Comment & Analysis: Yesterday, it was the bus drivers unions turn to call for mandatory high-vis for cyclists. But I just have to ask: Where do people think this stops? The data doesnt align with much of what some people are talking about. A catch-up for anybody not following: After a backlash, the Government backtracked on the idea of making helmets and high-vis a requirement for all cyclists, but they still seem to be considering such regulations for pedal-assisted bicycles, which are currently treated as bicycles under Irish and EU law. These devices are what the Department of Transport calls e-bikes, the type where the motor cuts out helping at 25km/h. Anyway, yesterday on Newstalk Breakfast, Thomas OConnor, assistant general secretary with the National Bus and Railworkers Union, starts to talk about a proliferation of faster e-bikes and scooters but listioning again, I get the feeling hes not talking about the e-bikes which are legally viewed as cyclists or e-scooters which are capped at 20km/h. These bicycle-shaped objects, where the motor does not cut out at 25km/h, and e-scooters, which can go faster than 20km/h, are devices that are, in the main, illegal. So, if the devices can be taken off the road today, thats the enforcement that should happen, not add a high-vis or helmet requirement to something that is being illegally used. Theres a huge problem with much of the recent road safety debate: Vagueness and people muddying the waters. Again, to be clear: People using bicycle-shaped objects are not cyclists. They are not using bicycles. But in another type of vagueness, Newstalk Breakfast presenter and petrol head Anton Savage said: When you drill into the RSAs numbers in respect of road deaths, if you look at pedestrian deaths, I think something to the order of 98% of pedestrians who are killed were not wearing high-vis clothing at the time of their death. And I assume the same kind of number applies with cyclists.This seems to be from the RSA document Pedestrian Fatalities on Irish Roads: Examining 2008-2015, which contains the following:HI-VIS WEARING AFTER DARK (n = 96)98% were not wearing high-visibility clothing.But a minority of pedestrian deaths and serious injuries seem to be related to visibility I say and serious injuries because we should not just be concerned with deaths. But I say seem to because the RSA are dreaful at providing clear information, and there are cases where victim groups have had to shame them into stopping using misleading data. Among pedestrians killed after dark, many were killed in cases where visibility was good, and in others, there was an overriding other factor, such as the driver being drunk. This is partly why I think the RSA are afraid of its data being fully released: it could make it clear just how poorly the organisation handles data. While the RSA was heavily involved in illegally making the Public Services Card mandatory for driving lessons, a move that was against data protection law, the RSA was also in an unconnected, protracted battle where it basically used privacy as a reason to refuse to release crash data even to local authorities who are responsible for making roads safer.The claim that privacy concerns blocked the release of road-safety data was challenged by several privacy experts. This kind of thing is why many people would like to see the RSA abolished.But even without comprehensive data, theres enough to say that many people on foot are killed at night doing things that most people would expect them to be doing without wearing high-vis. For example, going out to dinner, crossing a road to a shop, crossing a road to get to your parked car, etc.Im saying this because when we talk about high-vis for pedestrians, a lot of people conjure up an image of people walking on dark country roads with no light or visibility aid. Just like they do with cyclists, when people are cycling are already required to have decent lights after dark.Its worth putting this in context: the RSA has spent at least 16 years in offices in Ballina, Co Mayo. These offices are in the urban area, and only a stones throw from the train station. But there are two gaps in the footpath to its offices. But to make matters worse, the pedestrian gates at the entrance to the business park where its HQ is located have been locked and welded shut all this time. Meanwhile, this is an unrealistic pledge that the orgination it getting 2nd class children and their parents to sign up to: Thats right, the RSA thinks children going out to play in estates or at the playground should be wearing high-vis.If you dont see the problem with this level of overuse of prescribing high-vis: As a quick explainer: Theres already victim-blaming for people cycling without high-vis and helmets, even in cases where visibility is good, and people did not suffer head injuries. Next up on this victim-blaming is quite likely children in their housing estates or walking and cycling anywhere. The main article image is from an RSA pack for Road safety education for pre-school children, which seems to suggest that high-vis is not needed generally, but just when its raining. The RSA is one confused mess.The actual data?A more recent RSA report on pedestrian deaths and serious injuries outlines that most collisions where there were serious injuries were in daylight. Serious injuries shown here differ somewhat from deaths alone. Again, the RSA is poor at providing full breakdowns.Note: Darkness does not mean poor light; somebody can still be hit on a really well-lit zebra crossing, and itll still be counted as the hours of darkness. The link to the data table does not include a breakdown of lighting conditions.Thanks to road safety campaigner Ciarn Ferrie, who started tracking active travel deaths, we can see that in collisions where pedestrians were killed in 2025, the majority occurred in daylight or with street light present (three unknowns excluded): While the lighting conditions of people who were killed when cycling were more clear-cut, with the vast majority being in daylight and the remainder in streetlight:Note: To draw proper conclusions, we should be looking at wider data than just one year, and we need to consider whether drivers had working lights, whether the bicycles involved had working lights, and whether there were other factors, such as the motorist looking at a screen. We could do this for, say, two years or so in the past, or whatever timeframe is needed to allow the legal system to do its work first. But the RSA seem to have no interest in much beyond providing wafer-thin amounts of data. This was supposed to be at least partly resolved by a strong level of reform at the RSA, including splitting up its functions, which the current Government has U-turned on.