As a driver at night, I find I am often looking primarily at the road, especially the road edge/bike lane boundary. (Keeping my vehicle where it belongs being #1 on my list.) As such, I find I am not looking for or noticing objects that are high. Lights or reflectors at the height of panniers I see right away. Not always so when they are on the rider's back or helmet. Most panniers have a square or the like of reflective material. I can't see that more would hurt anything. (Except for perhaps a sale or two for the retailer/manufacturer and a little more expense to make, all reasons why the manufacturer keep those squares small.)

My small gripe with Ortleib is that they are least visible at dusk and dawn from the rear witht he black fabric.

Ben

Just one PB Superflash or its equivalent (and anyone concerned about safety at night should have one) on your rack makes your entire post a moot issue. Moot. Here we are wondering about what an extra bit of reflective material on the back of a pannier is going to do when there is a Superflash raising hell right above it. I must be missing a gene for comprehension. Some concepts I just don't get.

Maybe because it can? I mean... you must have been in a car a time or two. Is it really that hard to see a cyclist or anyone else for that matter, in the daytime that is NOT wearing neon yellow/green?

I find as a driver that it is far easier to judge things like how fast I am approaching when I get to see something of size and shape, not just a point in space (especially one that I would much rather not look at!). Big reflective patches are perfect for that. Perhaps I am unique. But the drivers I see seem to react as I do. (I also see using really bright flasher as an act of hostility toward anyone who has to look at it (like bike riders - me - properly coming the other war or approaching from behind. The stories I hear of drivers suggest they also might not be so different from me.)

Ben

I have a light similar to a Planet Bike Superflash that I got from ebay (these even cheaper, on order) and three 18650 crees (two on bars and one on my helmet) but I tend to only use two at a time. I want to be as visible as possible hence the high visibility pants which I am very pleased with.

My pannier, if I can get it made, is going to make me more visible, aero, waterproof, and take weight off my back. The Tidy Cat buckets are a very nice idea -- bright and lidded -- but they are not sold here in Japan. The postage to Japan is expensive on ebay but free in the USA.

I will look to see if there is anything similar. Searching for "bucket lid" (no quotes) on Amazon in Japan there is a bin for nappies/diapers that has an inner but it is not high visibility.

I was thinking to make a kind of mini tarp for the 100 yen shop bucket.

There are a variety of reflective tapes at the 100 yen shop (dollar tree).

This saddle pad should do okay as a pad for my second pair of lime green lycra pants on order.

That's an intelligent outlook, some people fail to "see" entire construction zones with hundreds of high-viz markers and flashing lights. Obsessing about covering one self with high-viz may not address the real issue.

Ha. Me too.

I think rather than paniers I will just put this tool box on the yellow rack assuming I win the auction, and secure it with a band. it was about $10 from a hardware store. I will cover it with reflective stickers or quite a bit of it.

Instead of Panniers by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

And now that I don't think I will be bidding (or rather purchasing) there is a nice pair of Inertia Design aerodynamic fairly high visibilty panniers going cheaply on ebay right now! If I were in the USA and postage were not so prohibitive I would purchase them. Panniers of this type cost only $94 new in black, if you can find a supplier which I can not. These are less than $40 plus shipping out of texas.

No, it's not that hard, but you see them more quickly (say, as you're looking up from your phone), if they're wearing hi-vis colors.

The jacket arrived from China. It is pretty thin floppy, non wind resistant fleece but okay for autumn (still a bit to thick for today). It is rather too large in the belly. I bought it based upon some other length (arms maybe, which are about right).

Wearing both the pants and the top I feel, though I may not be, very visible.

High Visibility All over by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

I failed to win the rack auction, so I bought a cheap rack from Amazon on which I will place my orange tool box, at least for a while.

I saw a group ride this weekend from half a block away. Broad daylight, mid day.

I have to admit, the high vis neon yellow jerseys were far more visible than all other colors.

[MENTION=106129]timtak[/MENTION], are those tall glasses designed for wind breaking, or are they just an unusual fashion?

They are so I can look out just below my brows rather than crane my neck when in a tuck. I recommend them in other threads.

I have some Chinese Yellow gloves now and look like a banana or the Tron Guy.


Green pants, yellow shirt, yellow gloves by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

The jersey is something that I have had for a couple of years. The gloves just arrived.

The pants, in fluorescent lime green do not appear to be commercially available. So they are are, like the glasses and to a certain extent my stem: my invention. My wife made the pants out of some jogging pants and a pad from an old pair of pants. One can wear them over summer shorts or inner shorts but I am going to ask my wife to sew a saddle pad into the second pair that I have just received (these are being warn over summer shorts for the time being).

I just ordered some amazing looking reflective leather gloves today. I'll give a review when they come in.

Last winter, I took some iron-on reflective tape and made arrow patterns on my mittens. This way, when I held my arm out, I was signaling.

Most of my commutes are pretty uneventful, but today's was an exception that provided 2 good examples of needing to be watching others in spite of trying to make yourself as visible as possible. I could understand the woman who made an abrupt uturn in front of me without signaling having problems noticing me dressed in a high vis shirt under a high vis vest in spite of the blinking magcishine on the handlebars and Vis 360 on my helmet. I approached her car from behind and was glad to see she wasn't on the phone as her car lurched past me. But the second person today caused me the most surprise. That was a tree trimmer in a bright yellow hard hat who threw the door to his truck open without looking. You'd think a guy who should pay attention to his surroundings while working would be a little more aware of them the rest of the time too.

