What about high vis without lights?
Please always use lights, but if all the jacket is doing is making a person more visible, then there should be a similar increase to having lights when only the jacket is used.
Please always use lights, but if all the jacket is doing is making a person more visible, then there should be a similar increase to having lights when only the jacket is used.
Cars are dangerous, and the people who are driving them are probably tired from a long day of work, thinking about what they'll cook for dinner, or even worse distracted by their phone. I agree that drivers should be giving full attention to the road and checking carefully before every movement, but that's not reality - do what you can to make it easier for them to see you.
If you are coming from behind a car at night without a light, the car won't see you. If it needs to turn across your path, the high vis alone will not make you visible. Same if cars are coming towards you. My city has a lot of streets that are bus lanes in one direction. If you are cycling along here at 20km/h a car turning left probably won't see you without lights, given you are much smaller than what they would expect to see there (a bus).
The only case where I can see high vis being useful, where a light would not, is if a car is coming at you from the side.
But while it's impressive, it's borderline useless for rear-view mirrors, which do not shine a light back at the cyclist.
Not sure I understand what you're getting at here. Retroreflective strips reflect light back from the source to the viewer. In the case of a rear-view mirror, the light source is the tail light of the vehicle, which will hit the retroreflective material, reflect that back towards the vehicle where it will be seen by the driver in their rear-view mirror.
Please don't use blinking lights only. Due to the blinking others cannot estimate your location and speed. We humans can track a continuous light source pretty well, opposed do a blinking one.