Joe Duffy calls for mandatory high-vis: But should €351,000pa lead to more critical thinking and less lobbying for ineffective measures?

Comment & Analysis: “Tony sees lots of cyclists in dark clothing with no lights or Hi-Vis jackets”, says the RTE.ie blurb for an episode of Liveline that is focused on cyclists and high-vis. He sees the invisible cyclists in black.

It’s like a parody, but they cannot see the contradiction because their extreme case of car-brain is clouding their view.

Tony is the first to talk to Joe Duffy, the presenter of Liveline, the RTÉ Radio One afternoon phone-in show.

Joe asks Tony: “What happened?”

There are school children, Tony complains, who are wearing black hoodies in the rain while cycling on Oscar Traynor Road in Coolock. At least some were cycling on footpaths, and, in fairness, Tony doesn’t blame them for that because they are children, and the Oscar Traynor Road has no cycle paths.

The road is also a dangerous mess where speeding is common (he doesn’t go into that detail).

As another caller says, Tony sees all of these children cycling — they are cycling without high-visibility clothing, but he sees them.

It sounded like Joe Duffy was about to make some smart remarks about the lack of a cycle path as if every place in the city had one just because his area of Clontarf did. But he thought better of it… there’s too many gripes people have about cycling, which callers are mentioning, and Joe wants to stay somewhat focused.

Tony worries that a driver on their phone won’t see the children on their bikes, and that’s why high-vis is important.

The solution to this apparently isn’t more enforcement or safer road design or adults putting their phones away when driving. No, it’s children dressing up as if they are builders. Joe later says what’s wrong with looking like a builder cycling to work, but will he dress up like a builder? Not likely.

They also don’t have lights, Tony says. But there is no brainwave between them that lights are already mandatory in the dark.

Graham also calls. But he at least focuses on lights… at first.

Joe gets upset about the lack of bells on bikes, which he says is also mandatory, but he also talks about helmets, which he freely says are not.

Eoin, who cycles, calls in. He uses bright lights. Then Tony, Graham, and Joe get upset again because Eoin doesn’t also wear high-vis. Joe also gets upset that Eoin doesn’t wear a helmet (but we will park that issue for some other time).

Joe then starts advocating for mandatory high-vis and continues to do so while talking to different listeners on air.

He says a new caller is named Peter from Galway. Peter agrees there should be mandatory high-vis… for motorists and cars. Joe really gets riled up.

Tony says Peter is winding them up. He might be somewhat, but Peter is trying to break through the car-brain barrier. But both Joe and Tony again seem to think that high-vis is a solution to distracted driving and that other poor behaviours include cyclists wearing high-vis.

It has to be asked: Is the real wind up the adults who want to ban hoodies and make high-visibility clothing mandatory for everybody but them?

There are many mentions of wearing high-visibility clothing ‘just in case’ and, like, ‘What’s the harm?’

So, as previously argued on this website: Given that drivers in Ireland regularly have to leave their cars, does logic dictate that everyone should wear high-vis all the time when they leave their house, ‘just in case’?

Maybe in a country where it’s dark during the morning and evening rush hour for months every year, the wide use of dark clothing isn’t a good idea generally isn’t a good idea. But we’re strangely not having a discussion on clothing in general, just for the people who mainly cycle.

The reality is that high-visibility clothing or the idea of brighter clothing for all isn’t for the Joe Duffys of this world; they couldn’t walk into workplaces like RTE with it on. For most of its advocates, high-visibility clothing is for other people to wear.

It’s the same for cars — there are studies which show darker-coloured cars are in more collisions but we never talk about that. Everybody on the road knows there are motorists driving around with defective lights. And we know in towns and rural areas, there are times when cars will be parked without their lights on.

But the average price of a car costs €42k, so, the Government isn’t going to intervene to make it look like a road construction vehicle with a reflective stripe and bright colours. And especially since those regulations would apply to cars costing twice or more than the average.

But school children? They should look like builders so adults can keep their foot down when running late or scrolling Instagram when they’re bored stuck in traffic.

Later in the show, Gareth calls in. He knows two people who were killed while cycling, and he was with one when they were killed.

He says that when driving, he still sees motorists passing people on bicycles when there’s a solid white line ahead, a bend ahead, and traffic coming towards them.

