The color of clothing you wear is a fashion choice. Black bicycles and black clothing is very popular right now.

Of course bright colors may be more easy for a motorist to spot. But really how much safer are we really talking about?

Roughly 700 cyclist will die (mostly due to collisions with automobiles) this year.

About half of those deaths will be children. Mostly riding into traffic or crossing driveways while on the sidewalk.

Some stats I've seen put as much as half of the remaining adult cyclists deaths late at night (at bar closing time) or involving drinking by ether cyclist or motorist. I can't in my mind put deaths caused by drinking.... as a responsibility of clothing color (or even bicycling).

So we're down to 175 traffic accident related cycling deaths..... out of millions and millions of bicycle miles ridden by millions of cyclist (in America). I believe many of those accidental deaths are related to the difference in travel speeds of cyclists and motorist. Mainly because of the way the human brain is hardwired to relate to the world.

Motorist (and cyclist alike) will see an object or person and NOT make a [long term] memory of that object or person. Short term memories may last only as long as 4 seconds. This is the way the brain works and can NOT be changed or altered (we're just wired that way). Pedestrians, bicycles, other motorist, even stationary objects will seem to "just appear" when this occurs. This human factor... may account for up to 80 or 90% of the typical "accidents".

So.... maybe 50 bicycle deaths are caused by carelessness, or out-right recklessness. Would a bright yellow shirt of flashy red light fix that?