On 4/8/2021 9:16 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Were you beaten by a school crossing guard or something? What is the genesis of this recent anti-safety jihad? I ride most every day, and nobody bugs me about not having a DRL or wearing a fluorescent jersey or really anything. I haven't seen a bicycle safety message in years, although I'm not looking and don't go to shops. Who are these "safety" people? Is this about helmets? Did somebody criticize you for not wearing a helmet?

I'd also love to know who these mythical safety people are, but as we
all know, they really don't exist. They are a necessary boogeyman, like
Trump was fond of creating. “When Oregon and California send their
safety people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people
that promote florescent jerseys and battery-powered bicycle bicycle
lights. They’re bringing DRLs. They’re helmet promoters. They are
advocating for bicycle infrastructure. And some, I assume, are good people."

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Ah, I have fallen prey to the walking safety thing, but not because of warnings or messages from regulators. My wife and I got reflective vests for walking at night because the Ninja walkers scare the snot out of us when we're driving at night -- and we have a ton of walkers in our neighborhood. Their are nights when it feels like a street fair with everyone standing in the street yaking or walking their dogs. I really like the lighted dog vests. I don't like the 30 foot reel leashes. No French Nazi collaborators making us wear vests.

So it's not just around here! Those night-walkers in dark clothes come
out at about 7 p.m.. Pre-DST it was really bad. And many walk in the
street, not on sidewalks. A few years ago a couple was killed in San
Jose because a driver could not see them walking in the
street.

About DRLs, I'd say less than half the commuters pre-pandemic were using DRLs in real daylight. There were lots of them in drear or dusk, including me. I see club riders and even racers using them when I'm weekend riding -- again, probably 50% or less. I'll try to keep an accurate count next time. I don't think they're helpful in full sunlight, although a rear flasher is helpful in dappled sun-through-trees, at least according to the one panicked motorist who said he couldn't see me under the trees on Larch Mountain. He was a nice guy, and he was right because I was losing other cyclists in the hard shadows. I still don't take a flasher up there, however -- and one of the typical dying Tinkerbell flashers wouldn't work in any event, and a lot of DRLs do fall into that category. You ride up on someone and look down at the fender or seat post and see this light once you get there. I do wonder why people bother with those.

Close to 100% of the transportational cyclists around here _own_ one.
I'd say that around 50% of them turn it on in the daytime.

I plead guilty to encouraging cyclists in my city to at least use "being
seen" lights and gave away several hundred sets of them. If even 10% end
up being used before being lost or broken that's fine. Pre-pandemic, the
biggest issue I saw was when kids were riding to school in the dark
between March and May, and in October. Because of DST it was dark in the
morning when the high school started at 7:30 a.m.. Now the schools are
moving to later start times (so the students can get more sleep), so it
should be less of an issue.

I think that Jay and I need to do a fact-finding trip to Ohio to locate
these dastardly safety inflaters. I've been fully vaccinated and have
had Bill Gates's tracking chip injected into me so I'm ready to go.