Dark red shows up very poorly after dark. You’d still be choosing to make yourself invisible.
Use your lights! ETA: and no don’t just forget them at home! They should be permanently mounted, and functional, just as a car’s have to be.
I will also usually have lights on the hope that extra millisecond or so will give you time to decide to not murder me. But if you have decided to drive in such a way that you will murder anyone cycling on the road in front of you wearing a dark shirt without lights, you will probably also murder me if I’m wearing a bright pink shirt and have bright lights. I can reduce the odds a small amount but it’s up to you decide not to commit vehicular manslaughter, there is only very little me, a cyclist can do to convince you not to.
There seems to be a contingent of people who are sure of their righteousness and in denial of physics, whether that’s mechanics or optics. And that’s before you get into the psychology of drivers, what they expect to see, where they look and don’t look for traffic and hazards, and so on. If you’re in dark clothes in the dark without reflective material or lighting, you will not be seen at any real distance. If you are seen but too late, there will not be enough time and distance to stop. That doesn’t matter what the conditions are.
When I lived in a college town, at least twice I almost hit an idiot on a bicycle who was coming the wrong way up the sidewalk at night in dark clothes with no lights on while just trying to leave my driveway.
I don’t understand that either.
I bike a lot on rural roads and wear a fluorescent yellow jersey with a flashing light on the back of my bike.
My husband bought himself a reflective vest to wear while bicycling in the dusk or after dark, as a present to me.
@griffin1977 , it’s not that hard to wear something extremely visible over your regular clothes, something that’s small and light and can be shoved into your bag when you dismount. One of my life goals is to avoid killing another human being (including invisible bicyclists) but i really encourage bicyclists to help me in this endeavor.
Another human being?
I cannot concieve of a scenario where you where driving “at a reasonable speed” AND fail to see a human sized object in time (on a road where it is reasonable such things are – on a freeway all bets are off)
Well then you haven’t driven much, have you?
Yup good advice that might add a small window in which a driver who has decided to drive in a murderous manner a tiny fraction of a second to change their mind and not kill me. But in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big a difference, I’ll take it as I’d rather not die, but the onus is on the driver not to decide to kill any cyclists they encounter.
Oh, nonsense. If I can see you I’m not going to hit you. If I can’t see you, I might hit you. The only way I can avoid hitting something on the road that I can’t see is to never drive anywhere; which in this society and in my location is implausible.
Yeah. And I’m going to see you, and I’m not going to drive into you.
One the color of the road, in the dark? Again, do you drive a car?
The visibility from inside a car and the visibility from the point of view of a pedestrian or a bicyclist is different. That’s physics.
Absolute bullshit. It doesn’t make a difference of “a tiny fraction of a second”. It makes a difference of many multiple seconds – plenty of time to slow the car and steer it away from you, or to slow to your pace if there’s not room to pass. I can see those blinking lights from half a mile or more down the road. I can’t see what’s blinking from that distance in the dark – but I can see that something is. Whether it’s a bicyclist or a pedestrian or a buggy or a (quite possibly dark green) tractor or a semidisabled car, I can see the blinking light.
So you are driving round without your headlights on? If you have working headlights and are paying attention the difference between seeing someone in bright clothes and dark clothes is miniscule. If you are going to hit me if I wear a dark shirt you will probably still hit me if I am wearing a bright pink shirt.
No it isn’t.
And the difference between seeing something with lights on and without lights on is huge.
That may be true. And I suspect that in the dark, a driver would perceive most colors as shades of grey. I would imagine that a bright white t-shirt would show up better than dark clothes, tho.
When I lived in a more rural area without good sidewalks, I bought a flourescent yellow mesh vest with reflective stripes to wear when running and biking - even during the day. I recall looking for the cheapest possible option and this was under $10 at WalMart. Still wear it when biking - always during the day - 13 yrs later. IMO, a good investment and a reasonable precaution.
