ornoth_cycling | Color My World

Whenever I talk to non-cyclists about riding, two topics inevitably come up. The first is wonder that anyone in their right mind could handle being on the road with all those crazy drivers. The other is always—believe it or not—derision at cyclists because of the colorful outfits we wear.

I’ll relate one typical incident. Some years ago, a car overtook me as I approached a sharp right hand turn in the road. The car cut the apex of the turn right to the curb, as if I wasn’t even there, pinching me up onto the sidewalk. At the next light, I caught up to the car and alerted the driver—a woman who didn’t even acknowledge my presence—that she’d driven me off the road. Her passenger, a man, responded thus, “If you want to wear yellow, you should go to France”. This is how a lot of drivers think.

Now, never mind that concern over our sartorial choices is an act of high judgmentalism over something ludicrously trivial, since cyclists’ choice of clothing has absolutely no impact on anyone else’s well-being.

What really irks me is that these people are completely ignorant of the reason why cyclists wear bright colors. It’s not because we’re all gay or lacking in fashion sense or a bunch of counter-culture crazies. No, idiot, it’s so that drivers like you will actually see us.

Wearing muted earth tones—which are the only clothing that is socially acceptable to narrow-minded mainstream America—would make cyclists easier to overlook, and therefore will put them at more risk of being run down than a rider wearing garish colors.

Being highly visible is in fact the single most important factor that allows cyclists to be safe on the road with all those crazy drivers. Even following the rules of the road is kind of secondary to being seen. And it stupefies me that many drivers deride cyclists for doing something so simple and obvious to make themselves more visible and safer on the streets.