Flutterby™! : Bright clothing doesn't make cyclists safer

High-viz jackets don’t affect how close motorists pass cyclists, at least in the U.K.

The only jacket that appeared to make a meaningful difference to the average passing distance was a jacket with the word 'police' written on it. Motorists passed the cyclist at an average of 122cm. The police jacket also warned road users they were close to a camera-using cyclist. However, while wearing that jacket increased the average distance of overtakes, 1 to 2 percent of passes were still deemed very close (less than 50cm), said Walker. Close passes were a factor of wearing all seven outfits.

Cyclists cannot stop drivers overtaking dangerously, research suggests:

When the Transport Research Laboratory measured bicycle overtaking distances in the same part of the country back in 1979, they found drivers left an average gap of 179 cm when overtaking a cyclist. The average gap in this study was 118 cm, suggesting that the treatment of cyclists might have become worse over the last few decades.

None of this does anything to dispel my cynicism that bright clothing simply makes you a more visible target.