Originally Posted by sjanzeir

Well, I've sensed a general indifference towards the humble little wheel reflector around this forum, and I've read posts by multiple users in which they say that one of the first things they do with a new bike is remove wheel reflectors. I've done the same to my bikes, but after one close call (in which I was driving abd the other party was riding,) wheel reflectors are now back on all of my five bikes!

I was driving home the other night and came up to a tee near our home where the street lights have been out for a while, and the place was almost completely dark. I turned left from a fairly well lit main street into the short side street that brought me up to the very dark tee, and I had only the 40-year-old headlights of my old Peugeot to rely on. Just as I was fixing to turn right at the tee, a cyclist came out of my right and turned left in front of me. He was wearing dark clothes on a black bike and literally the only reason I saw him at the last moment was the single, solidarity reflector he had on his rear wheel. That's when I decided that I'm putting the reflectors back onto the wheels of the bikes.

Moral of the dumb, silly, stupid ststor Those little things that plenty of people discount as gimmicky children's toys and just throw away can actually save lives. It sounds a little hyperbolic, I know, but that little wheel reflector probably saved him from a visit to the hospital and me from spending a night (or more) in a Saudi jail.