MileHighMark

I've had to commute via car most of this week, and I've seen dozens of riders with their rear blinkies aimed at some pretty ridiculous angles. Some were pointing almost straight down, and others were aimed skyward. Remember that most LED-based lights are highly directional, and clipping them to a seat pack or backpack can often result in a light that's only visible by aliens from outer spacer or insects on the ground.

noisebeam

Very good advice. Best way to aim your taillight is so the center of the hotspot is at typical driver height (average of sedan, SUV, truck) when it is over 100' away. This usually means that an under saddle light will be aimed very slightly above parallel to ground. For example a light mounted 3' off ground will be aimed at a point 4-5' off ground 100' away, my numbers are example only, get out there on a street with parked cars and experiment.

itsthewoo

I disagree with this. I think the blinkies should be pointed toward the ground anywhere from 4-10 feet behind the bike. This puts a large patch of your light on the ground for drivers to see rather than annoying them by being a bright flashing spot in their vision.

CACycling

This is the purpose of my blinkies. Annoy drivers enough so they can't ignore me.

noisebeam

I disagree back to you When I come up behind cyclists with lights pointed at ground it is much harder to see the light until close. I've never noticed the light patch on the ground when appraoching, at least for PBSF / Radbot1000 brightness levels when the ground is not wet. The much brighter Dionette may make a spot visible on the ground from a distance, but even then it doesn't make sense illuminating a patch on the ground that is near horizontal to the light of sight of who the light is intended for.

If a driver is annoyed by my light they should not tailgate.

noisebeam

I also don't use my rear light in blink mode when it is totally dark out. I only use blink for overcast days and dawn/dusk.

bhop

Solid rear bike light is usually less noticeable than a flashing one.. at least in my experiences when coming up behind other bikes at night. Of course, this might vary depending on your location. In a city like L.A. where I live, there are a lot of lights around at night, so a solid light is just blending in with those.

noisebeam

I also use a PBSF in flash mode on my helmet when solo in with solid light under saddle.

As a motorist I find cyclists with blinking lights difficult to track and judge their speed, when they have at least one solid light I can far better and quicker know how far away they are, judge their speed and get a sense of their line. That is why I always use one solid light.

bhop

Good point

Leisesturm

Probably true, but I don't overthink it. If I ran two rear lights one of them would be solid but I usually have just one rear light and it blinks. When I am a motorist at night I usually have no trouble spotting a blinkie and the need to know the speed and heading of the cyclist is never that great it is knowing that they are there at all that is paramount. The blinkie does that much better than a solid light alone. Saw a bike the other day (about 3:00pm) with four of those Planet Bike tombstone blinkies going (in blink mode). What a show. The rider also had a fluorescent safety vest complete with "slow moving vehicle" triangle insert and helmet mounted flasher. Someone may hit him as a public service one day.

H

Leisesturm

You are seriously undermining the worth of your blinkie by doing this. First thing, you do not (usually) ride in the center of traffic lanes you ride off to the right. Next, in America the driver is to the left side of the car, over in the bike lane you are nowhere in his main field of vision, flash away! Just about all motorcyclists immediately ditch the OEM tailights on their new bikes for aftermarket ones that are steady until they apply their brakes and then they go into Cylon warrior mode, right in a tailgaiting car drivers face. Nighttime is no time to be coy. Flash early and flash at eye level for best results.

H

zacster

One other piece of advice, regardless of which way you point it. CHANGE the BATTERIES!!! I'm amazed at how many people ride with blinkies that are barely visible because the batteries are dead.

tarwheel 

Some good points here (and a few bad ones). I also notice a lot of cyclists with blinkies that are pointed the wrong way or batteries that are nearly dead. Pointing a blinkie toward the ground is sending a warning to the worms and mice, but isn't going to attract the attention of many drivers unless you have an extremely bright light, like a Dinotte 400. I always use at least 2 tail-lights and often 3. I've got a PB Superflash on the back of my helmet and another one attached to my seatbag. On my touring/commuter bike, I also have a Dinotte 140 attached to the rear rack. I keep my Superflashes on the blink mode, but the Dinotte on solid. I like to have at least two lights because I've had batteries go dead during rides and not realize it. I also carry a couple spare AAA batteries.

LeeG

I ride a regular route that has racers and wannabe racers riding out in the morning or back in the evening. Often times it's a solo rider wearing dark clothes with a dim blinky that is less visible than the reflective patches on a runners shoes. A dim blinky is useless in that configuation.

