County Councillors in Ireland are to lobby the Minister for Transport to impose mandatory hi-visibility clothing at night for cyclists, e-scooter users and pedestrians, despite the Government dropping plans to fine cyclists who didn’t wear hi-vis a day after it was announced.
Tipperary County Councillors have written a letter to the Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien calling for the law change in the interest of public safety, as reported by Tipperary Live. The five Fine Gael councillors, who tabled the motion to send the letter, highlighted the narrow country roads, and the “extreme difficulty” drivers have in seeing pedestrians and cyclists.
When one independent councillor identified that pedestrians were being targeted unnecessarily given that they tend to walk beside roads rather than along them, he was told by the lead councillor proposing the motion that pedestrians should wear hi-vis clothing at all times.
The councillors’ campaign has already been criticised by the Irish Cycling Campaign who said the proposal is “upending decades of established risk-management practice.”
“We call on on Tipp Council to look at the evidence, have a think about the actual causes of road danger, and retract this silly motion.”
The debate is the latest chapter in an ongoing row over road safety that attempts to distinguish where responsibility lies between the drivers colliding with pedestrians and cyclists on the road, and the victims of these collisions.
O’Brien was Transport Minister when, in February, the Department for Transport it would fine all cyclists not wearing helmets or hi-vis. But the proposal was unceremoniously scrapped following a backlash 24 hours later. However, the measure still applies to e-bike and e-scooter users.
However the campaign did not end there, with Ireland’s Bus and Rail Union calling for all cyclists to wear hi-visibility clothing two weeks later, on the basis that “driving a bus is difficult enough” without the “poor visibility” of cyclists. The union also told the Joint Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) Committee on transport and road safety that “Cycle paths that intersect with bus stops have created a risk for vulnerable passengers.”
Despite the ongoing political debate, the number of cyclists in Ireland has continued to rise, with an increase of 50 percent seen in Dublin, and the number of children and parents cycling to school doubling compared to 2023. However, the increase has also drawn criticism, notably from one judge who labelled cyclists in Dublin a “nightmare”. He was subsequently referred to the judicial standards body for his remarks.
27 thoughts on “Councillors lobby Irish government to re-table mandatory hi-vis for cyclists, despite previous campaign collapsing within 24 hours after backlash”
Forget the high vis, make cyclists wear a large flashing light on top of their helmets and make sure it’s powered by a *really* big battery that must have at least 50k mAh capacity. After all, they are only thinking of our welfare…
Visabity shouldn’t have to be mandated! It should be common sense!!! It drives me absolutely nuts when I notice cyclists or pedestrians who wear all dark clothing at night. Especially cyclists traveling on the wrong side! I always wear Hi-viz even during the day, lights too!
How do you manage to do that?
Shurely “looking (and making sure you’re *seeing*) *is* mandated – as well as common sense”?
(And have you considered riding an upright to make yourself more visible / allow you to see over vehicles, hedges etc? 😉 Speaking as another occasional recumbent rider who’s been chided for that reason…)
I’ve been snarky but I agree there’s a point:
– it can be harder to see things in some circumstances
– and sometimes it’s possible to make it easier for others
– often the person who needs to see won’t be as affected by the consequences of their not seeing. *
But it’s a question of degree. Certainly several folks on here have experienced serious consequences when others have hit them while they were “lit up like a Christmas tree”.
Personally I’m all for lights and reflectives if out on roads and i *have* found it harder to spot the “stealth cyclists” and indeed pedestrians and dogs. But… it *is* my responsibility to spot them.
* I think the latter is part of the reason why people are better at seeing motor vehicles than cyclists; it’s not just because they’re visually smaller, people are more motivated to check / do it more carefully.
I would love to ride an upright bike, but I have Cerebellar Ataxia and cannot! I cannot even walk without the assistance of my rollater around the house and need a wheelchair when I am away from home. A recumbent trike is all I can ride!
In addition, my highly visible flag is about 7 feet (over 2 meters for those of you across the pond) which is higher than most riders.
You have never come across a pedestrian or cyclist at night wearing all dark clothes? Freaking idiots do it all the time here in Pennsylvania. E-bikes are really bad!
See comment by wtjs on what hi-viz and reflectives is also “for” in the UK / Ireland.
As previously noted we have both *seen* pedestrians and cyclists in dark clothing (and hopefully also lo-vis cars, black cows and other obstructions in the road). The “seeing” part is required by UK law – albeit not well recognised by the UK justice system.
The “being seen” is a good idea and is explicitly recommended by the UK Highway Code. Like all PPE it’s both “something *I* can do” … and also considered one of the least effective way of mitigating hazards. As numbers of people here can attest it’s completely ineffective if eg. drivers simply don’t look when they should (or possibly have trained their brains only to look for the motor vehicles) – which is all too common.
(For what it’s worth my anecdata is that recumbents are very visible in daylight, regardless of flags etc – the “what is that thing” part of people’s brains gets their attention. )
I’m glad you’re still riding on!
