Originally Posted by
Athens80
Two $5 PBSF clones and you've beat all the Axioms, Hotshots or any of the rest. More dollars yield diminishing returns. But some people value the quality and increased light to pay the extra dollars. Perhaps they believe that the higher priced lights slightly improve their comfort riding in traffic, or slightly reduce the odds they'll be hit.
Uh, no. Even proper PBSF are pretty weak by today's standards. When I drive past them on the road they're not really all that noticeable. The clones are even worse. I've got a couple of PBSFs, they were great when I bought them 6 or 7 years ago, but we can do far better now.
It depends somewhat on your environment. I feel that I need really good taillights - I ride in pitch black on deserted rural roads at 5 in the morning with drivers who are half asleep, sucking on a coffee doing 65 MPH on 2 lane roads with no shoulder and blind corners and hills. I need to wake them the heck up really fast, not just be some vague red thing floating along over...BAM...what was that?