Originally Posted by
froze
This business of a flashing red light being more noticable is incorrect. If this were true then a long time ago all cars would have gone to flashing red tail lights; in fact there has been studies that proved that flashing red lights actually confused motorists as to how far away an object was.
For some reason this only applies to red, an amber or white flashing light does not have that problem.
A flashing light is certainly more noticeable, but, as you noted, it makes distance estimation more difficult.
To my eyes, this also applies to white & amber lights as they approach me.
At the least, a bright steady light would do a good job. Augment that with a good flasher and you've got your bases covered.
Forgot to add:
The corollary of cars not having flashers really doesn't apply. A street full of blinking red lights would be simply ridiculous. However, of course, all turn signals flash.