Of course this will mean that drivers and passengers will also have to wear hi viz, they will have to get in or out of the vehicles in a public space at some point…
They could demonstrate their confidence in how effective hi-vis is by raising the penalties for offenses? Fail to give way or close pass a cyclist in hi-vis and it would be treated as a deliberate act rather than just negligence with careless/dangerous driving? I mean, if they are sure it works then that’s surely a natural consequence?
Sounds like a great idea.
Honestly half the reason to wear high vis is so the RSA don’t victim blame if I’m in an accident as I really don’t think it’ll help prevent anything given some driver behavior lately.
My daughters Hi-viz jacket in reflecting off my headlight. I have one also.
Excellent logic Carlos. If there’s no more “sorry mate i didn’t see you” then a close pass is threat with a lethal weapon / intent to harm. No more accidents either, they’re assault or murder.
I live in Australia where I cycle around 10,000km per week and drive about twice that distance. I have come to the conclusion that cyclists wearing fashionable dark clothing in low light conditions don’t realise how difficult they can be to see. I really can’t see the problem in wearing a reflective vest of some sort or at least reflective anklets. Regardless of any other factor, common sense says the easier you are to see the safer you are. With regard to an earlier comment about drivers being required to wear hi-vis, road tying Europe mandate having a reflective vest in the car, which has to be accessible from in the cabin.
Oops! 10,000km per year 😳
I was going to say, I know they call it the big country but you would run out of room pretty quickly at that rate!
First, manufacturers would have to offer their clothing in something other than black. That a hurdle right there!
If a cyclist wears clothing, and drivers fail to see them, can it be fashionable?
I think you have to film yourself and live feed to tiktok. Then the drivers can see the clothing on their phone and like it as required.
The problem with it is that having to wear special clothing for cycling puts people off cycling and has a greater health impact than the benefits of the special clothing, which are themselves are debatable – it doesn’t matter how visible you are if drivers aren’t looking.
I was walking along a road home from the train station to my very large town- a regional 60-80kph road where everyone speeds unfortunately. (Very large town in walking distance from the train station and yet no footpath or grass path even in parts which is another issue).
Waving a high vis to try to slow cars who saw me and were making eye contact and still had two incredibly close dangerous passes. Some drivers just don’t understand cars aren’t the only thing allowed on the roads, I’ve once had one turn for me driving straight for me as a threat. High vis isn’t the issue there, same with many close passes on the bike.
I drive and know driving in Dublin requires being very alert due to cyclists filtering and yes doing some wreckless actions etc but you should be alert and checking anyways when driving! You’re going no where in a hurry in a car in the city only to the next red light.
Why does it seem that no-one in the history of Roads and Highways planning, maintenance or legislation has ever heard of the Hierarchy of Controls?
Hi-vis is a form of PPE; the [B]LAST[/B] line of defence for safety.
If injured people are being blamed for failing to wear PPE then there has been a whole catalogue of failures to lead up to that point. To solely blame the victim is a display of negligence from the responsibilities of those who:
– legislate for mandating worthwhile infrastructure and influence how people interact with said infrastructure,
– design and build the infrastructure,
– present the hazards by using infra without consideration for others, particularly others who are more vulnerable.
In engineering the hierarchy is Eliminate, Reduce, Isolate, Manage, then PPE. In any other industry, if someone is caught not wearing the mandated PPE, they get a slap on the wrist. If someone gets injured not wearing PPE, it’s the Chief Executive who stands before a judge.
Seems strange mandating hiviz vests for pedestrians but this has been common place in many parts of Ireland for 10 years or more, even during the day. I have being going on holiday every year to the same place for 50 years. Every year there seems to be a terrible accident, every year everyone says the roads are dangerous, people drive to fast and something needs to be done. 50 years later, the roads have not been changed and nothing has been done to slow the drivers down. And the people keep dying.
Most of the people reading this topic are not from Ireland, Pennsylvania or Australia, they’re from the UK where the main purpose of HiViz is victim blaming/ offender excusing when the victim wasn’t wearing enough of it. If he was wearing it, the police/ legal system doesn’t treat the incident as more serious/ view the offender as more culpable, they just fail to reject and mock the ludicrous excuses offered by the offender/ shyster defence lawyer and try to minimise the penalty for the offender. There are no penalties at all for the great majority of close passing offences in the UK, because of the cyclist-hostile attitude of the police. You can’t get much closer than this Sainsbury’s driver, but the police still ignored it
And just to prove your point the victim here contributed to their own deth by wearing dark clothing (according to the judge).
https://www.wattonandswaffhamtimes.co.uk/news/26048086.man-spared-jail-fatal-crash-b1108-norfolk/
Yes, another joke suspended sentence: if you kill another cyclist named Hechanova in that same spot you’ll get a damn’ good talking-to!.. unless it was the cyclist’s own fault for not wearing a helmet
Yeah because hi vis works so well, doesn’t it. #facepalm