I forgot to mention I was solely talking about using lights in the dark. I usually don't use lights during bright daytime. If I do use a flashing/strobing front light, it has to be a light that has little throw but mainly flood (could be very bright, nonetheless). I think a very bright white light with long throw in flashing mode is ultra annoying, though during daytime less so.

Sounds like I'm the only one who uses exclusively steady lights both front and rear, ankle reflectors and a reflective vest. Here's my rationale FWIW:
1) Germans make the best bike lights and they don’t blink
2) I have never seen any scientific evidence to suggest that blinking lights actually make cyclists more visible. I have seen one study which suggests that cyclists overestimate the effectiveness of blinking lights and underestimate the effectiveness of reflectors, which is interesting
3) No sober, attentive driver will hit you from behind if you have a steady tail-light and plenty of reflectors and no amount of flashing lights will protect you from drunks or texters
4) I can’t imagine anyone hitting me head-on, ever. If they did I would consider that to be my fault
5) People pull out in front of me all the time, even when I’m driving a car, again my responsibility to look out for cars pulling out in front of me. It’s easy enough to anticipate, slow down for a few seconds and not get all huffy about it
6) Blinking lights are more annoying than steady lights, and I prefer not to be an annoying person

Oh! That kind of flashing!


I think the steady on mode of most blinking lights is so they can be legal in the U.K. and Germany. If I have it right. There are also other locations that require steady lights, I believe.

I Hope You Flash

Indeed I do, but recently I have taken up “cycling.” Last week I responded to this video of a bike-car accident:

So here are what they look like. Note that I had to clip the lights vertically on the inside of the leg bands to expose maximal brightness from the undersurface, because the lights are meant to be mounted horizontally. The battery life is touted as Front: 16 hrs flashing, 8 hrs steady; Rear: 48 hrs flashing, 24 hrs steady.

Flashing lights are more readily seen.
Public safety emergency vehicles use flashing lights.
Aircraft use flashing lights.
When I bicycle, I use flashing lights.

I use flashing lights in the AM and PM, unfortunately they can be blinding if you are close, but i think that's good b/c when we're close, everyone slows down.

mostly i want the attention of motorists driving way too fast for city limits (pretty much all of them).

I've seen a few dog walkers using lights around here, and saw a dog wearing a puplight (it's a headlamp for a dog that goes around their neck) last week. My Mom got one of those for her dog and it's great when he goes out at night, but I'd never seen one on a dog while I was bicycling. It sure made the dog more noticeable.

You're not the only one. I prefer my lights on steady, mostly because of your reason number 6. Flashing rear lights annoy me, so I don't like to subject other people to them.

I'm convinced that my bright steady lights along with my reflective jacket make me plenty visible to anyone who is even looking at the road.

I also find plausible the reasoning that people can't judge the speed of a flashing light (which would include the speed at which they are approaching said light) and that people (especially drunk people) tend to fixate on flashing lights and drift toward them (like a mountain biker running into the rock he can't stop looking at). I am not certain that these arguments are correct, but I judge them to be more likely to be correct than any claim that my steady light isn't sufficiently visible.

I might as well admit to being something of a voyeur. So I like to flash. And check out others too - especially the girls.

^^^

But normal vehicles use steady lights.

When trying to be polite instead of safe.

Flashing lights are on and off, how is it safer than a steady light? Police and emergency vehicles have rotating/flare lights rather than flashing lights.

Excellent!~

Flashing catches the eye. People figured that out long ago when they made that the convention for emergencies.

Around here the old gumball rotating lights have been replaced by flashing lights.

Jan Heine: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2014/...rget-fixation/

Now put your lights on steady and stop over-inflating your tires!

Quote from that article: "In fact, when riding on a shoulder at night, it may be safest to be invisible. The odds that a driver will swerve randomly onto the shoulder and hit you may be smaller than the odds of attracting an impaired driver through target fixation." I wonder if the author practices his own theory.

