Originally Posted by
noglider
@
Athens80 and @
JohnJ80, you make good points. We may not be at the point of diminishing returns for tail lights.
I still stand by my point about annoyance. You do have control over that. If you do something that you know will annoy something, then you are annoying. If it's not necessary to do it, then you're better off not doing it. Yes, some people get annoyed at benign things. That's their problem. I'll take your word for it that a 300lm (or whatever) tail light is acceptable. But the concept itself of gratuitous annoyance does make sense. As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist stops at my nose.
Actually, we don't have control over what annoys people - the variance is enormous - and that's why we have laws. Laws tell you what you are entitled to be annoyed about.
Since we are still well within the limits that have been established for other lights that are much more prevalent on the road, we don't have a problem and likely never will. If I'm wrong, then at some point when enough people are "annoyed", regulations will be adopted. I'd submit that won't happen as long as we are just a minority fraction of the light emitted (flashing or otherwise) from other vehicles and signage on the road. I'd also suggest that it's going to be very hard to insist that bicycles can have less light and visibility than other vehicles on the road. It's not a comparative thing - bikes are not entitled to less just because they are bikes.
On the other hand, if the flashing and brightness significantly exceeded that of other vehicles and signage then we might be having a discussion about a real problem. Until then, I don't think we need to invent an issue.
J.