Hi-Viz

I have been doing a highly scientific study of how to make bike riders more visible, and I have concluded that the best attention-getter is a hi-viz yellow-green shirt or vest. Hi-viz orange is good, too. When I'm driving, I find that I notice bikers wearing such shirts far down the road, in all conditions. I used to think that having an always-on taillight might be good, but I don't anymore. A flashing .5 watt taillight with fully charged batteries is noticeable in the daylight, but not from a mile away like a hi-viz shirt. And you rarely need to change the batteries in a shirt.

I own a couple long-sleeve hi-viz biking jerseys (to keep the sun off my arms), but my favorites are simple hi-viz t-shirts, $12 at at Walmart. Polyester, so they wick, not-too thick, so they're cool, and BRIGHT! Not what they'd wear in the Tour de France, so most American bikers wouldn't be interested, but very nice.

Does such safety wear really make a difference? It's hard to tell. Millions of bikers survive in their lo-viz clown-suit bike jerseys, so hi-viz clearly is not absolutely necessary. Still, I prefer to wear it, just in case.