Regarding reflectives, my observation is that, yes, they can be very visible, but the visibility usually is in just a passing moment, maybe repeated, when the light source happens to shine in the "right" angle, which is not lasting, whereas lights don't rely on another light source.

And by the way, reflectives in pictures always appear exaggerated, more dramatic than reality.

Yeah, I definitely think he oversold his point there. As for reflectives, I wouldn't trust just reflection to keep me visible, but I think it can be a better supplement to a steady light than flashing is, especially if it's a moving reflective surface like something on the pedals or feet.

flashing lights means more is visible, which is the idea.
this includes reflective gear.

better to be alive than be considered annoying.
and better to have all parties slow down and careful than to have someone zoom by thinking they have clearance.

a car's headlights are far stronger than a bicycle light. if i used a car's head-light and tail-light while cycling then yes i'd use a steady stream. like how motorcycle lights are. but i don't, i use a bicycle light which is tiny and pretty silly if i think people will see me in cars/motorcycles going at high speeds. for a bicycle riding by a pedestrian it's enough to be seen, but not motorists going at speed - motorists won't see it when approaching at high speeds unless the lumens is 1000+.

also, a steady small light can deceive in terms of perceived distances. it could feel far away for the motorist when in fact it is extremely close.

not something i think worth messing with.

My wife was drove past me last night and she said that my headlight on my bike was as bright as a car headlight! (Cygolite Expilion 850 lumen) I had a small little LED blinky on my fork and she said she did not see it. (it is pretty pathetic) She said the headlight was amazingly bright. I was also wearing reflective suspenders and she said she could not see them either. I think they work better for people coming up behind me instead of coming at me. She said that the headlight looked like a car headlight. [the low battery indicator was blinking at me at this point, good to know it is still bright] I was running it solid at this point in my ride. I sometimes switch to steady pulse. I said wait until i get my other headlight on my helmet. the problem is that I switch helmets. I guess i just need a second mount then I can move the light back and forth.

You'd think there'd be a more definitive study on whether blinking or steady light is better/safer for cyclist by now. I use both a blinking rear light on my seatpost and a steady one on the rear of my helmet, but lately I've added a blinking to my left arm and a steady one on my backpack. My philosophy is that more is always better when it comes to being visible, even if it annoys other drivers or cyclists. Hopefully they don't hit me because they're annoyed by my lights. But at least they saw me though, right?

On the front I run a steady, very bright white light in the morning, and I use the blinking mode on the afternoon ride home.

Light designers need to come up with better lights, lights that are both effective in visibility and not annoying, so we don't have to choose between two imperfections. Maybe some high quality expensive taillights have the desired modes/patterns, such as slow pulsing without going completely off at any given moment (e.g. high--low--high--low, instead of on--off--on--off), or flare/rolling/rotating patterns There are some lights with rotating patterns but they are not very bright (the makers are not very bright ).

On the contrary, what you say applies to flashing small light rather than (or much more than) steady small light. The motorist doesn't necessarily think it's far away: they cannot tell whether it's far away or close. A steady light gives them time to figure it out.

I only have one light set to flash and that is the light on the back of my helmet. All others are set to non flashing mode.

I was at an intersectoin waiting to cross the street this evening. I saw a car coming and after it passed I was about to cross (very empty street and most people cross when no car around). Then all of a sudden there was a flash of white light from a delivery guy on the bike. I didn't even know he was coming because his front light was on flash mode and was completely dark when I looked at the car and surroundings, and he was in dark clothing. If he used a steady front light it would have been very clear.

I don't care if I'm annoying someone in a vehicle and I'm pretty sure the flash mode on my Fenix BT-10 headlight is annoying. It is a brilliant flashing strobe that lights up an entire intersection and I switch it to flash just about every intersection I ride up to. Likewise, I have a PDW Danger Zone running in the back on the epileptic seizure inducing 'a-Ha' mode. Motorists seem to see me.