Originally Posted by
gear
I don't really judge tail lights by the cost. I can make do with a weak front light, but a weak tail light could cost me my life so it's got to be BRIGHT for me to use it and I really can't put a cost on my life so I don't care what a top quality tail light costs.
Think through how long it takes for a car traveling 40mph to alter its's course so it misses hitting you. First the driver has to see something and identify that it is something to avoid, then the driver has to turn the steering wheel of the car and finally the car has to respond. Would you believe that for all this to occur (at 40mph) a car will travel a distance of three telephone poles. So a good tail light is one that is visible from a distance of three telephone poles on a rainy or foggy, dark morning. So when I judge the quality of a tail light this is the way I do it: I lean my bike against a telephone pole and walk down the road, when I get to the third pole I turn around and if the tail light is nice and bright I have a winner.
So if a Radbot 1000, Blackburn Mars 4, Cateye Rapid 3 and especially the Cygolite Hotshot can be readily seen for more then a mile away and a driver doing 40 can't see you and hits you, then that same driver would have hit a cop car with all their lights flashing!!! Actually when I test my lights I have my wife stand the bike upright and I approach in a car from about 2 blocks away in the hard rain it's good. I can even see my Cateye LD600 the weakest link in the system but it's attached to a helmet, and it appears like a dim flashing glow. I can very easily see my Soma Road Flares and the Mars 4 though with no problems discerning what I'm looking at. My wife hates me when I do that kind of stuff, but she knew I needed to see what I look like in adverse conditions. I did the same thing coming around the block and approaching the front from two blocks away, the only light that sort of failed in that test was the old round 5 LED BLT helmet light.