Black Jaque

It sounds like I've already done much of what is suggested here just by using intuition. I got the vest, reflective ankle bands along with front and rear lights.

I am certainly convinced that cities could improve safety for everyone if they adopted some form of light pollution controls. Just think if they placed a shroud over every street light so that from a distance you would not see the light bulb - only the objects the street light was illuminating. It would be that many fewer points of light to distiguish as cars, bikes, or street lights.

njkayaker

Humans have a problem determing the relative movement of small things (like any rear bicycle light) moving directly towards or away from them, whether or not they are flashing.

It's possible that also running a second solid light at night might be useful.

The value of flashing versus steady is that it allows the driver to notice the cyclist much sooner than when they can actually start getting a "distance fix" on the cyclist.

Another value of flashing is that it allows brighter lights for the same amount of power (allowing an even-further distance for being noticed). This is even more valuable when running lights during the day (where they need to be brighter and are (usually) run for longer periods of time).

So, you really think that the drivers are getting "too close" because they can't use flashing lights to judge distance?

The suggestion to use reflective gear is a good one. Good ankle straps are a cheap and good way to be identfied as a cyclist.

njkayaker

The problem with looking like a car is that drivers expect you to be as fast as a car. And drivers often pass cars at short distances that cyclists would likely deem as "too close".

njkayaker

You are still much better off being highly visible. Keep in mind that drunk drivers run into all sorts of things (including trees).

njkayaker

You should care because drivers don't need to give a bridge abutment as much passing room. In the NYC area, drivers have to pass concrete barriers at short distances that would make cyclists cringe.

njkayaker

Too many flashing things might just confuse the driver and reduce the recognition that you want.

Jax Rhapsody

So i shouldnt make my bike look like a college guys jeep?

prathmann

I'd be happy to get as much clearance as drivers give to bridge abutments. but have noticed that in bright daylight I frequently get far less. At night I usually get much more clearance from passing motorists so the bright flashing lights seem to be working fine.

njkayaker

"Frequent" is ambiguous.

Most drivers (like nearly all of them) drive much closer to other cars and concrete barriers than they do to bicyclists on non-urban roads (even in CA). While you might have drivers "buzzing" you every day, it's actually a small fraction of drivers.

Clearly, close passes are more likely in urban driving (unless you are taking the lane). (And lights during daytime, whether or not they are flashing, aren't really going to do much for these.)

Some of the close passes are due to drivers not "registering" the cyclists (being "surprised" by them). For this type, a flashing light might give those drivers more time to register the cyclist and plan to give them more room. The point of the light isn't to "judge distance", it's to be noticed (the sooner, the better).

Some of the close passes are the choice of drivers. You can't prevent these close passes (these are rather out of the scope of this thread!).

Hydrated

Trust me... I'm a doctor. Well... I play one on TV.

OK... I'm neither a doctor or an actor... but I can pretend. This is the internet!

bigfred 

Mrs. Fred and I are fortunate enough to live in an area with plenty of cyclist, commuters and some cycling infrastructure (Auckland, NZ). We spent the better part of two years in a situation where one or the other of us had to commute via car during the dark hours of rush hour in winter. Despite both being cyclist and accutely aware of cyclists, we both had several close calls where we almost struck cyclists. The most common occurence was when the car just ahead moved right (we drive on the left) to pass a cyclist and left us closing fast on a cyclist with either oncoming traffic to the right or another car immediately on our right if multi lane. While visibilty issues can't address this, it did get her and I talking about what seemed to work for cyclists, in our 'car driver' eyes and what did not.

We both agreed:

That during daylight hours flouro yellow, green or orange was far more likely to be seen from a distance than any other color including red.

That during twilight, when the sun was low and we were likely to be affected by some form of reflection or sun strike, a blinky light front and back seemed the most effective and ensuring that we saw said cyclist.

And, during the dark hours, no amount of lightly could replace the power of reflectors and reflective clothing.

Additional blinkines and solid lights did little but confuse our brains and make it increasing hard to use binocular vision to determine distance to the object. Their is one guy in our neighboorhood who continues to confound me. He uses blinkies on his helmet, saddle, rack and seat stay. All of different intensity and on different blink patterns. I pass him each morning on the same 2 km section (our schedules must be extremely similiar). I struggle (not in a good way) to determine how far or close I am to him each and every time. My cyclist's mind can't make heads or tails of where exactly he is, how far away he is, or if he is moving laterally or not.

