Cyclists in Black: No, not a movie title!

I'm surrounded, in the UK, by people trying to commit suicide. They don't actually know that's what they're doing, probably, but in effects that's what happening. Because these (usually) young people are cycling around my town at night:

• dressed in dark clothing
• with no helmet
• with no lights on their bike
• often cycling without hands on the handlebars
• often cycling while holding a phone in one hand

And one young man went for the bonus level by doing all of these! 

When I was growing up, in the 1970s, it was drummed into us by parents and teachers that it was illegal to cycle at night without working lights. And over the last half century, I've watched as this rule has become less and less enforced or cared about. To the extent that young people on cycles clearly give no thought at all as to their own safety. ("I'm 17 and I feel immortal", etc.)

So far, I've managed to avoid them all but surely we're close to some serious accidents, as yet another dark clad rider without lights (or hands or helmet, it seems) lurches dangerously out of a side road and gets clobbered by a car and driver doing absolutely nothing wrong?

I've been racking my memory to ask myself what I was like on a bike when I was 17. I'm sure I wasn't as safe as I remember. But I know I wasn't suicidal!