no motor?

I take a different approach than Joey. When I'm approaching someone who's making it hard for us to pass safely and peacefully by being on the wrong side of the path/letting their dog run loose/standing on the path while conducting a crucial phone call I will often pull off to the side and wait for them to finish whatever they're doing that's more important to them than allowing us to pass safely. They usually either get out of the way after they realize I'm waiting for them.

rydabent

How else are you going to get the attention of the damned fool drivers that are texting while driving? The way I look at it, it is better to be annoyed than dead!!!!!

San Rensho 

Thats the main reason to have a strobe. easy to maneuver and not get killed when everyone has slowed.

hig4s

When an ophthalmologist or optometrist checks your eyes for reaction they don't hold the light in your face for minutes. The just flash you and take the light away, and even my slow reacting eyes attempt to react that fast. And it has nothing to do with how bright the lights are, it is the fact eyes try to react very quickly and cannot react fast enough to allow focus. The human eye will over constrict when a bright light is seen to protect the eye and then relax to the proper amount of light. As people get older they reaction slows down and flashing lights can cause the eye to stay over constricted to the point not enough light is entering to see anything except the flashing light itself.

canklecat

This:
It's mostly psychological perception. Few practical lights for bicycles are bright enough to cause physical problems. However blinkies and flashers do disrupt our psychological perceptions. Some viewers may perceive them as welcomed notifications and warnings. Others as unwelcomed disruptions, which the viewer may subsequently perceive as a threat since we're conditioned to interpret bright flashing lights as warnings.

Strobes, flashers, blinkies, or steady lights - it's Pascal's wager.

There's no practical way to predict how someone will react to flashing lights. But subjective experience using flashing lights on my bike indicates that drivers can see me better and are less likely to pull out in front of me when they're trying to interpret multiple visual stimuli. In the past couple of months since using flashers, I've experienced only one incident in which a car pulled out in front of me at night - and that night (just a couple of nights ago) I was running the light on steady rather than flashing. I'm returning to combining a steady light to see the road and a front white flasher to warn drivers.

Sure, someone may choose to respond angrily and illogically to a flashing bicycle light that disrupts their expected normal patterns. Nothing I can do about that. That's a calculated risk. So far in years of motorcycling and bicycling only once has someone deliberately tried to chase me down and run me over, and that was when I was on a motorcycle in heavy traffic. The traffic jam itself served as a buffer, but the driver repeatedly took every opportunity to try to hit me. I finally pulled off on a frontage road and took the long route, which was faster due to lighter traffic.

On a bicycle, the worst has been drivers passing too closely to my left even when they had one or more clear lanes open beside them to pass safely. Unless they give some other indication of why they passed so closely I'm inclined to attribute it to inattentiveness. In which case the flashers will help. If the driver's intent was malicious, it won't make any difference whether I'm using steady lights, flashers or a tap dancing dinosaur bobblehead doll.

Incidentally, this video from a manufacturer of emergency lights helps clarify the differences between lumens, lux and candelas and why lumens may not be the best method for determining useful brightness: Measuring Light Intensity for Emergency Vehicles - Fire and Police Lights

noisebeam

that is my method.

(although i can and regularly do react to & interact with drivers approaching from behind - it is by far my most common interaction.)

noisebeam

MUP are shared with everyone of all ages with no licensing or training. Unless specifically posted there are no rules. It is ridiculous to expect other users to follow the rules of the road as the rules of the road do not apply to a MUP unless specified. There is no requirement to walk single file. If one wants to ride where other users are expected to follow rule of road then stick to the road, otherwise yield to all other users.
(plus do you want walkers on left or right)

kickstart

I use a front flasher/strobe aimed, and set at a power level to match conditions to communicate my presence to others. I do not expect them to protect me from distracted drivers as that's just hopeful thinking. I do not use them in a irresponsible manner in an attempt to force others to do my bidding.

I take responsibility for the shortcomings of others, and don't burden others with mine.

krahling

I only use the strobe when I'm riding with the sun behind me. All other times the light is on continuously.

JoeyBike

Every MUP in my area has rules. Most have dashed lines down the center same as any 2-lane highway. Others have one side for bicycles/skates and one side for walkers/joggers when the path is circular. All of the Rail-Trails have bikes at the bottom of the food chain - bikes yield to everyone else. I have no problem with this except when "everyone else" is an @$$. I walk on paths too with my wife ususally. Somehow we manage to only use HALF of the path width or LESS. Spreading out from edge to edge like a scene from West Side Story is just rude.

I have no problem blowing up rude people with the strobe as an alternative to cycling along behind them at walking speed all the way to the parking lot, or risking bumping into someone with a close pass. Basically, 100% of the time, I hit the strobe, the rude individuals wake up and move to where any decent person would have been walking in the first place. I do not want to yell at people. The light is a perfect solution for me.

I don't care which side they choose. Just pick ONE SIDE and stay there. It would also be nice if they didn't walk on the side clearly marked with Bicycle Only symbols every hundred feet that they literally have to STEP ON every few seconds.

