I encountered a driver on a dark road tonight. He yelled at me about my lights. "Good lights! Good lights!".

When I am driving at night, my main dislike about cyclists are the ones who are so dark that I can't see them. Well illuminated riders makes my life as a driver better, because they don't stress me out. I have never seen a cyclist with a light that threatened to "blind" me, even slightly. But I frequently encounter headlights from oncoming cars that are so bright that I have to look away.

How can that be, since some of us have such fearsome lumen-power? I think it is a question of range and movement. Sure, that 1000 lumen light fixed in our eyes, head-on at five feet range, is blinding. When does a driver ever stare at a cyclist's light head-on at five feet range? That same light across an intersection - fifty feet or more - bobbing and waving, is nothing special.