That's what I was going to say a while ago. High visibility is very important, but I realize that drivers who pay attention will likely notice you riding in front of them even if you are in regular clothing, whereas texting drivers or drivers not paying attention for whatever reasons can still head toward you even if you are dressed like a neon clown .

I now put an orange box on the back of my bike. My neon clown clothing is not obscured by my backpack, I can see behind me more easily, there is no weight on my back, I am more aerodynamic not only because the backpack is not obstrucking the wind when I am low, but also because perhaps, the box channels the turbulence behind me a little. It feels liberating. I now have two bits of elastic that are just long enough to go around the box so I do not need to wrap it up like in the photo above. The box itself is pretty visible, unusual (and thus eye catching, giving perhaps pause for thought), and will be made more reflective.
NEC_0065_20151004_002 by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr
I also find that it is often working men (e.g. building labourers, and truck drivers) that come too close to me on the roads. I wonder if this is because they think, "Here I am working hard, here on my workplace, the roads, and this yuppie is using my workplace as a playground." Maybe if I have a tool box on the back of my bike it may promote a false sense of camaraderie.

The rawback is the time to fix it on, and the rattle. I may purchase one of these "Saga Rider" bike bag/racks in orange.


Ah, I thought they are also available for $49 in neon clown green! But, oh, no! Alas these are no longer available. Did the sell out, or not sell at all?

Holy cow! Not to get off topic, but that's a huge drop--just eyeballing it, I'd guess eight to ten inches. You must be really flexible to get into that kind of aero position.

I noticed that too. Given that there is a long stem too, I wonder if the bike frame is a bit small for the rider.

Sometimes after a truck passed me too close, I looked up at the driver and he looked tired and just had a blank stare forward, not aware of my existence. It's quite worrying that someone in that state sat behind the wheel.

Probably not any more than any other group. There are several cyclists at the terminal where I work, and two of us commute daily by bike.

I experience far less disrespect and harassment from motorists on my bike than I do in a commercial vehicle.

The shop says that the still have some green bags, so I may get one for full neon clown effect and some of these neoprene gloves in yellow for when the weather gets colder.

Very possibly. I think that it is likely to correlated with tiredness and stress. Sometimes people driving their kids to school can be just as stressed so you may be right. I based my allegation on very limited recent personal experience (a close shave with a truck and some guys shouting at me from out of their work van).
My stem has become a verb, timtak'd or lanced, meaning "stupidly and dangerously long" to most/everyone else, but "really great bike modification" to me. If you purchase a bike with a fairly upright "Gran Fondo" geometry then it will often have a fairly short top tube since your back will be fairly upright and you will be reaching the bars with only your arms. If you then lean forward until your back is flat, then, even if you bend your elbows, the length of your back will be in the forward direction so the same frame will be cramped. So I don't think that the frame was too small for the upright fit. It is just that when I got thin, and more flexible, I wanted and want to pretend to be Greg Le Mond! I really do ride quite like this photo below, but not half the speed of course. In a sense this is also an old fart way to ride (there is a guy in his sixties that rides the same route as me that also rides like this, or more so). Now that I lack oomph, lowness becomes more important.

The other thing is that like most time trial (i.e. non peloton) cyclists I prefer not to have much rear saddle offset. That said my saddle may be UCI legal these days.

I have added a reflector, changed my saddle bag for something more high visibility and (not shown in this photo) attached a rear light to my tool box. It makes a hell of a rattling racket though, so I'm hankering after that green water drop shaped bag, which is a mere $42 but I have bought a lot of dayglow and stuff recently so I don't want to pee off the Mrs.

NEC_0069 by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

I can't even imagine riding in that position, the drops of my road bike are significantly higher than the bar top on that bike, and I hardly ever use them.

I doubt it.

Having lived in California, Florida, and now Virginia/DC I'm more inclined to think that they're not thinking about you at all. I've gotten more into the habit of looking at drivers as they pass me (or as I pass them). A good number of them are either talking on - or looking at - a mobile device such as a smartphone or standalone GPS. Others look kind of spaced out or thinking about something.

I've only been honked at once by a driver who was clearly staring at me with an angry face. All I was doing at that exact moment was standing over my bike, parked in on the far left of the rightmost lane (so that he could make a right turn if he wanted to), waiting for a red light. He was parked behind me.

I used to never use my drops too. This is me after a season. At the beginning I could not drops at all. I had my saddle up high and leant forwards onto my hoods.

Form by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr
I could not use my drops because my thighs and belly were too big. I was too inflexible. I join in the stretch and kick practice behind my 9 year old sons' karate club. My stem was shorter. I made it longer. My saddle was not hollow so it crushed my nether regions. I got a hollow one. My saddle was further forward (due in large part to inflexibility). It is now a bit further back, I think.

This is my tool box with rear light.

Tool Box with Rear Light by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

It is great in some ways but rattles a LOT, so that high visibility green nylon bag and rack

is calling out to me! It is only $42 here (he says he has green though the listing does not mention it).