Gear_Admiral 

Hear, hear. I also will wear the colors, use reflectors, and often use all the lights because it is a small cost relatively, yes, but I mostly do these things for liability -- i.e., to legally cover my own butt. When a car inevitably does hit me (again), the police and passersby cannot blame me (i.e., they cannot blame the victim).

The lights may make a 10% difference in reducing a motorist's likelihood to hit me, but even that seems generously high. Helmets and lights do make sense, but I hate when people make them out to be do-or-die (as if they are that effective) or worse, when they legislate.

<philosophical_rant>

I will wear a helmet. I will advise younger female relatives (e.g., nieces) to carry pepper spray when traveling alone at night. But I oppose legislating these things.

"Oh, Miss, it was unprovoked sexual assault, huh? Really? Why didn't you spray your attacker? What's that -- you didn't even have a pepper spray canister on you? We have these rules for a reason, for your own safety. You done messed up."

Now switch up the words and we see the reality of how most Americans react to cyclists' being hit:

"Oh, the driver was being reckless and was distracted and the road design was unsafe, huh? Really? This driver had a license -- where's yours? He also had his seatbelt on and his headlights on. According to this report, your bike didn't even have a single reflector on the rear wheel. We have these rules for a reason, for your own safety. You done messed up."

When people like the OP over-hype the benefits of marginal goodies, they make it seem downright stupid to not follow their advice and begin to reverse the burden of responsibility and blame from the person operating a 2-ton metal box towards the person who, with the weight of the bike, is 250 pounds at the absolute maximum going about 15 mph.

Even with my young female example, the best way to reduce attacks by perverts is to have women in segregated bathrooms, segregated subway cars, and in segregated showers, and so on. News flash to trendy youth who put pronouns in their bios and think all this is some Christian, prudish holdover: separate facilities for women are an achievement of feminists. Before they existed, women ventured into public at their own peril. Quite predictably, they often felt safer staying at home. Parallel: this is the exact situation for many of the 95% (?) of Americans who *could* use a bicycle occasionally but choose not to because motorists make it too dangerous for them.

We need to stop making it cyclists' responsibility to make themselves seen, to beg motorists to be better. We need to slow down traffic and have fewer vehicle miles traveled, full stop. This doesn't mean everyone in America can trade his or her car for a bike for every single use case today, but it *does* mean that motorists will have to see some changes to their lives for things to improve. Further inconveniencing cyclists will not save our lives.

This convo reminds me of the Silicon Valley tech bros. demanding that bicyclists start installing RFID tags in their bicycles if they don't want to get hit because their precious Teslas and whatever only do well driving in the California desert. Cyclists and legislators have thankfully said, no. This is an inconvenient burden and shifts the blame. "If the bicyclist wanted to not be struck and killed, then he should have installed the RFID tag." Unfortunately, Tesla got the go-ahead to *alpha* test its software on public roads in towns in California, with morbidly hilarious results in some cases.

</philosophical_rant>

Real talk:

If towns and/or states/provinces mandated helmets, reflectors, hi-viz clothing, lights, and RFID tags, or if most civilians and police merely expected them, then the only cycling you would ever see is toddlers on trikes in their suburban driveways and athletes in velodromes.