It's received wisdom that high-visibility garments make people cycling easily visible, and therefore safe.

But unfortunately the evidence just doesn't show this at all. Studies suggest that high-visibility clothing has little or no effect on cycling safety, or on the behaviour of people driving. In some studies, the wearing of high-visibility clothing is even correlated with higher crash risk. Equally, there may be some instances where such clothing actually worsens visibility – there have been instances where high-visibility clothing has been cited as an exacerbating factor in road deaths.

Rather than insisting that people wear special clothing when cycling or walking, we should be designing roads and streets that keep all users safe, all the time.