Come on. Stop being a jerk. Can't you read, the driver wasn't looking at the road - no amount of bright lights would have made a difference.

I am not a scientist (well, not professionally at least), nor do I play one on TV, but IMHO a bright flashing white headlight can make a difference even in bright daylight. I (unfortunatly) spend a lot of time on a bus commuting the 20+ miles from home to school (one way) and spot a lot of oncoming cyclists who are using their lights during the brightest of daylight from much further distances than those who don't. As to the amber light in the day, I doubt that it's legal as a taillight here in Oregon, and really doubt that it is nearly as visible as some of those killer USB rechargeable taillights(e.g. the Serfas Thunderbolt).

I have a few gripes about the Serfas (runtime is a bit low IMHO, and I really don't like the "rubberband" mount it uses (lost a strap from it on the first day, and they want $5.00 +S/H to replace)), but I keep mine charged regularly, and use it often (later found the lost strap).

"Just like helmets"; a good analogy. There are avid proselytizers about that item too. Recommend that a sticky be set aside for avid proselytizers of the power of All-Lights, All-The-Time, who believe and preach about the amazing prophylactic power of mega lumens to prevent collisions, no matter what the cause.

Oh!!! I know what I'm going to be for Halloween this year...

The driver wrecked himself quite badly, it sounds like, and is facing serious charges. It's a horrible thing that these two cyclists were in his way when he crashed. But this isn't one of those cases where the pickup truck bumps the bike off and drives merrily onward. It was a for-real wreck, with or without the bikes. They just happened to be there. Lights would not have made the pickup driver wipe out any less. But of course, I want lights on my bike anyway.

Seems like a pretty epic trip, and definitely a similar thing I would do with my girlfriend some day.

I hope if we are killed in a crash in some remote country that people aren't arguing over if we had a blinky light or not..

And a magic hat with a propeller on it.

No road user looks at the road 100 percent of the time...not even people riding bikes. Saying this isn't to defend the person driving the vehicle that allowed it to crash into this couple riding their bikes, but simply to acknowledge the fact that, humans...not being robots or computers...will have lapses in concentration on the main task at hand, in this situation...driving.

Presume the guy driving looked down, away from the road for 2-3 seconds to the interior of his rig to look for his hat. I'll say that amount of time looking away from the road is not atypical for any person, whether they're driving or riding. In some cases, probably longer for people riding (because they generally tend to travel at a slower speed than do people driving.) than people driving. In that short span of time, many things can happen. Advance observation...scanning the road ahead into the distance...in preparation for looking away from the road for even a brief span of time like 2-3 seconds, and being able to detect things in the distance becomes critically important. Given that people on bikes present a very much smaller image to detect than do cars, anything that helps them be more visible is going to help them be more easily seen.

Though their use on the road is different than bicycles, motorcycles present a similar sized image to that of people on bikes...and in many U.S. states, motorcycles are legally required to run daytime lights...I believe for the reason that the image their size presents to other road users is less readily seen than motor vehicles, and because people riding them are vulnerable road users.

People riding bicycles and being made more visible through the use of the range of lights and hi-vis gear available, likely would reduce the chances that people driving motor vehicles don't see them when looking away from the road for brief seconds, as people tend to routinely do.

I can't BELIEVE that anyone would do a world tour without this.

What time of day was it? Was it daytime or night? None of the articles seem to say.

One problem with touring is that having really bright lights becomes problematic, as feeding them batteries becomes difficult/expensive. You can't really do rechargeable batteries because you can't be sure that you'll be able to recharge them each night. You can do something that takes AAs and buy them as you go, but they don't have that much energy, so the lights can't be that bright.

Probably the best plan is to go with a dynamo, but they generally only provide about 3 watts of power. That's enough for a decent light, but won't get you a really good light.

There are other options as well, but they have their own issues. Solar panel on your packs charging your light's battery for night time? OK, but what if it's cloudy? Using your dynamo during day to charge your battery for a few hours of night riding with 10 watts of light? That may work.

But I think a lot of tourers just go the "buy AAs along the route" route. That will work well for the tail light in flashing mode (with 2xAAA, a PBSF will last 100 hours and is quite visible) but for a headlight you'll want more. A Planet Bike 2w Blaze is a decent light, but it's only two watts -- it's the low end of "see, not just be seen", but two watts would drain 2xAA batteries in about 3 hours.

Others likely may have different opinions... but when I toured in Baja... I made it a point to never ride at night. Period. This actually made a lot of sense to me as I generally wanted to get my tent set up before dark and figure out what my food options were. Also simply cycling for 8 or so hours during daylight was just about all the cycling I wanted to do in a single day. I actually had a generator set up as a just in case light... and wouldn't you know it, the bike fell over about 1/2 through one trip and sheered the generator right off the bracket in a way that it wasn't even able to work jury rigged.

So I follow a simple rule... don't bike roads I don't know at night, and don't go into harbors I don't know at night. BTW I use this rule in the US as much as anywhere else. It's pretty basic.

I am going to restrain myself here. I got a lot of buddies around here too. To stoop to your level and resort to name-calling like you, would be disrespect to the forum and to other members.

Have a good day.. :beer:

The generator light setups that my rando friends use are very bright.

No worries.

In my accident last year I did everything right and by the book...

1. I had a helmet
2. I had adequate lighting
3. I was stopped at a red, and actually fairly center in the lane because there was no traffic behind me and I prefer that placement if I'm first.
4. My bicycle was in excellent mechanical condition.

The person who hit me did so in my lane, head on, after having cut a turn short. I was stopped at a light. She claimed she didn't see me and went on to say she was distracted and had poor peripheral vision. There is no preventing that as the cyclist...you just hope she gets home before or after you're on the road. Gump happens.

Been hit three times myself... did everything "right." The thing is sometimes you have no idea that some motorist is going to do something behind or beside you... you just don't see it coming. I recall being hit one time by a motorist that turned left right after we crossed each other on a slow residential street. He was actually just past me, and then turned left into my rear wheel... now how do you "see that coming?"

Anyone who says that cyclists should be able to avoid all collisions is lying to themselves.

REALLY, another disgusting blame the cyclist thread, especially when we already know the motorist was not even looking where he was driving and admitted fault.

I have nearly been hit from behind four different times while running some of the better cycling lights. Three were daytime and one was at night.

The nighttime one was likely a drunk.

The first daytime one was a guy picking up a CD player off the passenger floorboard.

The second was a woman reading a religious pamphlet. She was letting GOD guide her car.

The third was a old guy that had vision problems and never should have been driving. Even after I bailed, his mirror hit my arm. He hit a car a couple weeks after nearly running me down.

The bright rear light did nothing for my safety with these four drivers. A mirror allowed me to see them coming and bail the off road before they hit me. Sad to think that if any of those jerks had hit me, so many of you would have been jumping onto BFs to blame me.

Stop blaming the cyclist because some jerk cannot watch the road in front of them.

This is all that needs to be said. Closing.
We all like to comfort ourselves by thinking we can stop morons from driving into us at speed. The truth is that there are outliers and they are going to kill people.