PartsMan

I try not to be any more annoying than I have to.

If they are not looking they won't see any amount of light.
We have people around here rear end tractors with a dozen halogen lights flashing.

Also having more than one light close together makes you look like a bigger vehicle that is very far away.

dynodonn 

I tend to agree. Last night I observed a cyclist, with a single flashing rear light on his bike, I gauged him to be much closer to me (a good thing) with the type of light that he was using.

wsgts

Mission Accomplished....

cehowardGS

Since he was nice, I would have kindly told him, that is what the light is supposed to do, draw attention. To give you an idea, if he saw me this morning at around 5:45am, dark out, and dealing with 50mph hour traffic, he would have accused me of having searchlights on my bike!! I have two 26650 lights up front, they are rated at 1600 lums. Take off the Chinese boost, and I will say that they are an honest 900 to 1100 lums..I have one on blinky, and the other one on high. In addition, I have a 18650 light on my helmet on blinky.. I have found out from experience that the blinking light draws attention.

Example, if car driver is looking the other way, on the phone, or whatever, with my blinkies, he is going to look up and see what this is. Mission accomplished. I am not out there on an MUP, or dilly dally traffic. I am out there where cars pass me in excess of 50mph, and sometimes don't give me my 3 feet. Also, the car driver is only so-called distracted/annoyed, or whatever for a few seconds. However, the flip side is, he doesn't see you and makes contact.

AGain,. my set up is about 5 to 10 brighter than yours, and I am not changing a darn thing. One thing I do, is have the big two up front aimed at about 20 to 30 feet downward to the ground out front. Not up in drivers eyes.. However, I use my helmet light as a safety factor too. Around curves, and this happened this morning. One car, decided to ignore all the other lights and proceeded to try to take my right of way. Ha, he did a jump back big time, as I aimed that 18650 on my helmet dead at him. He jammed brakes and allowed me to pass. He was coming out a drive way, I am on the road, in my lane doing about 22 mph on the flats.

In summary, I think you need BRIGHTER LIGHTS..

cehowardGS

Couldn't be said any better. Also, in another thread like this, somebody posted that they have teenagers to put through college. Didn't want to lose it out there on a humble! Humble=Something that doesn't have to be..

Glad to see somebody share my exact opinion!!

That distracting a driver and that puts you in danger of being hit by said driver, is the biggest yarn I have heard in a long time!!

joshuatrio

Mission Accomplished.

no motor?

This is what I do in the twilight, or in traffic. I've received many more compliments on my lights than complaints too. I run both on high after dark, and that helped keep me from getting right hooked on the way home last night.

OP - was it dark out when the comment was made?

cehowardGS

myrridin

Then I suggest you try riding in the dark without any lights up front on a moonless night. Then tell me that headlights are primarily to be seen. Flashing a headlight during daylight hours is not going to distract anyone, and not likely to be much noticed either.

Headlights are on the opposite side of the road from you... Therefore you don't actually need to see them. If they are turning across your path, then cars at least have turn signals, which you could see. Also regs require headlights on cars to be on the path in front of the car, and not to shine at the vehicles coming in the opposing direction. Which is another indicator that your perception is mistaken...

fietsbob

Acidfast from Germany asks: re seeing steady lights only

I read about the regulation of bike lights is that they not flash, in Germany.


I have German Export lights, only flashing is the taillight,
in senso mode , when i stop, in the dark .

ckaspar

I have yet to see a solid construction warning light or emergency vehicle light. A little flashing from a bike should be manageable for a driver to handle.

myrridin

And those lights are not designed to shine at (or anywhere near) the eyes of vehicle operators. I understand it might be subtle to some, but that is a significant difference...

yosarian9

Theres a difference between noticeable and distracting.
Knee high skirt is noticeable, mid thigh high is distracting.

jon c. 

I want to be seen, but I don't want to annoy. I'd take the comment under advisement and see if I could aim so it is less annoying. Thus far I've had drivers tell me that could see me easily, joking that they didn't know what it was coming at them. But they haven't told me it was too much in their eyes. There are a lot of cyclists who ride in my area and I've only seen one flashing headlight set up among many that I thought would be potentially too annoying. (Saw a guy the other day with a solid light that was bright enough that standing at the end of my driveway looking down the road I thought a motorcycle was coming. I was impressed and wish I knew what he was running.)

