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I do cycle, and I do not see this as a bad thing, nor that it shifts the blame/burden/etc to me as a cyclist. I am hard to see at night with my tiny rear light

I do cycle, and I do not see this as a bad thing, nor that it shifts the blame/burden/etc to me as a cyclist. I am hard to see at night with my tiny rear light and my reflective vest that barely moves and the thin reflective stripes on my pants. If I sprayed the legs of my pants with this, the large area of movement reflecting in headlights would sure as hell make me easier to see. I imagine it sure would help collision avoidance systems, and I can't be the only one thinking that. If it's that reflective for visible light, it's just as reflective for IR and possibly microwaves, and would make the user stand out on computerized collision avoidance systems.

HCIdivision17 11y ago
That was the first rule of the motorcycle training course: you're harder to see. Worse, I've had people seem to make eye-contact with me and pull out, and then saw the shock on their face when they actually noticed me; someone once described it as a bad check, where they're looking for cars, and since you're not a car the road's clear. (It's such a confusingly bad heuristic, too, since people seem to do that to trains and trucks as well.) So to help things along, it's useful to be conspicuous. In overcast, low-contrast weather, I'd love for this stuff for my chaps when it's cold and drizzly. EDIT: I wonder what the high viz stuff triggers in terms of object collision warnings in the head. Like, perhaps it seems like a sign, and that makes a person double check they're still on the road? I have that sort of knee-jerk check when someone with bright blue headlamps get behind me, since that color in a mirror used to invariably mean police.
- Piskvorrr 11y ago
  Yup. "Nothing car-sized in my left mirror, turning...OH-SHIT-SINCE-WHEN-DO-I-HAVE-A-TRAM-WEDGED-IN-THE-CAR-DOOR?!?" is the most common collision scenario for light rail, just as "nothing car-sized in my mirror, let me open the door-OH-SHIT-THAT-BIKE-LANE-WASN'T-THERE-A-SECOND-AGO!!!" is for bikes. Also, see that video I posted in response to GP - reflective stuff is at least an order of magnitude more visible at night than normal (even bright) clothing.
Piskvorrr 11y ago
Except then we'd be teaching the avoidance systems "whatever doesn't stand out is unworthy of attention; if you're not completely covered in blinking/reflective gadgets, well that's your own damn fault." You are underestimating the brightness of your (blinking) lights and the reflective items. See this for a visual comparison of "invisible/reflective/reflective+lights": https://youtu.be/oAFQ2pAnMFA?t=1m12s https://youtu.be/oAFQ2pAnMFA?t=1m12s Indeed it is in my own individual interest as a cyclist to be visible; it is absolutely not in my best interest to even suggest to car drivers that "if it doesn't have a HUGE REFLECTING SIGN, it doesn't exist and therefore you don't have to worry about it."
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  There's a lot at work in the optics of this stuff. When you say "whatever doesn't stand out is unworthy of attention", I think it's fairer to say "whatever doesn't stand out isn't seen", as in is below the threshold of detection. A crossing guard's blinking red light can be invisible in some times of day/year, and at night everything that isn't well lit is just some shade of shadow, which looks an awful lot like unoccupied air. For the avoidance systems, I think we're really going to net win on that, since they'll need to see things that aren't well illuminated, like fallen trees and ditches. (I really, really hope so at least.) Basically, the systems will have better eye sight than us. In a lot of ways, I think this is a form of faking a HUD for people. We want humans to shine, like there's an OLED display overlay pointing at people or like a thermal imager behind walls. Reflective paint does that really well - at least it makes clothing-shaped blobs hovering in mid-air - but I think the intensity is merely that car lights are bright, so the retroreflection is far brighter than the little LED lights people tend to buy. You need something that a motor vehicle driver considers conspicuous, which is going to be something with the lumen output of a head light or brake light. In the video you linked, the bike's red tail light really isn't really bright enough, but the jacket absolutely is unmistakable. And blinking things really are great, since movement catches attention nicely (so long as bright-vs-dim has enough contrast). The bobbing retroreflecting foot pedals in the clip show they're an excellent tell-tale of a bike on the road.

HCIdivision17 11y ago

That was the first rule of the motorcycle training course: you're harder to see. Worse, I've had people seem to make eye-contact with me and pull out, and then saw the shock on their face when they actually noticed me; someone once described it as a bad check, where they're looking for cars, and since you're not a car the road's clear. (It's such a confusingly bad heuristic, too, since people seem to do that to trains and trucks as well.) So to help things along, it's useful to be conspicuous. In overcast, low-contrast weather, I'd love for this stuff for my chaps when it's cold and drizzly. EDIT: I wonder what the high viz stuff triggers in terms of object collision warnings in the head. Like, perhaps it seems like a sign, and that makes a person double check they're still on the road? I have that sort of knee-jerk check when someone with bright blue headlamps get behind me, since that color in a mirror used to invariably mean police.

Piskvorrr 11y ago
Yup. "Nothing car-sized in my left mirror, turning...OH-SHIT-SINCE-WHEN-DO-I-HAVE-A-TRAM-WEDGED-IN-THE-CAR-DOOR?!?" is the most common collision scenario for light rail, just as "nothing car-sized in my mirror, let me open the door-OH-SHIT-THAT-BIKE-LANE-WASN'T-THERE-A-SECOND-AGO!!!" is for bikes. Also, see that video I posted in response to GP - reflective stuff is at least an order of magnitude more visible at night than normal (even bright) clothing.

Piskvorrr 11y ago

Except then we'd be teaching the avoidance systems "whatever doesn't stand out is unworthy of attention; if you're not completely covered in blinking/reflective gadgets, well that's your own damn fault." You are underestimating the brightness of your (blinking) lights and the reflective items. See this for a visual comparison of "invisible/reflective/reflective+lights": https://youtu.be/oAFQ2pAnMFA?t=1m12s https://youtu.be/oAFQ2pAnMFA?t=1m12s Indeed it is in my own individual interest as a cyclist to be visible; it is absolutely not in my best interest to even suggest to car drivers that "if it doesn't have a HUGE REFLECTING SIGN, it doesn't exist and therefore you don't have to worry about it."

HCIdivision17 11y ago
There's a lot at work in the optics of this stuff. When you say "whatever doesn't stand out is unworthy of attention", I think it's fairer to say "whatever doesn't stand out isn't seen", as in is below the threshold of detection. A crossing guard's blinking red light can be invisible in some times of day/year, and at night everything that isn't well lit is just some shade of shadow, which looks an awful lot like unoccupied air. For the avoidance systems, I think we're really going to net win on that, since they'll need to see things that aren't well illuminated, like fallen trees and ditches. (I really, really hope so at least.) Basically, the systems will have better eye sight than us. In a lot of ways, I think this is a form of faking a HUD for people. We want humans to shine, like there's an OLED display overlay pointing at people or like a thermal imager behind walls. Reflective paint does that really well - at least it makes clothing-shaped blobs hovering in mid-air - but I think the intensity is merely that car lights are bright, so the retroreflection is far brighter than the little LED lights people tend to buy. You need something that a motor vehicle driver considers conspicuous, which is going to be something with the lumen output of a head light or brake light. In the video you linked, the bike's red tail light really isn't really bright enough, but the jacket absolutely is unmistakable. And blinking things really are great, since movement catches attention nicely (so long as bright-vs-dim has enough contrast). The bobbing retroreflecting foot pedals in the clip show they're an excellent tell-tale of a bike on the road.