The twilight hours.
Cycling can feel dangerous at the best of times. But, the worst time of the day, is statistically at dusk – when drivers need to continually adapt to the changing light. Another dangerous time is when the sun is very low. Statistically, the most dangerous time of the year for driving is around October when British summer time ends and drivers struggle to deal with getting used to driving in the dark.
Beautiful, but not so good for visibility.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a letter in Cycling Weekly from a Police Officer, he mentioned a case where a judge decided a motorist was not to blame for killing a cyclist – because if the cyclist hadn’t been there, there wouldn’t have been an accident. Whether you can believe what is written in a letters page of a magazine who knows, but, the attitude doesn’t surprise me. As you regularly pick up that kind of attitude in different circumstances.
In another case, a friend (also a police officer who works in Road Traffic accidents) interviewed a driver who hit a cyclist from behind (their wing mirror sent the cyclist sprawling into the ditch). The driver said they couldn’t see anything because the sun was too low.
But, it does beg the question, if you can’t see where you are going, is there not an onus to make sure you can? Driving isn’t like some kind of computer game where if you crash you can reload and start again…
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