Reflective ankle bands, tights, sleaves, pack cover and/or vest seem to be the trump cards after dark. Our headlights cause those to be brighter and more recognizable than just about anything else. Combine those with a reasonably bright steady red rear light and you actually look just like most of the motorcycle and scooter users and are instantly recognized as such by my brain. If you wanted a bit more, add a reflective rectagle the size of a motorcycle license plate just below your rack mounted red taillight and a couple amber marker lights on your seat stays or bar ends. Voila! You make instant sense to my brain. I can use my powerful binocular vision to determine distance to you and avoid.

And, try to find a route other than the divided multi lane boulevard.

agent pombero

My personal limit would be two lights on the bar and one on the helmet. The angle of the light is far more important. I have a 1800 lumen light on my helmet that I've been adjusting daily and I found the sweet spot: during the day rapid flash is angled directly into the horizon. Everybody gets a full hit in the eyeballs with it. At nighttime this isn't safe and so the light is moved slightly downward (most of the light falls onto the pavement at about 25-30''); rapid flash at night w/ this light is too brutal and so I switch it to 1 pulse, 1 second pause, 1 pulse mode. The light on my bars always stays on solid beam and is angled for the beam to hit the ground anywhere between 15-30'', depends on my speed/location, and is never aimed into the horizon. My philosophy is the more powerful lights the better. I can't ride a single night w/o receiving at least a few positive/negative remarks about my lights from drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. Fills my cycling heart up with joy every time

Cougrrcj

For night/dawn/dusk riding, in addition to a US Coast Guard-approved Xenon life-vest strobe on my rear rack, a 2" diameter red reflector on each seat stay, and the yellow reflectors on my pedals, and reflective tape on my helmet, I wear a mesh 'safety vest' like this:



To paraphrase the phone commercial -- Can you see me now?

01 CAt Man Do

When ever I hear people write stuff like this I just start to shake my head. That's because I couldn't disagree more. The blinkie lights get seen! The more the better. Sometimes I might see some guy using one that is poorly aimed and with a half dead battery BUT I STILL SEE THEM! I might not have even known he was riding a bike until I was almost on top of him but I still saw the light.

The fact that you struggle to judge the distance of a cyclist using multiple blinkies means that YOU ALONE have a major problem judging depth perception at night. While this is not totally uncommon it by no means applies to the majority of people. If it did, the insurance companies would have gone out of business long ago.

When I see blinkies on a cyclist as I drive down the road I don't need to worry about how far away they are because I usually see them WAY before I am even close. The main point I'm driving home is that if you see a blinking light ( even though you might not know how close it is ) you KNOW not to hit a blinking light ( or any light emitting source ) no matter how close it may be regardless of what that source is.

Just the other night I was making a left turn on a dark and busy road. Just before turning I see two steady lights, one low and one high, moving along the far shoulder and about to cross my path at a very slow speed. For a moment I didn't know what this was ( maybe two seconds ) but I knew enough not to turn until I knew what it was. Now if the guy had used one small blinkie in the front ( or some side reflectors ) I WOULD HAVE KNOWN IMMEDIATELY THAT IT WAS A CYCLIST because only cyclists use blinkies.

Yes, I agree that reflective clothing is a must particularly if you ride with no side visibility reflectors on your bike. It continues to amaze me how so many cyclists neglect to consider their side visibility factor when riding at night.

bwilli88 

I put a red led/red body frog light on the bottom of each pedal and one wrapped around each axle, red rear and white front, all on steady. I also have a 3 led rear on the seat post that I set to blink. On the front I have a Cateye for vision and a white led/black body frog on each side of my handle bars on fast blink. I have a red frog that I put in my helmet that I set to blink.

01 CAt Man Do

I take it that the two red frog type lights on the pedals are pointed to the rear? Your set-up will definitely get seen.

I recently moved my Performance "Axiom" ( 70 lumen ) blinkie down to my front fork. There I will use it on fast flash ( flicker ) and pointed slightly up so it will not reflect too much off the road. With the Axiom on the fork and my Gloworm X2 on the bars it will be hard for on-coming traffic not to see me at night.
Having a flashing light on front of the bike at night draws attention faster than a steady light even though the steady light is brighter and more important when it comes to the "How well can "I" see", factor.

I haven't had a chance to test ride my bike yet with this set-up so hopefully there will not be too much "reflective bounce back" from the Axiom on flicker mode. Too cold here to do any night riding right now.

