed to deflect light into as many directions as possible. A small beam in becomes a wide beam out. And they succeed marvelously at that. Secondly, any reflector worn by any cyclist or pedestrian will reflect ample amounts of light from the enormous amount of light car lights send out. Thirdly, experience with plenty of reflector wearing cyclists and runners tells me that you see the reflectors bright and clear, long before you see the actual person. Especially cyclists without lights, of which there are many here, are saved by the reflectors in their pedals. I've yet to encounter the reflector wearing cyclist or runner that I didn't see until I passed him. People I overlook always scare the living shit out of me and it is quite comforting to experimentally verify that that only happens because these people don't take any precautions to protect themselves.

It sounds like you are repeating something you heard sometime just because it fits your argument, instead of actually having knowledge of the subject. Your assertions are completely untrue and on a bit of reflection (pun intended), you would see that, which means we are dealing with a lack of reflection on your part concerning this tidbit of 'knowledge'.

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Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by jrockway on Saturday October 02, 2010 @05:14AM (#1750116)

I don't drive.

As a pedestrian, I've almost been hit by cyclists running red lights with reflectors. Since my eyes don't emit beams of light, I had no chance to see them until that last second. I assume any cars going through the intersection would have had the same problem, since the obstacle was to the side rather than directly in front of them.

Reflectors do help make the cyclist more visible to overtaking traffic, but they don't help with anything that does not emit light. The cyclist won't be able to see hazards in the road ahead or other cyclists with reflectors.

I do agree that reflectors are better than nothing in the limited case of overtaking or oncoming cars, but they're not as good as lights. And considering how cheap LEDs and AA batteries are compared with the cost of a bicycle, why are we even arguing about this?

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Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by jessriedel on Saturday October 02, 2010 @03:23PM (#1751138)

All true, but the fact of the matter is that most visibility-related deaths involving bikes are from cars that bikes, not bikes hitting or being hit by pedestrians or anything else without headlights. There are a few cases where pedestrians are killed by bicyclists, e,g. NYC messenger bikes, but this is small.

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Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by stan_rogers on Saturday October 02, 2010 @06:05AM (#1750169)

Um, no. Reflectors are normally either cube corners (in molded plastic reflectors) or embedded spherical beads (vinyl ribbons and screen-printed fabrics), and both of those are designed to act as ideal retro-reflectors; slight imperfections allow for a small spread of the reflected light, but the spread is only a couple of degrees. Traffic signs and the paint used for lane markings and crosswalks work the same way. Any other arrangement is a diffuser, not a reflector.

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Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by Confusion on Saturday October 02, 2010 @06:16AM (#1750176)

'As many directions as possible was an exaggeration', but 'a couple of degrees'? By that definition, every bicycle here has a diffuser. I can perfectly see reflectors of bicycles a few meters to the right, yet my lights shines there under an angle of at least 10 degrees.

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Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by rue on Saturday October 02, 2010 @06:36PM (#1751538)

Reflectors are better than nothing, just. An actual light source is so much better it is not funny.

LEDs are cheap, plentiful and actually safe.

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Re:Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hi... by hugh3 on Saturday October 02, 2010 @11:53AM (#1750664)

Reflectors do something, but not much. Cycling at night is fricking dangerous at the best of times, and cycling at night without lights relying on your reflectors is damn near suicidal (and also illegal in Florida where this story takes place):

http://www.floridabicycle.org/rules/bikelaw.html

If this dude was really riding without lights in the middle of the night then his fate seems more Darwin Award-worthy than anything else.

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