SAFETY ON THE ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 67, 21 March 1939, Page 18

SAFETY ON THE ROAD

COMPULSORY REAR LIGHTS (To the Editor.) ; Sir, —Ouce again the North Island Motor Union has passed its usual resolution urging the Transport Department to go ahead with the registration of cyclists and to make the carrying of rear lights on bicycles compulsory. Never has there been any justification for the oft-repeated assertion that rear lights ensure the safety of the cyclists who carry them. The number of cyclists killed by being run down from behind in the dark when riding machines fitted with rear lights is high in proportion to the total number of rear-lighted cyclists on the roads. Yet a popular belief among non-cyclists is that rear lights are plainly visible to blinded drivers unable to see orthodox reflectors. In actual fact, the driver who is blinded by the. headlights of an oncoming car is no more able to see a rear light than he is to detect a reflector—or anything else. The Highway Code warns him against being unable to pull up within half the range of his effective vision, and those who assert that his range of vision when blinded would be greater if all pyclists carried rear lights are spreading a most dangerous misconception. .Quite apart fi'om the risk of running down pedestrians and other forms of traffic without rear'lights, the driver iwho ignores the Highway Code injunction to slow down, even ■to - a standstill, when, dazzled, may collide with a rear-lighted cyclist. If he does, the. rear light will be extinguished in the collision. The driver, presuming that he could not have failed to see a rear light if there had been one, will confidently assert that the lamp was not lit. ' ■-'..■ : Such cases, arise in... present circumstances, when , the rear lights are not legally compulsory. The supposed absence of a rear : ,light is accepted as, "evidence" of the cyclist's negligence unless his machine is also equipped with . a regulation reflector-and white patch. The rear light not only fails to protect the rider: it results in his being blamed for his own death! If rear lights became compulsory, such cases would be much more frequent and more serious. There would then be no possibility of pointing to a reflector and white patch as evidence of. compliance with the law. The dead rider would be a dead law-breaker, and the other party to the accident would be held blameless. The cyclist would lose his life and his dependants their compensation. ' i There are, of course, further considerations to be taken into account when discussing rear lights. There is the principle that the overtaker should

be responsible ior avoiding collision* with road-users ahead of him, and there is also the question qf added danger to other road-users if drivers are allowed to think that the absence of. red- lights means that the road is clear. One of the numerous objections to compulsory rear lights on bicycles has always been that they, cannot,, with the best will in the world,, be kept alight in all circumstances, and with anything short of the best will in the world, they are hardly ever likely to be alight. This discovery has recently been made in Italy, with rather comical results. The law compelling cyclists to carry rear lamps has been almost entirely ignored, as in other countries, and the authorities have been either unwilling or unable to enforce it. Hence they have wisely decided to abandon this provision of the Codice della Strada (or Highway Code), and to substitute for the rear lamp a white mudguard with, a red reflector mounted on the highest point. I wonder what, the North Island Motor Union' will have to say about that! Incidentally, this organisation felt that it was not quite its business to make any comment on the proposed restrictions on. motorcyclists. Your readers, therefore, may well wonder why it continues to .make this parade of so-called solicitude for the welfare of pedal-cyclists.—l am, etc., ■'••'■•:•■•■ .::: " ■ ■■.■-■■'-" "'"■■■ ALFRED E. MILNE, '. • ' Cyclists' Touring' Club. ';, .