LeeG

same here, now that i'm older and no longer have the vision of a 20yr old I'm illuminated for my kind of driver.

imi

Here in sweden it has recently become legal to have a blinking rear light... if it blinks at least 200 times/minute.

I'd love to see a traffic cop try to count the blinks

I have heard that most drivers here associate a blinking light as something stationary at the side of a road, whereas a solid red light is associated with moving vehicles... This may be culturally different as drivers get used to seeing many blinking cyclists, as the case would appear to be in the USA

MileHighMark

I currently run two rear lights: Dinotte 140L and a B&M Dtoplight XS. The latter is mounted on my Tubus rack, and to be honest, I installed it mostly for the reflectors. Mostly it's relegated to "backup" status in case the Dinotte's battery dies. I set the 140L to either solid mode or the "pulse" mode (the one that never goes fully off). I'm considering adding a PDW Fenderbot so that I can run the Dinotte on solid mode and the 'Bot as a blinkie.

Getting back to the original subject... The B&M is mounted at approx 1 degree "down" from vertical (due to the rack's position), and the Dinotte is pointed down just slightly. The latter is so bright that I could probably angle it down by 5 degrees or so and it would still be more visible than the average AA or AAA blinkie.

mikeybikes

I always have a solid light on pointed straight back.

If I carry my bag on my bike, I like to clip a blinky on it in addition to the solid light.

I'm thinking of getting a light to bolt to my fender. Something like the fenderbot looks nice...

lhbernhardt

+1!

Leisesturm

No matter what I'd like to think I am able to cruise at, the reality is, on my commute bike it is ~15mph and that is being generous. I am stationary as far as traffic catching up to me at 45mph is concerned! This is why motorcycles and scooters must have running lights but bicycles do not. I do not think that to err on the side of "aha, fooled you, I am not a stationary object on the right side of the road, I am a non-competitive cyclist traveling only a little faster than a competitive runner that you are passing at a relative speed of 30mph, take it easy" will cause motorists too much distress. I'd certainly hear about it if it did, the drivers here love to gripe about cyclists behavior or rather their lack of it.

H

bijan

With regards to solid vs blinky. One thing is that if the cyclist is moving around relative to the car (and/or bumping up and down due to crappy road conditions here) you kind of get a blinky effect from the bright spot of the light moving in and out (or just around) of the driver's field of vision even on a solid light. In that case the blinky-ness of a true blinky light just means half the brightness, half the chance the light will be on when focused at the driver but twice the battery life. If the blinking light has a long period (slow blinking) then it is also hard to track the cyclist as was said before.

vol

What about headlight? Should it point straight forward, or slightly down (if you don't need to look down at the road condition)?

Sir Lunch-a-lot

If I am riding somewhere where there is adequate lighting for me to see the road, I'll point my headlight slightly up so it should (I figure) be more visible to drivers. It probably wouldn't hurt for me to set it to pulse, since I find pulsing headlights grab my attention as a motorist. Otherwise, I'll point my light down if I am riding on a darker trail or something so I can see the ground ahead of me.

Speaking of lights, I am plum amazed at how many cyclists in Saskatoon do not ride with lights (local bylaws actually require front and rear lights after sunset). When I am driving, this is very frustrating. Honestly, if it wasn't for the built in reflectors in pedals and the occasional bike with wheel reflectors, I would often have no idea that there was a cyclist on the road with me.

Also, wear brightly coloured clothes at night. Just about everyone I see either riding or walking at night is dressed in all black making them that much harder to spot. When you couple that with lack of lights, it makes people very hard to spot.

LeeG

two nights ago I was surprised by a pedestrian walking against a red light in the crosswalk, at least they were in the sidewalk. With my headlights I really don't register objects outside the beam of the headlights and this pedestrian wasn't visible to me until I was about 20' away and they were 8' or so off to my side. Really surprised me as my attention was for cars turning from the right and the cracks/road hazards in the road like wet manhole cover. I remember thinking "wtf, I should have seen her earlier"

bijan

Brightly coloured clothing is useless, unless it is reflective. I've seen cyclists wearing those bright orange construction vests (but no lights on the bike) and all I can see of them in my headlights (bike or car) is the big reflective X on it. If it were just plain bright clothing they wouldn't have been visible. I would think the "brightest" you could get out of non-reflective clothing would be plain white.

And reflective clothing alone won't help that much in being seen from the sides (90/270 degree angle), but combined with headlights and taillights it is good to have.