Bwilli88, don't forget to add something for side visibility even if it's only reflective tape and some wheel reflectors. Oh, and a quick tip since you use the frog type lights....the Chinese websites sell the "coin type" batteries real cheap. Real important if you want to keep using the frog type lights without buying expensive "Coin type batteries". Here in the U.S.A. the coin batteries cost more than the lights.

bwilli88 

I live in Cambodia, the coin batteries are cheap here, and the LEDs on the pedals are pointed to the rear but light the ground up as well.

hhnngg1

While I like your thinking, I do think you might be overthinking it.

One cheap Magicshine rear tail blinkie will outperform an entire array of PBSFs for the rear pointing light. It doesn't solve the lateral lighting issue, true, but that really should be best addressed with judicious awareness of any approaching lateral vehicle, including a possible headlight beamshot at them if they're approaching too quickly.

You only need one excellent rear light, and those aren't even expensive today. (I do still subscribe to the more= better in terms of protective lighting, but I'll choose one excellent light over several moderately good ones.)

They don't even need to know you're a human. You just need to be bright enough so they think "what the heck is that?" and you're set. All the lights on a bike are obviously not a car - the issue is getting the inattentive drivers' attention, which is easily done with a surprisingly bright rear. And yes, blink mode works fine.

01 CAt Man Do

I agree to a point that just one rear light is necessary. While usually true, in heavy urban traffic it is easy for a rear light on a bike to get lost in the mix. Perhaps not so much if it's a blinking light but if it's a steady light real easy to lose track of it.

I became convinced that more was better when I started to view how well motorcycles are viewed from behind. During the summer Motorcycles were everywhere. I noticed how the usual steady rear lights of a motorcycle get lost in the traffic once they are ahead of me a good distance. Eventually one day I got passed by a Honda Goldwing that had multiple rear lights. Even though surrounded by cars a quarter mile up the Interstate I could still see his lights and tell it was him due to the multiple rear light configuration.

I figure what works for a motorcycle can also work for a bicycle. Currently I use one Moon Shield on the seat post ( or Geinea 1 rear ) and a Cygolite Hotshot on the helmet. While a very visible set-up I've also considered some small lights on the seat stays but haven't gotten around to it yet. I also wear reflective clothing so basically I'm fine anyway.

Interestingly last night while eating lunch I saw a guy on a bike with multiple rear lights on his bike. He even had some kind of vest with the entire rear of the vest lit up with LED's. I couldn't see it that well because I was viewing from the side about 500 ft. away but from what I could see the display was awesome. ....laughable , but awesome. Nobody gonna miss this guy going down the road.

prathmann

Until something goes wrong with that "one" excellent rear light - maybe the battery contact gets corroded, the mounting breaks, the electronics fail, etc. You might not even notice for awhile if you're busy paying attention to the traffic in front of you and are counting on traffic behind you being able to see you. A second tail light of some kind is pretty cheap insurance against having any kind of failure of your primary light.

seeker333

+1

Redundancy is critical for taillights, you must have 2 or more. There's nothing more unsettling than getting home after 30 miles in the dark and discovering your taillight quit sometime during the ride. I habitually check mine while riding every so often to make sure I'm still lit up.

Hydrated

When ever I hear people write stuff like this I just start to shake my head.

In my opening post, I outlined my visibility strategy and I posited that I based it on theory and a little (very little) knowledge of how humans perceive objects/lights in darkness.

But your post above is just wrong. The human eye is not especially great at working at night... so we lose a great deal of our visual function at night. And that does indeed apply to a great majority of people... some are worse than others, but if you're human... you do lose visual acuity in darkness.

So saying that only a very few people like bigfred have depth perception issues at night is just silly. Overcoming the shortcomings of human night vision is a field of study all in itself, and I'd doubt that scientists are studying it just for bigfred's benefit.

fietsbob

I used a Moving Van to get away from the population density..

.. and got a wired to the Hub Dynamo light setup,
German,
to no longer be concerned about battery Run Time.

Pedals with Big reflectors (ergon)

Neon Lime Parka with wide reflective stripes..

and so forth..

hhnngg1

I actually do pack an extra PBSF if my home commute is going to be over 5 miles. But I don't mount it - it's a waste of space and battery since the MS rear is so good. Also annoying to take off multiple blinkies when you're locking bike outdoors. I also pack a Fenix L2d 2 x AA flashlight as a backup headlight.

lectraplayer

I agree fully. That disco show some people put on their bikes jusst makes them hard to see. that's why I use DOT marker lights on my bike which don't flash and I have the forks marked with reflective markers. The only question is "Is that a bicycle or a motorcycle?" Either way I wanted to keep the lights steady so drivers can easily pinpoint me.