Motorists’ impatience is one of the key things blocking safer roads, Gareth says. As somebody who cycles and walks a lot and travels on rural roads in cars, I can see that motorists’ impatience is a huge safety issue rarely discussed, and when it is, dangerous impatience is often excused.

But Joe wants to push mandatory high-vis again.

While Gareth thinks high-vis can be useful in darker conditions. Joe asks him to make it mandatory. It would be easy to police, Joe claims.

At this point, we really need to stop for a second. Joe is paid €351,000 per year by RTÉ, the national broadcaster.

While all of RTÉ’s issues are clearly not Joe’s fault, and the following is not his fault, some context about the high-paid earners in RTÉ is often missing from the conversation: RTÉ is a State-owned company whose director general said that it would be bankrupted if it did the “morally correct” thing and paid workers (who are or were on more modest wages) what they are owed.

Workers were underpaid because RTE, as their employer, illegally misclassified them as self-employed… Sorry, I mean “bogus self-employed workers” (because we have to sanitise what well-off people do while children in Cooklock are dangerous for putting their hoods up in other rain).

Anyway, if radio and TV presenters are being paid €351,000pa, value for money should be… mandatory, right?

But Joe (1) doesn’t have the ability or (2) is unable to engage his brain enough, or (3) is unable to get over his biases (car-brain) to figure out that if it was really that easy to enforce high-vis, then it could and would be done with bicycle lights right now.

He already knows lights are a legal requirement on bicycles in the dark. You could say he’s just trying to rile people up and get more listeners etc, but this is Joe Duffy in campaigning mode — he has used his platform over the years to right some wrongs in campaigning mode. Everything from consumer issues to State scandals, but he’s misdirected here.

Joe also keeps bleeting on about bells as if these are a widely important safety feature (they are useful but are not worth continuous mention on a national radio show).

The show rambles on. More serious than bells, Joe mentions that cyclists can kill pedestrians — one of his favourite cycling topics when it’s a very rare event. It happens around once or twice a decade. For context: In the same timeframe, one person cycling died in a collision involving a person walking, while 321 pedestrians were killed in collisions involving motorists and motorcyclists.

Then Diana calls in and thinks that people cycling down the street with coffee in one hand and checking Facebook in the other are so common that they deserve to be mentioned on air. Do you know what is common? Motorists scrolling and texting while driving, and there’s a growing issue of watching TV while driving.

Diana admits it’s not really relevant to high-vis. It’s ok Diana, Joe has more than pushed the idea of mandatory high-vis enough for one day. Wait. No, he’s at it again with another caller.

“I don’t think this is funny,” Joe said when one of the earlier callers tried to snap Joe out of his car-brain thinking. After years of failed promotion and little evidence of ineffectiveness, the arguments for making high-vis is weak, and it would face backlash that no government wants. So, it’s a non-runner.

That means the whole issue is a big distraction to road safety. But when it comes to cycling, Liveline’s format, and the Facebook and Instagram clips following it are unlikely to help with safety and more likely to induce rage and put people in more danger.

6 thoughts on “Joe Duffy calls for mandatory high-vis: But should €351,000pa lead to more critical thinking and less lobbying for ineffective measures?”

  1. Joe has had a campaign against traffic calming measures & more bus lanes being introduced by DCC claiming that it’s an attack on the “family car”. In the past you’ve Gerry Ryan,Pat Kenny, Catherine Thomas,Marty Morrissey all availing of free cars in return for endorsement. I wonder does Joe have one?

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  2. Great article well said. Rte is supposed to be non biased but Joe just keeps pushing his own opinions on this. Heard the interview he laughed at one side and was delighted with side he agreed with. That show gone to dogs.

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  3. Apt questions for Joe Duffy would be
    1. How many road deaths were caused by cyclists last year or even the last 20yrs?
    2. Then ask how many deaths were caused by vehicles?
    Car brain mentality from Duffy

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  4. Joe’s (and RTÉ’s) only motivation is to make money. I rarely listen to him, but if I happen to hear him, I generally ignore his nonsensical mock-arguments – not only about cycling, but virtually all issues. But do cycling campaigners should encourage cyclists to wear hi-viz jackets – particularly in poor light? I usually wear one. Even the most careful, sober driver, driving slowly, might not see cyclists wearing dark clothing – a hi-viz jacket might save lives. I drive occasionally myself. A hi-viz jacket ‘jumps’ into my vision from afar – whereas I often don’t see a cyclist in dark clothing till the last minute.

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