Fazer Owners Club - Unofficial
General => General => Topic started by: celticdog on 18 February 2019, 10:30:47 pm
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Well having commuted through the winter's cold wet dark mornings and evenings without incident, it now seems like it's silly season once again on the daily commute.
2 incidents last week and one today, without going into details, has anyone else experienced the situation where cagers are 'looking' at you but not 'seeing' you?
Maybe i'm getting too old or something, If anyone has any top tips or can recommend a decent hi viz vest it's much appreciated. :(
Keep safe out there lads.
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I gave up on Hi - Viz long ago.......unless you fancy wearing Pink Hi Viz which was voted best, then the blue Hi _viz.
Every fecker is wearing yellow vests these days....all the supermarket drivers, delivery drivers, post office you name it. Yellow means nothing to anyone anymore.
A mainly white "commute" helmet is the best I found along with spot lights.
http://foc-u.co.uk/index.php/topic,24887.0.html (http://foc-u.co.uk/index.php/topic,24887.0.html)
Be safe fella.
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Icon Mil-Spec works for me, thing i like about it is that it doesn't flap about at all, it's very well made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwDwzzXlRrI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwDwzzXlRrI)
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has anyone else experienced the situation where cagers are 'looking' at you but not 'seeing' you?
I *never* assume that they've seen me, even if they appear to be looking right at me! If I'm approaching a junction and there's someone that could pull out, I'll slow down, cover the horn button and front brake and look for options to swerve out of their way if necessary.
There is an effect known as "looming", where, because the driver only sees a shape, but with no clues (eg two headlights on a car) to give them an accurate judgement of distance, they may think that you're further back than you are and that it's safe to pull out.
There's a nice animation here which shows the effect: https://tomroelandts.com/articles/the-looming-effect
Also, if you have your headlight on and there's a car behind you, it can appear that your light belongs to the car behind and the driver fixates on the car, rather than noticing you.
What you can also do is introduce a little "weave" to the left and right as you approach, that gets their attention because the eye spots lateral movement more easily than something coming directly at the viewer and you avoid the "motion camouflage" effect.
See here for more information: https://motoress.com/ride/motion-camouflage-riding-your-motorcycle/
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I just assume they haven't seen me, not looked, or worse still doesn't give a flying foc because they're protected in a cage usually driving German cars or land rovers. Like most of us been caught out a couple of times. Keep your wits about you ride safe.
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also an all year commuter so know just where your coming from celtic dog. On dry days with warm tarmac and debris free roads I slaughter everything I come across. :lol
On cold wet drizzly days with leaves and mud all over the road Im just glad to get home in one piece, and am the worlds slowest, carefullest biker. There was a bloke I occasionally came across on a nice 1150 bimmer when our morning commutes coincided. Friendly feller, always an acknowledgement. One day last winter I went in a little later, and the road was shut off. and I moaned like foc to myself as I got diverted (along with loads of cagers) along the Lydney road. Next day in the papers, turns out it was him, Fatality..Land rover pulled out in front of him in one of the few places on the 4228 you could stretch the bikes legs. Took me a few days to come to terms with that..never met him but essentially he was me, just an old feller useing his bike to get into the city from the sticks.
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IMO the introduction of DRL's has made it worse for bikers. I have a mostly white helmet and use a high vis in the winter, it is actually a running top so is stretchy and also has arms and screws up nice and small. After I started using a high vis on top of my standard black leather when it came to summer I felt vunerable without the hi vis so for the summer I do not want the extra layer of a hi vis so I have brought a mostly white leather for summer riding, which also has lots of nice vents .
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Cheers for all the replies gents, good articles Grahamm, you live and learn. I'm going to take on board all of the comments and suggestions as I'm purchasing some new riding gear this spring. :)