Originally Posted by Paul Barnard

I am a safety professional by trade. I have been with the Coast Guard either active duty or civilian for 33 years. I served as a commercial fishing vessel safety specialist for 6 years and recently took my dream job as a recreational boating safety program manager. I am furloughed at the present. There's a reason for this aside, so bear with me. Safety is a tough sell. Especially to older folks who are often fairly entrenched in their ways. To a large degree, I am marketing boating safety.

That has me wondering what are the most effective ways to deliver safety messaging. I am considering creating an official Coast Guard presence on the larger boating forums on the net. That brings me to the topic at hand. Has discussion in A&S changed your behavior? If so how? What was it that caused the change? Does reading about crashes resonate with you? Does data resonate with you? Do you learn when others share their mistakes? What kind of safety messaging works with you? When we learn what causes behavioral shifts, we can more effectively tailor our messaging.

I posted last week a thread about a local woman who was killed. Since the area and the road were familiar to me, it caused me to take greater pause to ponder the event. She was hit from behind. Obviously the driver didn't see her. There are some drivers who are so out of touch with their surroundings that just about nothing can wrest their attention away from their distraction. But there are others who are marginally distracted, and we may be able to draw attention to ourselves by making ourselves more conspicuous. I was riding the local MUP the other day. I rode up behind a great big man with a bulky jacket. I looked at as much of the path as I could see ahead, and well off in the distance and rounding a slight bend in the path, was another rider. I had more than enough time to go around the large man before that rider and I met. I announced my presence to the large man and went around. I had not seen another rider between the large rider and the one coming around the bend. The large rider had obscured him, and when I went to pass, I was focused on the rider I had seen further away. It was much later in the game than I would have preferred, when I noticed the rider that had been obscured. It made me a little angry at myself. Nobody was in any danger, but as a safety conscious, alert rider it bothered me.

I got to thinking about the whole thing and my mind went to the lady that was struck from behind. Is it possible that I could be the one to take a cyclists life? I like to think not. But the encounter on the MUP made me question myself. Later on that ride, I started paying attention to the visibility of other riders. On the long straight parts they were all silhouetted very well and were easy to see. The vegetation along the path made it such that if there were bends in the path, riders wearing darker clothes were difficult to pick out from the background. The few riders who had high vis stood out much better. When I cycle on public roadways, I don't always wear high vis, but I do wear brighter colors. Colors obviously stand out but so does movement. One rider had high vis shoes. Between the color and the movement, that rider really caught my attention.

Let me try to close the loop on what has been a somewhat rambling post. There are several prongs to this post. I am curious about the things that shape or change your behavior as it relates to safety. The discussion of the rider killed in my area had already caused me to reevaluate my visibility. I am curious, not so much about what you do, but what others have done that really helped draw your attention to them. The MUP experience led me to this as one of the ways I will to make myself more conspicuous.