Notso_fastLane

This. Good points all around, and exactly what I do.

modernjess

winning.

Ns1

I had that happen once, and in hindsight I wish my response was "better annoying than dead"

that said, these days i angle my flashing light slightly to the right and down, so it's not as annoying but still flashing.

Forrest74

Solid lights after dark, flashing during the daytime.

It's pretty easy to blind other cyclists and motorists with sub-hundred dollar lights these days. I know people here will preach up and down that a blinded motorist at least saw you and isn't that super cool, but please don't do it. I pass multiple cyclists on a dark commute and the ones using solar flairs, aimed up, and flashing are by far the worst.

Bike Hermit

Agreed. I'm not sure why the OP thinks his mission should be to "distract" drivers. I ride my bike much more often than I drive and I still think flashing headlights are annoying and useless....almost as annoying as hideously bright floodlights which might be good for trail riding at night but have no place on the street. A solid light with a shaped beam will light the road quite nicely without blinding oncoming cars and bikers. And cars coming toward you from the opposite direction are 20 feet or more away from you....small chance they will hit you. As for rear lights I also prefer bright and steady but admit the flashing rear lights are highly visible.

Notso_fastLane

Also, not sure where you are, but I wonder if this driver also has a chat with every person he sees talking on a cell phone, texting, or otherwise driving distracted. It might just be a passive aggressive thing because he's in a car and you're on a bike (might not, but I'd be curious).

cplager

Hi,

Yes, the biggest reason is to let people who are pulling out from side streets that you are there. I find a big difference when I am running a front flashing light in the behavior of drivers. It is also important for cars to see you coming (e.g., an oncoming car needs to pass a stopped car on its side).

Flashing has two reasons here: (1) It makes it more obvious to drivers and (2) it saves battery life. I've been driving with my headlights in the day time since the 80s, so I had to ask myself why I'd ride without a front facing light.

And I agree: riding further away from the curb when approaching side streets is a good strategy regardless of whether you have a light or not.

Cheers,
Charles

LesterOfPuppets

Gotta have the front blinkie when rolling through some areas. There's one strip of my commute that I call The Gauntlet. It's about a mile long jam packed with driveways. Many of them fast food joint and bar driveways. You wanna be the most obnoxious rolling disco show possible when traversing such driveways. Frequent Airzound blasts probably wouldn't hurt none neither but I don't have one of those. Once I get past the KFC I put my light back to solid, though. I'll often put it back to blinkie if I see a driver coming up to the road from a sidestreet or driveway, just to make sure.

Funnily enough, in my FB feed this morn:

ckaspar

Every construction light I have ever seen is pointed directly at traffic letting them know something is up.

Regarding emergency vehicle lights, have you ever been pulled over my a cop? Those flashing lights sure got your attention, huh?

On a side note though, and I mean this seriously, I often wonder how many people on this forum spend time behind the wheel of a car as well as on a saddle. I have 2 kids that I have to cart around and I put a bunch on miles on my wife's car doing so. I see cyclists all the time while I am driving and when I see the flashing lights I know it is a cyclist and I treat them accordingly. Never once have I thought, "Gee I wish that prick would stop with the flashing light business". Perhaps the OP's light was pointed a bit higher than needed and was causing an issue with drivers or maybe the driver was being a smart ass with the comment but I know for sure I have never been distracted by a cyclists light flashing. If people get distracted by such a small insignificant thing then I sure don't want them behind the wheel at all. Who knows what might distract them next.

So tonight when I ride home I will turn on my flashing lights and be on my way.

ckaspar

That's funny.

truman

There are headlights to be seen by, and there are headlights to see by. Two different use cases. Flashies are to be seen by, as anyone who's tried to navigate a busy discotheque by strobe light alone has probably discovered.


I see you also responded sarcastically to OP's initial sarcastic response. In your experience, is answering sarcasm with sarcasm an effective method for addressing the problem, or is it more like to continue in the same vein?