Originally Posted by
gauvins
.... I was shocked reading comments (on FB and news sites). I remember one saying that if he had to choose between a face to face collision and running over a cyclist, he would not hesitate one second (and over run the cyclist). In other words, the thought of slowing down until it was safe to overtake didn't occur to him, or seemed ridiculous. (I've also endured a faire share of insults from drivers shouting that roads belong to car/trucs ....)
I am not convinced that hi-viz gear will my these drivers any brighter.
In Iceland I was riding along in the traffic lane, there is maybe 6 inches (13 cm) of pavement on the edge of the road out of the traffic lane, steep embankment beyond the shoulder. A pickup truck decides to pass someone, so suddenly I have a pickup about 50 to 70 meters ahead of me coming towards me at full highway speed. I was so sure that he would see me and duck back into his lane, I stayed in the lane where I was. A few seconds later when he is only about 30 meters from me, it is clear that he does not care about me and I only have a second to get out of the way, so I try to get onto that few inch width of pavement out of the lane without going over the embankment, and the truck driver was adjacent to the car as they both passed me. It shocked me so much that it took a few minutes to actually believe that it happened, from start to finish was only a few seconds.
The high viz gear did not help at all. All cars there have their headlights on, my frontroller panniers have a big reflective patch on each that should have lit up too, but that did not help. But he was so close to me I can't figure out how he could have not seen me.