I think people would be mad not to wear high visibility clothes at night (whether a pedestrian on a dark country road or on a bike), but I don't think making laws is the solution either.
All vehicles are supposed to be fitted with lights. If you're travelling down a road which is dark, then you might encounter a pedestrian, so you should be travelling at an appropriate speed and paying attention to the possibility of people walking or cycling who aren't as easy to see as a car.
I know that people often drive cars at night fast on the basis that the headlights of other cars are easy to see. It reminds me of pedestrians looking only with their ears when deciding to cross the road.
These drivers don't think about other road users. They're not 'bad people'. They just rarely encounter other road users in such situations other than cars, and so when occasionally they have a near miss with said other road user, they tend to put the blame on them, which I think is wrong. Nevertheless, there will always be inattentive drivers and there will always be people who drive too quickly for the visibility they have. That's why I wear high-vis gear if I'm walking back from the pub along a country lane or am on my bike. It's also why I've got a white car
What we want is a significant change in the landscape (literally and metaphorically).
We want:
* Councils that actually understand what safe cycling conditions are, and how to change the roads to make this happen. (See below) The dutch and germans can teach us a thing or 20. Force all councillors to cycle to work if they are able... that might help! (Joke)
* Road users (of all types) to relax a little bit, make space for each other, and stop blaming other people for their frustrations when trying to get to work or back
* An end to the pig-headed idea that if someone doesn't pay vehicle excise duty, then they should just have to take rude or dangerous behaviour on the chin
Croydon council decided to leave this massively wide road alone and instead inflict this disgrace of a cycle lane on the residents:
There would have been local uproar had that sort of stupidity affected car drivers. We have to stop accepting this sort of thing, otherwise we'll never reap the benefits of increasing the number of journeys made by bike - benefits that will be felt by all types of road user.