If I were biking/running the roads at dusk/predawn/dark, I would definitely invest in a bike front and rear lights, and possibly a flasher to attach to my clothing. To each their own.
I am dubious of the claims of folk that bikers/runners in dark clothing at night without any personal lighting can be difficult to see by a reasonably careful driver with decent vision, complying with traffic laws.
That’s not true, it’s bullshit. The difference between the visibility of a vest with reflective stripes and a dark shirt is about 5 seconds, with good headlights, driving at non-interstate speeds. And 5 seconds is forever. As thorny says, it’s enough time to easily and comfortably avoid whatever that bright object is.
Not at all true. Not minuscule. Some materials (not just color) absorb light and do not reflect it. I’m blessed with excellent eyesight (20/15, sometimes 20/10) and it can be VERY difficult to see someone in dark clothing.
Not minuscule at all.
I hate to disagree with the last 2 posters, but we need to be clear we are all defining terms the same. The last 2 posters seem to be assuming “bright clothing” means reflective safety gear - or at least white clothes.
I have to acknowledge there is SOME validity to others’ apparent position that some clothing might appear bright on the daytime - like a bright blue or pink shirt - but may appear grey at night. I’ll still say, someone who bikes in the dark without supplemental lights or flourescent stripes, deserves to have their genes removed from the pool.
Not just bikes.
I have come close to hitting dog-walkers in our neighborhood who think it’s smart to wear black clothes while walking their black dog, in the middle of the blacktop street. Our neighborhood is pretty dark - maybe one streetlamp every two blocks, and even with LED headlights, it’s very hard to see people dressed like that. The streetlamps might even make it worse, since they create a pool of light up the block which obscures closer, dark objects. I’ve stopped and mentioned to people doing that that they are basically invisible.
It’s not always dim lighting that’s the issue. I live in a dense (sub-)urban area. The streets are lit and when you’re driving down a major boulevard, both sides are lined with lit-up businesses and their advertising signs. The overall visual scene is very busy. So here you are driving the 45mph speed limit on a 3-lanes each way boulevard with a central turn lane, so 7 lanes total. Everything in the panorama in front of you from e.g. 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock is bright lights or headlights shining in your eyes. And now some guy in dark pants and a dark shirt steps off the curb mid-block 50 feet in front of you. Up until that point he wasn’t invisible, just unnoticed being small and stationary. And now his background from your POV is simply black pavement that reflects light just about as much as the ped does. If you’re lucky there’s another car just ahead of the ped and you notice them occulting the taillights of that car you’re following.
Millions of people jaywalk at night. Or bike ride at night. Or pedestrianate while drunk / high. Some few are going to get hit or killed because “traffic”, the collective behavior of millions of cars and drivers, is an ambient hazard of modern life. They can choose to pretend the ambient hazard isn’t there, but that is per se reckless behavior.
And only a tiny, tiny fraction of that reckless behavior is going to be “rewarded” with an unhappy smiting. The vast majority will get away with it for a lifetime. Because the existing car / bike / ped system is safe enough that they can do that and live. Probably. In fact 99.99% probably.
You must suffer from night blindness! 
We have a good friend who is actively involved in advocating for dark skies and effective lighting. Once you pay a little attention to the issue, you’ll see how much lighting is ineffective in actually lighting areas that need it and, instead, create glare.
Bikers are harder to see than runners or walkers. I heard an article on NPR a few years ago about how our eyes do a lot of “preprocessing” before sending info to the brain, and they are designed to see animals moving. And since then I’ve thought about that when driving, and seen a lot of examples in my own perception. The jerky up & down movement of walkers and joggers is simply more eye-catching than the smooth gliding motion of a bicycle. That’s one reason that pedal reflectors are really valuable, they highlight the “animal is moving” like motion of the feet.
My husband and i joke about how when he gets on a bicycle he dons his cloak of invisibility. Because it’s kinda true.