Backlash as mandatory hi-vis for Irish cyclists, pedestrians and e-scooter users proposed

Source: Bike Radar

Strong discussions have commenced after Ireland’s Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien, received a letter from Tipperary County Council members urging the introduction of a law to make the wearing of hi-vis jackets or vests mandatory for pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter riders.

One of the most prominent voices in response to this news was the advocacy group Irish Cycling Campaign, whose Facebook post decrying the proposal has received over 640 comments to date. The post highlights that such a move would pose several risks, including “putting yet another barrier in the way of healthy, safe, sustainable transport” and “drawing resources and attention from the real source of risk: Poor, risky driving”.

The letter from Tipperary County Council follows recent developments in Ireland’s cycling-related legislation; in February, the Department for Transport confirmed that there were plans to introduce mandatory helmet and hi-vis rules for e-bike and e-scooter riders, though regular cyclists were omitted from the legislation at a late stage.

Irish Times contributor, and regular cyclist, Sarah Moss, highlighted that the issue of helmets and hi-vis diverts from the topic of suitable infrastructure which supports active travel. “In cities where cycling is safe, people on bikes don’t wear high-vis. You’ll see very few helmets on cyclists in the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, certainly no laws mandating their use, because it is not cycling that is dangerous but driving. Where the built environment separates human skin and bone from lorries, cars and buses, there is no need for our frantic striving to make fragile bodies hyper-visible. The helmets and hi-vis are symptoms of the Irish problem, not the solution.”

Irish Cycle, reported Ciarán Cannon, the president of Cycling Ireland, saying: “There is no credible evidence that mandatory hi-vis significantly reduces collisions or fatalities. Jurisdictions with the safest roads have achieved their outcomes not by criminalising people for what they wear, but by managing speed, designing safer streets and enforcing existing traffic laws.”

A different view was offered by the National Bus and Railworkers’ Union (NBRU) at a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, where NRBU assistant secretary general, Thomas O’Connor, said, “Mandatory hi-vis clothing for cyclists and scooters is absolutely essential. People just don’t realise how hard it is to drive a large public service vehicle or a truck and to be watching out for people who may be in dark clothing in dark evenings, nights or mornings. This is especially important due to the new battery powered bikes which are very fast and mandatory hi-vis clothing will save us.”