To make a point about this one --
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
I would not consider a right hook to be the same as being hit from behind. Yes, the car has overtaken the bicycle but no amount of lighting or reflective material will stop a motorist from preforming this kind of maneuver (lighting being the original point of the thread). The motorist has either already seen your lights and chosen to ignore them or they missed them entirely.
I was driving (
) home one evening, and it was just becoming dark enough that vehicles were turning on their headlights. I had a truck behind me, and I flipped my rear view mirror to night mode to keep from getting blinded. The two-way residential street had cars parallel parked on both sides.
I approached a cyclist with a decent taillight going in the same direction, and passed him. No big deal -- he was riding steady, not fast, but like he knew what he was doing. Soon after I passed, and at the end of that block, we (me, truck, and bike) were coming to a stop sign. I checked my mirrors, and I had
no idea where the cyclist was. At the stop, I left space to my right in case he was close, but I still wasn't sure -- I didn't see him in my side mirror, and couldn't see him at all in the rear view mirror. All I saw to the rear was the glare of truck headlights. Even if I flipped the mirror back to daytime mode, I wouldn't have been able to see well enough to the sides of the truck.
Nobody got hurt, and as far as I know, the cyclist never caught back up after that intersection -- maybe he was simply left behind, or maybe he turned onto another street. But if he had a headlight, he wouldn't have vanished from my sight.