Cyclists in the dark

Charlie from Johnsonville

I've been a bit dismayed by cyclists (and pedestrians) who wear dark clothing at night, and especially those who don't have lights. Just because they can see everything doesn't mean motor vehicle drivers can see them.
Early Friday morning even high viz and excellent lights didn't matter. I drove into an intersection and nearly hit a cyclist who was crossing in front of me, I simply hadn't seen her. As I watched her I saw that the bike had an excellent headlight but her jacket, which she said was high viz, was a dull grey.
Thinking about it, high viz works when light shines on it, so it didn't help at all on profile. She was keeping to the left of the lane as well.

So she was doing everything right, and I still didn't see her. There have been a lot of studies about why we don't see things that we might have looked right at, the serious limitations of the human brain when processing visual input is, er, an eye-opener.

I used to be a 300km a week cyclist so I've been there, and I've ridden several hundred thousand km as a motorcyclist too, so I'm very aware of how easily smaller vehicles can be missed or misinterpreted.

Anyway, the moral of the story is take care out there, never assume anything when you're riding/driving, especially as a vulnerable cyclist or pedestrian. Be defensive first, road rules aren't any kind of comfort if you're in hospital or pushing up daisies.