Several days ago I was riding in bright sunlight about 3:00 pm along a city street with a dedicated bike lane. I had on a burnt-orange jersey, bright green helmet and I had both bike-mounted lights on in flashing mode. I approached an intersection in the bike lane at about 18 mph and the traffic light turned green when I was about 200 feet away. I had no motor vehicles ahead or behind me. The intersection had very good sight lines, easily 500 feet in all directions and I'd say a quarter-mile off to my right.
I saw a car approaching the light from my right on the cross street and it did not slow at all. I began braking and slowed; the car passed through the intersection at undiminished speed. The traffic light remained green in my direction and I proceeded to cross the intersection.
Thoughts:
1. I don't know why the driver failed to stop. Unless I see an obvious cause (Corona bottle, cell phone..) I'm inclined to be forgiving about such things. I know I have inadvertently driven through red lights in a car. I was lucky I didn't crash but it shook me up.
2. In all likelihood, had I not braked either a) I would not be writing this reply or b) the car would have crashed either into a curb or a light pole.
3. Clearly, none of the visual practices I have (bright clothing, lane positioning, blinking DRL) were effective in this case. Though I often move into the motor vehicle traffic lane at intersections to improve my conspicuity, I did not do so in this case, probably because I didn't have any parallel-ish threats. Based on the angle of approach of the car and the clear sight lines, it would have made no difference. Blinking or solid DRL? Didn't matter.
This incident illustrates where my head is at.
Absolute safety in any vehicle type will never happen.
That doesn't mean I can't do things to improve my odds.
The "Swiss cheese model of accident causation" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model) is what I've been trained with, and I think it applies to any vehicle. However, as a "vulnerable road user" I don't have access to the tons of cheese motorists have. (Note that the 30k+ annual road fatalities in the USA suggests motorists don't have enough cheese either.. but on a bright clear Sunday afternoon a ton of car at 30 mph has more cheese than I do.)
So I'll continue using tools to increase my conspicuity, mirrors to increase my situational awareness, road strategy to leave myself an out, practicing bike handling skills for crash avoidance and helmet/gloves. I'm continuously looking for more cheese slices to put on my sandwich.
So, yeah, I'll continue using DRL and, when there's a teachable moment, I'll encourage others to do so as well.
Context/Notes: Until COVID-19, most of my riding was for commuting and utility on suburban arterials both during the day and at night. Lately, I've been doing more recreational riding and have been using more MUP during daylight. Generally, I use front and back lights during the day except when I'm on MUP, where I turn them off. I run a variety of different lights mounted on the bicycle depending on what I have at hand. I have not finished researching all the source materials identified in the other daylight flashing thread, so I may change my mind, but for now I'm running flashing mode during the day. For bike mount, I only have a Cateye Volt 500 (500 lumen) forward and a Fabric Lumasense V2 red 30/100 lumen to the rear available to me at this time. (I recently found myself without a rear light and I splurged at the LBS for the Fabric. The Lumasense has an accelerometer and it goes solid red 100 lumen when it senses decelleration. Of course I can't see it, but my family members tell me it works. It is pretty pricey, though.) I also have a very small white Blackburn 2'fer mounted on the front of my helmet and a bright red Serfas on the back of my helmet, both of which I can easily turn on or off while riding. I only use them during the day when I feel I'm entering a threatening situation and I want to introduce a change in the visual field.