Originally Posted by
crazybikerchick
-1. Side lights are useless.
Unless say you are corking a side street at critical mass or something then go ahead.
By the time a driver can see your side light, one of two things will happen:
- you will be going past the driver without any problems
- the driver is just about to hit you and won't be able to avoid you.
You're forgetting the very common scenario where the cyclist is in the intersection waiting to turn across the oncoming lanes when traffic clears. Meanwhile, there are motorists stopped on both sides of the intersection, facing eachothers' headlights, with a cyclist inbetween. In this situation, both reflective gear and active side lighting are beneficial.
It's just me put up a great post about the pick up truck hitting a parked emergency
vehicle full speed even with all the emergency strobes on.
I had a conversation with a fire captain a few years ago.
Some kind of national phenomenon when drivers follow emergency strobe lights
down the highway and crash into something.
A wierd kind of hypnotic effect.
A popular myth. I've ridden many, many hours with an emergency-vehicle strobe mounted on the rear of my bike, and it has the opposite effect: people
avoid it, changing lanes to get further away from it. Very predictable.