Cassandra speaks

Peter Headland

I bumped into this site: http://www.lightsout.org/index.html
accidentally and (hey it's a slow afternoon over here) read a few of
the pages (especially the ones about the various poor-quality studies
that purport to show daylight running lights to be a Good Thing -
eerily familiar, I thought).

After a while I realised there is a nasty similarity with another topic
dear to our hearts (the hat that dare not speak its name) - after all
its "obvious" that forcing vehicles to have their lights on in daytime
will reduce accidents, so let's have legislation to force that.

So, I wonder, once every other vehicle is lit up like a christmas tree,
how long it will be before some loon proposes that all bicycles must
show running lights in the daytime? After all, it fits the
well-established pattern of blaming the victims.

In any event, I can't imagine that de-facto training drivers to believe
that if they can't see any lights there is no vehicle approaching can
be healthy for any of us.

--
Peter Headland

Nick Kew

In article <1104373588.090018.69700@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter Headland" <PHeadland@actuate.com> writes:


> In any event, I can't imagine that de-facto training drivers to believe
> that if they can't see any lights there is no vehicle approaching can
> be healthy for any of us.

Hmmm, we already have compulsion at night. We take that for granted,
but bear in mind that there is no such compulsion for pedestrians,
horse riders, etc, so there are already unlit road users round the
next bend. And if road users rely on the beam, most bike lights
won't show up until there's a direct line of sight, either.

--
Nick Kew

JLB

Nick Kew wrote:
> In article <1104373588.090018.69700@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> "Peter Headland" <PHeadland@actuate.com> writes:
>
>
>
>>In any event, I can't imagine that de-facto training drivers to believe
>>that if they can't see any lights there is no vehicle approaching can
>>be healthy for any of us.
>
>
> Hmmm, we already have compulsion at night. We take that for granted,
> but bear in mind that there is no such compulsion for pedestrians,
> horse riders, etc, so there are already unlit road users round the
> next bend.

Except that, mostly, there are not. Over the years horse riders,
cyclists and predestrians have mostly become too frightened to go out on
unlit roads at night. The result is many drivers who find it pretty much
unthinkable that they will encounter anyone except other motorists, so
they drive at high speeds unless they see the lights of another vehicle;
this only reinforces the fears of other, non-motorised road users. I've
tried walking a short distance along an unlit road to a pub in the lake
district. It was very scary. Most cars seemed to be driving as fast as
possible, short of skidding off on the corners.

From one point of view, of course, this is an excellent state of
affairs as it makes it very unlikely that non-motorised raod users will
be involved in accidents on such roads.

And if road users rely on the beam, most bike lights
> won't show up until there's a direct line of sight, either.

Yes. Few bike lights show up much in comparison to vehicle lights.


--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap