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Is bicycle lighting really necessary in urban areas?

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Is bicycle lighting really necessary in urban areas?

Old 07-30-14, 01:42 AM
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Originally Posted by jputnam
Yet in Denmark, which certainly has a longstanding cycling culture and motorists who are well-trained to look for bikes, daytime running lights on bicycles in urban areas reduce car/bike accidents significantly. (19% reduction in reported accidents.)

See Safety effects of permanent running lights f... [Accid Anal Prev. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI Safety effects of permanent lights for bicycles: a controlled experiment
Yet nothing will slow the juggernaut of skeptical safety 'experts'.

italktocats is proving to be the 'crazy cat lady' who distinctly ignores all evidence unless it conforms to its expectations.

An experiment involving 1845 cyclists over 12 months in a bike-friendly city finds having lights makes a difference? TOTALLY IRRELEVANT! My experiences involving me, myself and I have proven otherwise!

And lawsuit-happy America would never allow such a 'radical' experiment'. What happens if someone in the control group died or got seriously injured due to being less than optimally lit?
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Old 07-30-14, 08:06 AM
  #127  
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Originally Posted by mr_bill
Or, legal requirements for lighting reinforce the idea that operating a vehicle at night without lighting is dangerous.

(Please feel free to ignore all lighting studies of all vehicles, since you've got a hash of bad "research" that says that lighting doesn't make a difference, maybe.)

Helpful hint - they put reflectors on trees (which, except in LOTR, trees are stationary) to keep vehicles from hitting them. When it becomes cost effective to have lights on trees (which, except for LOTR, trees are stationary, for god's sake, even in WWOZ, all they could do is stand there and throw apples) they'll put lights on trees too.


-mr. bill

reflectors and lighting are not the same thing at all. i also believe that some states in the usa require reflectors but not lights.
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Old 07-30-14, 08:39 AM
  #128  
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Originally Posted by joeyduck
Anecdotal evidence:

I rode home as normal tonight. I had to stop look at a bike two blocks from home and go to the store one block from the bike. Vancouver side streets are narrow with parking on either side and room for one vehicle (or a sub-compact and bike) to drive.

I looked at the bike and shut all my lights off. I left to ride to the store, it was 6 pm so bright out, street is covered in trees so no direct sun to hinder drivers, nor too shady to not be visible. A lady in a SUV kept coming at me while I am dead center in the lane. She was not going to stop, no idea if she even saw me. I had not lights on.

Then I I left the store to ride the same street three blocks home. I had no lights again, three blocks why bother I thought. A car tailgated me the whole way. Then I had a guy in an SUV run a stop sign and stop mid-intersection.

So no lights two near misses and one aggressive driver. I normally have no issues. I like lights
+1. Sometimes I ride without my flashing taillight because the battery is dead. I've noticed that cars give me less room. I'm not sure why but I suspect cars drivers often have more respect for a rider with lights. Or the lights activate the driver's accident-avoidance instinct whereas with no lights the driver simply sees a bicycle on the road without immediately thinking "be careful" like a flashing red light will do.

In any case, I don't need anybody's "study". I know what works for me on my roads with my traffic.
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Old 07-30-14, 10:45 AM
  #129  
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Originally Posted by spare_wheel
Thanks for the link! The fact that they only saw a large effect during the day supports the idea that lighting at night may not have as large a risk-reduction effect as is commonly assumed.



[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]Daylight accidents[/TD]
[TD]Incidence rate – IR × 10[SUP]3[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]2.98[/TD]
[TD]4.91[/TD]
[TD]3.98[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Incidence rate ratio – IRR[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]0.61[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]Night time accidents[/TD]
[TD]Incidence rate – IR × 10[SUP]3[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]1.41[/TD]
[TD]1.51[/TD]
[TD]1.46[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Incidence rate ratio – IRR[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]0.94[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Either that, or it means that since all of the bikes had lights that could be used at night, but only the study group had daytime lights, having lights at night is no different from having lights at night.

The 6% difference could reflect a small percentage of the riders with night-time lights failing to turn them on.
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Old 07-30-14, 10:54 AM
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Originally Posted by keyven
An experiment involving 1845 cyclists over 12 months in a bike-friendly city finds having lights makes a difference? TOTALLY IRRELEVANT! My experiences involving me, myself and I have proven otherwise!

And lawsuit-happy America would never allow such a 'radical' experiment'. What happens if someone in the control group died or got seriously injured due to being less than optimally lit?
Such a study would be quite acceptable in the U.S., since there's no requirement for daytime lighting.

But the study probably would have to be set up like the Danish study, making sure all of the bikes, including the control group, had legal night-time lighting, so the study wasn't contributing to illegal riding at night without lights.

The harder part in the U.S. would be finding 4,000 year-round bike commuters in a single city who were willing to participate in the study.
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Old 07-30-14, 12:28 PM
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Originally Posted by jputnam

The harder part in the U.S. would be finding 4,000 year-round bike commuters in a single city who were willing to participate in the study.
Another issue would be how to he validate the data. Other than the simple fact that there was or wasn't a actual collision, the who, what, and why would be influenced by the veracity of the parties involved and the cyclists personal convictions on the value of lights.
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Old 07-30-14, 12:35 PM
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Originally Posted by jputnam
The harder part in the U.S. would be finding 4,000 year-round bike commuters in a single city who were willing to participate in the study.
Almost as hard as finding 4,000 year round bike commuters except in the very largest U.S. cities, and probably a great number of them are riding the very cheapest of bicycles with few if any working lights.
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Old 07-31-14, 08:55 PM
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Originally Posted by kickstart
Another issue would be how to he validate the data. Other than the simple fact that there was or wasn't a actual collision, the who, what, and why would be influenced by the veracity of the parties involved and the cyclists personal convictions on the value of lights.
The integrity of the data would always be iffy. I doubt they can strictly verify a big chunk of a year-long study. As with the Danish experiment, I believe it would mostly be dependent on the word of the participants.
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