Originally Posted by
01 CAt Man Do
Well as you already know I disagree with your first statement. "Insurance" is only designed to protect. No form of protection is 100% guaranteed. One cannot protect themselves from every bad situation that could possible occur. That said my statement where I said, "cannot be missed" is to be taken as a "relative" statement. While I cannot insure that I am going to be seen 100% of the time I can "increase the possibility of being seen" thus increasing the possibility that I "WON'T be hit BECAUSE I WASN'T SEEN". The sooner that you become visible to motor traffic the greater your chances of "Not Being hit". This is the logic behind the thinking. If you disagree so be it.
About your last paragraph; I agree in part but there are always going to be reasons for accidents that have nothing to do with being seen. Sometimes crap just happens. I'll take my chances on the road if I think I can lessen the probability of being hit by using some bright lights ( coupled with other safe riding skills ).
I certainly understand the appeal of believing you're making yourself safer by deploying more and brighter (n+1) lights, however, every traffic accident study I've ever seen says that, far and away, the most common cause of accidents is distracted drivers, those not paying attention. An attention-getting light array only works to the extent that attention is given. Another big problem is that humans just aren't that good at determining the closing rate of an upcoming object, which in turn leads to incorrect responses.
Anyway, it might be that that obnoxious, super-bright flashing taillights decrease the likelihood of getting hit, but I think it would be hard to show supporting evidential data for that claim. It may just be that 'plainly visible' is a threshold we've already reached, and that going beyond it yields diminishing returns and does nothing to reduce accidents caused by inattentive drivers.