The guy riding 11 years w/out the blinky has been lucky.

Last month I narrowly missed two joggers at night. I didn't see them until I was almost right on them. They each wore a reflective armband with embedded flashing LEDs, however they were wearing dark clothing and were two abreast on a rural, unlit road. They were invisible to me.

My bar-mounted headlight did not illuminate their armbands because their armbands were near their shoulders too high up off the ground. My headlight (and car headlights) only illuminate straight out horizontally and down. I didn't see any reflection from the bands because the angle between the bar-mounted light and my eyes was too great. I would have seen them much sooner if they wore the reflective bands at their ankles. The flashing LEDs on the armbands were pointed outward, not toward the front. I didn't see their LED lights until it was too late.

On paper it would have seemed that everyone was being safe.

Since then I've been wearing a cheap white LED headlamp on my helmet to get a tight angle to my line of sight for reflective surfaces.