Originally Posted by mechBgon

Reflectors alone are not a good plan, always supplement them with active lights. I've encountered people driving with their lights off quite frequently, making reflectors useless. The most common two causes are 1) they can still see well enough to drive the car, and/or 2) they started from a well-lit parking lot and have not yet discovered that their lights are off. But I've also seen people driving in darkness or near-darkness with their lights off. Reflectors won't help you, and even hi-vis clothing won't help you. You need your own light source.

Another problem with reflectors is that the intensity of light drops with the square of distance. So light that has to travel from the viewer to you, then back again, is going to experience a high loss of intensity with increasing distance. Add fog or rain, which attenuate the intensity much worse than clear air, and now you have a serious problem. Given that I routinely ride on 60mph highway shoulders, I want to be detected from long range so people have time to plan their highway exit without me being a last-second discovery.


Think your reflectors will do squat against a backdrop like that?