Trevtassie

Strobes don't improve the behaviour of @SSHoles on paths, but when they are as bright as a nuclear flash and heading towards me I get motivated enough to reach down and aim my German built light that has a proper anti glare cut off and twist the aim up into the eyes of the oncoming rider. Even bright lights that have no cut off are crap and sometimes get the treatment. It's like driving around in a car with the headlights on high beam...

slimyfrog

You are talking about how quickly your iris contracts. This is not related to how long it takes for your eyes to adapt to the dark which is in the order of 5+ minutes. I understand your point, but I think it's silly to take this into a lab and measure it. You are dealing with a night scene in traffic. A couple of blinking lights from a cyclist should not give you a traumatic, nor blinding experience.

If that is the case, I highly recommend not driving at night because there are many, many things that can make much brighter lights flash in your eyes. Ie car approaching on a bumpy road, someone using an arch welder, emergency vehicles, etc... In the context of night-driving, I find complaining about flashing lights on a bicycle ridiculous.

1983

I'm betting SSH has quite a few mentions.

Leebo

Unless one needs to see around a dark, unlit corner first. No way to do that unless you have a helmet light. I can't wait until the bar light swings around. I love looking at the drivers who "don't see me" until I shine my helmet light their way. Works well.

noisebeam

While I've never had an issue seeing around corners in the darkest of rural nights with no streetlights, I agree using a helmet light is great if that helps you.

This should be illegal. You are blinding the very driver that needs to be able to see. You are the hazard. Having had this happen to me several times I can tell you it is very disorienting.
My bar mount headlight does perfectly fine in making me visible.

JoeyBike

Where I live and ride (occasionally drive) it is always pleasing to me when a cyclist actually TRIES to be visible with lighting. 99% of the locals are Ninja cyclists. Those who use lights here generally do not play around. I see several guys commuting the opposite direction from me each evening with a helmet light on steady, a handlebar light on steady, another HB light on wicked strobe, spoke lights of high quality and brightness, and two tail lights - blinking and steady. I have no problem squinting for a few seconds as we pass.

If someone strobes me behind the wheel of a car (has not been a problem so far) I guess I will just squint, drop my visor, or avert my eyes. Very unlikely I will be overlooking that cyclist.

Rollfast

I have mentioned before about seeing a kid with those shoes that blink red lights when you step on them and thinking to myself that it's drunk alley basically and you are gonna spook people who might think it's a cop car down the road, as the kid wasn't all that visible to start with.

Like I say over and over, all that is groovy but your noggin is still the best safety device you have. Don't get complacent.

Rollfast

And NINJAS are for DEFENSE as much as OFFENSE. The real ones were there to kill and not be killed, and the ninja cyclists are just plain crazy and of no relation, the name is a misnomer and kamikaze or suicide jockey would be closer.

They are the ones you need to have a talk with.

noisebeam

Passing on opposite side of road is not the issue.

I noted earlier my recent experience of being in the middle of a busy intersection waiting for gap to turn left with no problem with car headlights as they point forward and then some idiot cyclist coming thru looks right at me with ultra bright helmet light. I could not see anything for a few seconds which felt like forever. I probably missed a gap or two, but was lucky the lights had not changed by the time I could see again.

Again, no cyclist should ever shine their light at another drivers eyes. It seems to be either done carelessly (ooh, another cyclist, let me look at them) or driven by road rage.

no motor?

They've got lines down the middle here and many have arrows indicating keep right to make it easier for everyone to use the paths. Signs to the side indicating where people should be are used in high traffic areas here. Having a set of guidelines like that makes it easier for everyone to use the path and sure beats stopping to figure out which way some erratic person is going to move.

But if don't shine your lights at people is some unwritten standard of conduct you feel we should all live by why is keep right such a problem?

Rollfast

RIGHT TURNS.

And if you get in a lane that is split between an exit and the main street, especially near or at the freeway interchange, you have to have all the senses and skills you can find sometimes.

That's why, where the Oregon Dept. Of Travesty is concerned, I stay on the rarely walked on sidewalk all the way and use the crossing controls when needed...and I keep my eyes on the ramps as well as the exits. This is I-84 at Idaho Avenue in Ontario, OR I'm talking about and it's less than two miles from the Idaho border. BUSY. Busy as Boise or Nampa.

noisebeam

A few reasons
1. As to lights in other drivers eyes, that is an aggressive move that only servers to disorient. In the context of this thread we are talking about adult cyclists. It doesn't need to be written that one should not temporarily disable other drivers. But in fact it is a written AZ law for motor vehicles not to shine a spot beyond the left side of vehicle.
"1. Not more than one spot lamp that when lighted is aimed and used on approaching another vehicle only so that no part of the high intensity portion of the beam is directed to the left of the prolongation of the extreme left side of the vehicle nor more than one hundred feet ahead of the vehicle."
2. MUP are shared by all ages including young children who do not have the mental capacity to strictly keep right.
3. Which side should walkers, runners and cyclists stay on? Walkers are usually trained to travel against vehicular traffic.
4. Paths are for recreation. It is unreasonable to expect pedestrians to march in single file.

Yes there are MUP with designated walk/cycle areas, but those fall under what I referred to as posted rules.

Rollfast

Good points.

kickstart

I think it's widely recognized that it's wrong to intentionally shine a bright light in someone's face.

jgadamski

I find it interesting the disparity and confusion about strobes/no strobes. You get to ride your bike the way you feel most comfortable. there is, currently, no discussion regarding legality or efficacy of strobe vs solid lights. You want to get from A to B, safely. However you do it is your choice. If someone has an issue, you have the choice to listen or not. I prefer to keep riding and keep them in my wake. I offer no apologies nor explanations. Nor should you.