atgatt +1

[vifferman]

Holy Snapping Arseturtles, Batman!
If I'd realised fluoro bibvestclothes had statisitics arse-ociated with them, I'd have never worn the thing!
Nor started this thread!
Doncha know - over 90% of bike accidents are caused by statistics!

How was I to know? there was no warning label or nuffink...

[Hitcher]

What a load of utter crap! The BMJ should know better. Such a "study" has no way of either observing or assessing cause and effect.

People who ride horses whilst facing backwards are less at risk of accidents than those who ride facing forwards. But I don't see this being advanced as a serious solution to minimising horse-riding accidents. I presume the long-suffering New Zealand taxpayer funded that nonsense piece of "research" as well.

[Swoop]

"Arse-antlers" are those mandatory tattoo thingies that young things have roaming across the smalls of their backs.

Sometimes referred to as a "tramp stamp", or so I am led to believe.

[Horse]

Such a "study" has no way of either observing or assessing cause and effect.

I guess I don't understand your point of view. Why not?

[Hitcher]

I guess I don't understand your point of view. Why not?

Because it is impossible to replicate circumstances to account for a variable like the wearing of a fluoro vest to see whether its presence or absence contributed to an accident. Or not. There are always multiple factors that contribute to accidents (despite what the Speed Kills Nazis think), and endeavoring to isolate just one in the absence of a proper scientific double-blind testing regime is specious, to say the least. Heightened by producing "statistics" to at least one decimal place in such a "study" also lessens the credibility of the "findings" when much of what is being measured is totally subjective in the first instance. GIGO!

[jrandom]

Personally, I think that 'conspicuity' is an awesome word, and will start using it immediately at every possible opportunity.

[Horse]

There are always multiple factors that contribute to accidents (despite what the Speed Kills Nazis think), and endeavoring to isolate just one in the absence of a proper scientific double-blind testing regime is specious, to say the least. Heightened by producing "statistics" to at least one decimal place in such a "study" also lessens the credibility of the "findings" when much of what is being measured is totally subjective in the first instance. GIGO!

Shorter Hitcher: "I didn't read the paper."

[Movistar]

"Conclusions Low conspicuity may increase the risk of motorcycle crash related injury. Increasing the use of reflective or fluorescent clothing, white or light coloured helmets, and daytime headlights are simple, cheap interventions that could considerably reduce motorcycle crash related injury and death."

Key words here are 'may' and 'could'

I'm sure wearing a white helmet with an orange day-glo vest, reflective stripes around my ankles, knees and thighs while happily tooting my electric buzzer, switching my headlight to highbeam, pulsing my brake light, activating my hazard lights whilist standing up and moving my arms in a rotational direction may give me more conspicuity and could reduce my chances of some dick head pulling out in front of me, there is still a high possibility that one would.

It comes back to the good ol' look out for the dick heads yourself 'cause they won't look out for you!

But that aside, as far as fluoro bibvestclothes go, that's pretty good,

I would wear that, no worries.

[Horse]

Real scientists always talk like that. Don't get too excited.

[MacD]

Such a "study" has no way of either observing or assessing cause and effect.

I'm sure the authors know this but the temptation is always to over-extend the conclusions of this sort of epidemiological study. In the full paper the authors themselves note that the lower relative risk of having been in an injury accident while wearing a white helmet or fluoro vest may be due to self-selection. In other words riders who are more risk-averse probably select white helmets and fluoro vests, therefore they may be measuring the risk-taking nature of the participants rather than any effect of clothing.

There's actually quite a large amount of literature on motorcyclist conspicuity (evidently you can thank an Australian for that word) which is quite contradictory. A number of experiments have been carried out to try to assess the differential visibility of motorcycle apparel, and the results are often counter-intuitive. Black clothing (jacket and helmet) has been found to have quite high conspicuity as it produces a high contrast silhouette, while some coloured/patterned clothing appears to produce a camouflage effect, particularly in urban situations.

Personally I'm quite comfortable wearing black gear when commuting.