Wearing reflective clothing would prevent motorists from hitting cyclists? I don't think so. The Arizona State Police sued Ford Motor Company because of the large number of officers who were injured or died when a motorist would rear-end a Crown Victoria, and the Crown Victoria would explode into flames due to a faulty gas tank design.
When did such accidents occur? The police car would pull over a speeder. The officer would park on the shoulder of the road, his stobe lights blazing. And, someone would plow into the back of the police car. This particular event has occured scores of times in the State of Arizona, and has happened hundreds of times around the USA.
And, what do the drivers say? "I was changing a CD....I was dialing a phone number....I was getting a Pepsi out of the cooler...I was talking to my kid in the back seat....I was dozing off a bit...I was looking at a road map..."
The deaths of cyclists caused by being rear-ended by motorists are NOT the fault of cyclists who did not wear reflective clothing. They are the fault of motorists who do not take seriously the obligation to keep their eyes focused on the road directly in front of them, and their obligation to focus 100% of their brain on driving.
And, these deaths are the fault of a legal system that gives drivers a ticket for killing people, instead of the years in prison that they fully deserve.
My dad was a professional truck driver. His truck did not have a radio, or a cb, and his telephone was always off. He would not talk with his co-driver while the truck was moving. He felt strongly that a driver must have 100% focus on the road at all times. He had an accident around 1948, where his truck skidded down a hill in the rain. Over the next 45 years of driving 100,000 miles per year (over 4 million miles total) he never was involved in another accident.
The problem is not unsafe cyclists. It is unsafe drivers.