varuscelli

Hmmmm....looks to me like Renee might not have answered the actual question you asked. You asked about "safety" and she answered with "stability." I know I'm nitpicking the wording, but still...

Maybe she was trying to answer the question accurately and merely chose a poor synonym. Or maybe she didn't interpret the question correctly and just gave you a poor answer. Or maybe she purposefully chose the word "stability" because her boss told her not to get involved in safety issue questions that have nothing to do with their manufacture of the helmet itself -- to avoid any liability that might be held over their heads (for giving advice about helmet safety when combined with an externally attached light). Again, I might be needlessly nitpicking symantics...but the words, in this case, are pretty important. Safety and stability are, to me, very different things.

In either case, my take on the safety issue is that it's a roll of the dice no matter which way you go. You could get hurt or killed in many scenarios by NOT using a helmet light. At the same time, wearing one could, in the right situation, result in injury or perhaps even death (if by some freakish circumstance it got driven into your skull or a tree branch caught a protruding light and snapped your neck back).

But, I'm all for the added safety you get from a helmet light from the "be seen" standpoint and from the extra ability to see that a helmet light allows a rider. My personal decision is that I want to be able to see where I'm going and for people to see the movement of my helmet light and lessen the likelihood of getting run by an unobservant driver.

I think kleng's example is one of the safer ones I've seen just from the fact that it doesn't protrude and would probably never "catch" on anything. His example looks like one of the best I've seen.