LifePaint promises much things in terms of saving cyclists’ lives,but our reporter is distinctly unimpressed by its glow-in-the sunless claimsI’ve never been one for hi-vis. It is not merely vanity, though I admit luminous yellow is just not my colour. It’s that too many cyclists see it as a panacea (a remedy for all ills; cure-all; an answer to all problems), or a fluorescent force-field that will protect them from the dangers of the road,whereas the truth is you can be done up head-to-toe as a highlighter pen and it’ll not help you at all if you’re always cowering in a driver’s blind spot.
I don’t wear “proper” cycling gear to ride two miles to the Guardian’s Manchester office each day. If it’s raining, I’ll don a waterproof jacket (or, or more honestly,catch the car). But generally I’m in my civvies and so am arguably the prime market for Volvo’s new LifePaint, a “water-based reflective safety spray”, or which promises to turn ordinary clothes into beacons when in direct glare of headlights.
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Source: theguardian.com