Originally Posted by
SnowJob
When night falls how do you roll? Do you set your headlight on blink mode or steady? Do two or more lights light up your way?
I ask because a cyclist I know here in MN told me that having your light set to blinky mode after dark is illegal. He thinks that blinky mode is for daylight or twilight hours while steady mode is for the deep of the night.
Thoughts?
I, for one, go back and forth. On MUPs after dark I go steady and have it on a lower setting so I don't annoy other cyclists. On roads (generally) I like to have the strobe effect going. Maybe it's a fantasy, but I feel more visible and safer.
I use multiple lights, four CatEye Uno's mounted to the bike two on the handlebars and two on the fork. I also have a Light and Motion Stella 150L mounted on my helmet. The four Uno's are set to blink and the Stella is left in steady mode.
According to
F.S. 316.2397 it is illegal for any vehicle to have flashing lights:
(7) Flashing lights are prohibited on vehicles except as a means of indicating a right or left turn, to change lanes, or to indicate that the vehicle is lawfully stopped or disabled upon the highway or except that the lamps authorized in subsections (1), (2), (3), (4), and (9) and s. 316.235(5) are permitted to flash.
I'm not sure if our running with head/taillights in blink mode would violate this or not. I can say that while riding at night with my four Uno's in blink mode that I have been passed by numerous patrol cars and not one of them have doubled back to pull me over.
There have been a number of towns/cities here in Florida that have pulled drivers over for "flashing" their headlights to warn other motorists of a speed trap. Most if not all of those tickets have been dismissed when the drivers have taken them to court and the departments that issued them were told to stop, BUT of course there are those departments that still think that the law is on their side and are continuing to write those tickets.