Originally Posted by
no motor?
The bike paths I ride on cross streets every few blocks, and there are usually plenty of cars to look out for then. Plus there are the ipod zombies and the people oblivious to everything but their phone.
How do lights help keep you safer in either of those situations? Are you not able to slow down to avoid cross traffic or pedestrians? Even young children are able to cross the street safely and avoid pedestrians in daylight on the bike path without the assistance of headlights.
We've had a bit of a warm streak here in Chicagoland, so I've seen a lot more people out riding their bikes than I normally would this time of year. Curiously, it seems like fewer people as a percentage were using headlights during the daytime this past weekend than I normally see in the warmer months. It also struck me that most of the people I saw out over this past weekend were fast, which I guess makes sense that mostly serious cyclists are going to get out when it’s 40° in January. This recent observation has led me to believe that there might be an inverse relationship between speed and propensity to use headlights during the day. Just a theory. I have no data to back it up other than my casual observations riding on the north shore of Chicago. Seems like whenever I see a group of fast guys go by during the day there are no lights, and whenever I see a headlight during the day, the rider using it is usually not fast. Occasionally I’ll see a fast guy with a headlight during the day, but that seems to be the exception, and of course not all slow riders use headlights. There also seems to be a positive correlation between age and propensity to use lights during the daytime, but age is also inversely correlated with speed so that could just be a confounding factor. I’m not sure.