I don't normally drive my car around London in the evening. But at the end of last week I had to make a short trip out. I was driving on some reasonably dark streets in the Islington area. First of all, I was surprised by how many cyclists there were, obviously coming home in the De Beauvoir Square area. Clearly this is a good place to cycle, with few cars about and nice roads. But when I emerged from the dark roads on to a bigger road, which was also a bit dark, I was shocked to find a cyclist almost upon me, when I was just about to turn left. He was wearing dark clothes, had no lights and, like I said, it was pretty much pitch black. Luckily I did see him in time and refrained from pulling out. But it was a real lesson to me - light, and reflective bright clothing really does save lives. God, I'm sounding like I'm some kind of government safety film. But I can assure you that as a motorist, it really traumatised me - and then it made me realise that as a cyclist, we really need to arm ourselves with the best gear possible.
I've got a feeling that bike shops will have one of their busiest ever days today - with people stocking up on good lights.
Anyway - government safety notice over.
This site - Commuter Page Blog - has a
good article about reflective tyres too.
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