Pictures Of Ourselves - As Drivers See Us!
 

I'd like to propose a little group project in the interests of safety and education.

Wear your usual commuting gear on your usual commuting bike. Go to a dark-ish bit of road at night. Have someone sit in a (parked) car, with the headlights on, and take a photo of you on the bike as you ride.

Exact position is your call. You choose whether to simulate a broadside, a rear-ender, a left-turn-head-on, a right-turn-cut-off, etc, and you decide what is a realistic distance. These aren't really "portraits" so no harm in not showing your smiling visage. Personally, my saggy butt in dripping rain pants is really my best side anyway.

Let's see how illuminated, blinky, reflective, brightly colored - in short, how visible - we really are!

Game? I'll take my picture this weekend and post it here. If it rains, all the better.

If you want to be all techie-showoff and embed a video, feel free.

(I'm also going to have my kids do this, so they can grasp how invisible a dark-clothed rider really is.)

Oh man, I probably light up like a Xmas tree :) But that doesn't mean that zombies in cages will see me :(

That's easy. Drivers see all cyclists the same way.

http://www.dustydavis.com/blogimages/open_road_400.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5173/5...fa8082bf2f.jpg
NITERIDER by 1nterceptor, on Flickr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGpBH...ure=plpp_video

I don't even have to do that, especially when I can light up road signs 300+ ft away(fore and aft), and the large SOLAS reflective patches can reflect more light off my bike, which is stored down the end of the hallway, from my bedroom light than some forward lighting I've seen on some other cyclist's bikes.

How I look to drivers at night...
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3153/2...23ccd92f6e.jpg

and day....

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5305/5...c085421548.jpg
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5305/5...c085421548.jpg
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5305/5...c085421548.jpg

No matter what I seem to do, I still feel like I have a SEP field* around me during daylight hours.


*An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem.... The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.

The technology involved in making something properly invisible is so mind-bogglingly complex that 999,999,999 times out of a billion it's simpler just to take the thing away and do without it....... The "Somebody Else's Problem field" is much simpler, more effective, and "can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery."

This is because it relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.
In this case, the Starship Bistromath ("a small upended Italian bistro" with "guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches") has been hidden from the crowd watching a Cricket match at Lord's by an SEP field. People may see it, but they take absolutely no notice of it.

This is what I think I look like to drivers...
http://static-illicoweb.videotron.co...tBA_Poster.jpg

This might be what they actually notice...
http://trickphotographybook.com/imag..._bicyclist.jpg




Here's what the actual bicycle looks like (without the stock front/rear lights, Blackburn flea 2.0 @ strobe in front and rear 9-led blinky on the bag)...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7159/6...f57994cf_b.jpg

I think you meant to post this photo:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-y...0/roadkill.jpg

I always assume they are looking at me as this:

Yup. They may not even see you at all....

I've ridden a long time and I've always been convinced that drivers see me like this no matter how many lights I have or what kind of clothes I wear.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...rgXg_gO4Gd2Jfe

damn them all!

[QUOTE=Telly;13893344]This is what I think I look like to drivers...
http://static-illicoweb.videotron.co...tBA_Poster.jpg

This might be what they actually notice...
http://trickphotographybook.com/imag..._bicyclist.jpg

Claude Rains would be proud. :thumb:

Btw, I think drivers don't see us all the same way.