^^ I agree with you, that's why my brightest rear light is a 70 lumen job, that one is the one that is on steady at night, and my two older ones put out about 10 to 15 lumens each and those flash. We have a slightly different approach but no big deal. The Euro study was interesting because they discovered that motorists have a difficult time telling how far they are away from an object that had a flashing light and were more likely to hit it vs a steady one and that's why it's against the law in Europe to have a flashing tail light. The Canadian/America study showed that a flashing light attracted the attention of motorists better then steady did, but I read anything in that study about being able to judge distance accurately so that study left that part out, had they included it it would have been interesting if they would have banned flashing lights or not.

I also use reflective stuff, the shoes have a reflective triangle, I wear reflective ankle bands, the seat bag had a reflective band, I wear a cheap safety vest that has wide reflective strips on it, and the helmet has reflective stuff. But in my experience reflective stuff can't be counted on because unless a cars headlights are heading right at it they may never see the reflective effect, but they will see active lighting...assuming of course it's not those dim 1 to 10 lumen lights that are out there.

But that's why I use both, the lights and the reflective stuff is because like you said the bigger footprint the better. Even on the front I use 2 headlights, the brightest one is on the bar and the dimmer one is on the helmet. If I'm riding in the city or burbs after dark I put the helmet light on flash and bar one always remains on steady, but if I'm riding on a country road or a dark unlit bike path then the helmet light goes on steady. I like the helmet light because I can use it to flash the light through a car's windows to alert the driver that I'm there.