TriMet announced today that they’ll hold an event in Pioneer Courthouse Square next week to promote safety around transit. The “Be Safe and Be Seen” event will feature a fashion show of reflective clothing and a contest for the most well-lit bicycle.
The event will also offer free bike tune-ups from Bike Gallery and a ride through the city by a professional bike safety instructor from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. After the ride, TriMet safety experts will be on hand to answer questions.
Along with the event announcement, TriMet offered the following visibility tips for riding near transit in the winter months:
- Wear bright-colored clothing and/or reflective gear.
- When riding a bike at night, be seen. Visibility is important when you’re riding around buses or trains.
- Always use a front white light and a rear red light at night, at dusk and at dawn.
In the mood for more tips on how to bike safely around buses? Check out this Q & A published a few days ago on Publicola from a bike-riding bus driver.
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Be Seen Be Safe – TriMet Safety Event
Pioneer Courthouse Square
November 5th (Friday) from 5–7 p.m.
and we all know that K’tesh will easily win the contest for most well-lit bicycle….. 🙂
i am a firm believer in lights at night. Usually I have a headlight on my bike and one on my helmet, and a taillight on my bike and one on my backpack. I really think this should be enough for cars to see me, its not like cars have to be painted bright colors to be seen at night. I don’t mind a reflective stripe here and there but the yellow jackets are just plain ugly.
I have reflective tweed.
I’d rather wear my fashionable yellow Burley jacket, than wonder whether I’m wearing “enough for cars to see me.”
I have my lights and all kinds of reflective tape and stuff on my bike. That way the bike does the work; my clothing doesn’t have to. I’d like to be able to take off my jacket if I get too sweaty.
K’Tesh is not the obvious choice, there’s also Mark Allyn, who’s shown up with his incredibly well-lit rig at Filmed By Bike and other venues.
State law does not require a rear light, it requires either a rear reflector or a light.
Red Five #3, where did you get your reflective tweed? Did you hand-import some Dashing Tweeds gear from the UK?
Jessica, Red Five is pulling your leg
I’d like to see a fashion show of reflective gear…
right now I wear a generic yellow Eddie Bauer shell, which is not reflective and doesn’t take much rain to get it wet…
I’d like to have something fashionable with reflective piping that I can also wear when I’m not on a bike…
The fashion show should be fun. And to add a little incentive, the best lit person/bike will receive a $75 Bike Gallery gift certificate.
Oh, but *I’m* not kidding! I want this reflective yellow tweed biking cape so bad I can taste it! (…except for the $650 price tag, and the fact that it’s not available on our side of the Atlantic.)
On the one hand, this whole “Be seen” campaign seems simple & practical enough. On the other hand, when it’s coming from the sometime runner-down of pedestrians, the employer of bike-haters, and the agency whose machines are endangering my safety in the first place, and whose efforts at safety I’m by no means sure of, it almost, in a not-too-far-fetched way, starts to sound more like a veiled threat than an effort to help me! Or at the very least, hypocritical.
The more bright clothing (or helmets for that matter) people wear, the more they’re broadcasting the opinion that it’s their own responsibility to keep from being hit, and their own fault if they do get hit, and (particularly in the case of the helmet) that being hit is the natural and inevitable consequence of being on the road — which of course is because we don’t belong there.
Here’s a counter-campaign for ya: “I’m here. See me. Keep me safe. Don’t frickin hit me.” Not quite as catchy as theirs, I admit.
In truth, where possible, I completely avoid the streets where they operate. So I’m already going out of my way for them.
I agree with Roland. This is an attempt, like PBOT’s safety campaigns, to push pedestrians and bicyclists to wear special clothing for the benefit of motorists or bus drivers. Especially for pedestrians, most do not have special bright yellow reflective clothing they put on when they’re going to walk somewhere. Many bicyclists similarly just wear their regular clothes.
The more the public sees campaigns like this, the more motorists will feel it wasn’t their fault if they hit a pedestrian who was wearing black, or a cyclist with only the vehicle code-required lights. Note that the police always report what color clothing pedestrian victims were wearing, even though there’s no law requiring light-colored clothing to cross the street.
Paul, I see that being passive aggressive is also still fashionable in Portland, as is conformity within alternative culture.
Time to drag out the old lights and chargers… 😉
If paint doesn’t peel, it ain’t bright enough.
I totally agree it’s the drivers’ responsibility to SEE bikes & peds; however I’d prefer to keep my teeth & kidneys and spleen all in their proper places and proportions, so I’ll bright up a little bit, at least so they can’t say “I didn’t see him”. Like I did MY part. I just know how many chumps & chumpettes are out there yakking about terribly important stuff and oh, yeah, incidentally driving the behemoth.
When it starts to get dark and rainy about 4:30 PM, I wish the peds would have lights on *them*.
Lately I’m seeing a lot of folks on bikes on phones on the sidewalks and on roads. And peds on phones stepping in front of me like they are on their own planet. whywhywhywhywhy?
interestingly enough, it’s not illegal for pedestrians to use a cell phone, but it is for motorists, yet I still see motorists doing it all the time.
So you think dressing and lighting for visibility is going to keep a motorist from hitting you and saying “I didn’t sse him”. I think that’s called a false sense of security. I prefer riding like I am invisible.
I’ll never have another commuter without a dyno and a high-output LED. I’ve gotten a few “your light is too bright comments” but guess what, you f’ing saw me d’int you?! That and my light is still less bright than most cars’ headlamps.
Roland is correct in that this could easily be seen as a “safety-washing” event on Trimet’s part, and I can’t say I blame him for his skepticism, which I admit I share some of.
That said, until the car culture is brought crashing to its knees in submission, I will dress up like a [bleep]ing Christmas tree on an acid trip if that is what it takes for me to have a strong enough case against any driver who may hit me.
@Roland: what’s so bad about taking “responsibility to keep from being hit”? What sane person doesn’t take that responsibility? Are you “broadcasting the opinion that it’s [your] own responsibility to keep from being hit” when you proceed cautiously through an intersection, even though you have the right of way?