Quote:
Originally Posted by MattTuck
Well, for one, I don't typically ride at night. And when I do, I have several old lights that I would mount, and wear a reflective vest. In fact, I just got a new light for day time use. Two, I turn around and look at cars to let them know that I see them, and that also allows me to see if they are traveling fast, giving me a wide clearance, etc.
I have ridden with a mirror in the past, but I found that relying on that made some drivers feel like they could come closer to me, and I prefer to look backwards now even if I have a mirror. I think that when a driver sees that you know they're there, their behavior improves.
In my view, there is no way to eliminate all risk from these environments. You're dealing with heavy high velocity objects with huge amounts of kinetic energy, and potentially unpredictable behaviors due to the operators. The best you can do is take actions to minimize the risks you think are the most dangerous.
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I am taking the point of view that a machine that sees in lidar, radar and amplified video can see at night, so this isn't a failure to be seen but a failure to take action. The Uber never reacted to the pedestrian and struck her at full speed centered in its lane.
We act on faith that cars aren't going to jerk the wheel into us when we ride, walk or drive around other cars. We can game that to an extent, but the closing rates of vehicles is beyond see and avoid reaction times. Especially since bicycles require a countersteer to make sudden maneuvers - we have slow emergency maneuver speed.