{"id":1260,"date":"2025-12-19T14:36:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2025-12-19T14:36:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:36:52","slug":"bicycle-safety-triangles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/blog-posts\/bicycle-safety-triangles\/","title":{"rendered":"Bicycle Safety Triangles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Tom Ewing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

December 11, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bikecentennial organizers held training sessions for group leaders to prepare them for trips planned in the summer of 1976. In December 1975, one of these groups trained in southern California, where good weather and challenging roads provided an ideal setting to prepare the team leaders. A photograph published in the Ooint Reyes Light from December 24, 1975 shows a line of twelve cyclists, posed on their bicycles facing the camera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The photograph is notable from a contemporary perspective because it illustrates common approaches to bicycle safety in the 1970s: none of the cyclists is wearing a helmet (to be discussed in future posts), but the first cyclist has an orange triangle pinned to his front. These safety triangles were recommended to cyclists, usually for the back of the bicycle, but in some cases cyclists wore them on the front (as in this photograph) and the back. The orange safety strip was designed to be highly visible, while the Bikecentennial logo connected the cyclists to these organized rides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bicycle safety triangles were widely recommended and marketed in the 1970s as a way to raise visibility of cyclists on roads. In Florida, a cub scout pack sold Bicyle Safety Triangles to raise awareness of bicycling safety, including distributing teachers\u2019 manuals, with the title, All About Bikes, which furthered the same goal of raising awareness of safety. In Texas, when a parent teacher organization sold bicycle safety triangles, the local newspaper ran a photograph of the principal attaching triangles to bicycles of two pupils. In Indiana, a girl scout troop also sold Bicyle Safety Triangles, with the funds going toward supporting troop camping and other activities. The advertisement for the triangles sold in Indiana included this statement: \u201cEndorsed by leading public safety officials, Bike Safety Triangles make bike riding safer by making bikes more visible to motorists both day and night.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While the intention was good, the small size of the triangles probably did little to actually improve the visibility of cyclists, particularly during the day. Over the decades that followed, bicycle safety would see substantial improvements, including the use of helmets, high visibility clothing, and bright lights on the front and back of bicycles. The underlying purpose remained the same as it had been in the 1970s: to make bicycling safer for those on the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tom Ewing December 11, 2025 Bikecentennial organizers held training sessions for group leaders to prepare them for trips planned in the summer of 1976. In December 1975, one of these groups trained in southern California, where good weather and challenging roads provided an ideal setting to prepare the team leaders. A photograph published in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}