Again, I think it depends on where you ride. Rural riders have to be a lot more worried about overtaking collisions - we're a lot more likely to have people who are zoning out, who have been driving the same speed (often 60+ MPH) and direction with no stop for miles, they're sleepy and have had no distraction (turning, stopping, things to look at), and we have almost no cross street traffic.

In the city I can well believe that oncoming traffic is a much bigger issue than it is for me - but in my situation, I run a lot of taillight and I think it's justified, for me.

So I think as with all things on BF, we need to be careful when giving out advice that we find out the particular person's situation and make sure we're addressing them and giving them the proper caveats.

Yes. Have a look at the attached pic. 60mph / 100kph traffic. I need to go straight through the intersection (red arrow). Half the overtaking traffic wants to drop into the 500-foot right-turn lane at full speed, the other half wants to go straight.

At night, during rush hour, with lots of brake lights ahead, and a lit-up shopping center on the right, this is where the DiNotte or BULL really pay for themselves, along with secondary lights and lots of reflective material. I'm not likely to be a last-second discovery that forces someone to slam on their brakes or make an emergency maneuver. The overtaking drivers may not always make the best choices, but at least they have time to do the choosing. So this is the background I come from, I'm mixing with high-speed traffic.

If anyone's wondering, my usual strategy is to assess the overtaking traffic with my helmet mirror, assess the cross-traffic waiting at the intersection, and in almost all cases I go up the left edge of the right-turn lane, so cross-traffic can see I'm going straight through, turning traffic can pass on my right in the turn lane, and through traffic can pass on my left in the through lane. Once in a while the situation is so sketchy that I'll take the right turn and then go down Qualchan back to the highway.

This doesn't make sense. Why are you on 195 instead of High Drive. You could miss this intersection entirely.
There are a ton of alternative routes like Cedar road if you want something on the other side of 195.

The above is not for just fatalities but for all reported accidents to the USDOT. Yes, I would consider 9% (rounding up) to be a small number compared to the other modes.

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.

Considering that the statistics are for all reported accidents and not just fatalities, I take them at face value. The data, from what I can gather, is based on 698 fatalities and 43,000 injuries. That's a pretty good number of 'nondead' witnesses riding bikes

I have no idea where you got the idea that I see the motorist as blameless, either. Any kind of overtaking accident or, for that matter, more than half of the modes of accidents reported were the fault of the motorist.

High Drive / Cedar would certainly be the direct route, but I'm taking a longer route to get more riding in. It's helping me lose weight! Here's a Gmap of my usual route, which is obviously not about getting to/from work in the minimum possible distance:



Well, there's the "OMG factor" that makes the motorist think twice about even getting alongside in the first place

Just to be clear: I agree with uke that you shouldn't ride at night without a taillight. I won't ride without at least 5 Only a fool would do so.

I just don't agree with him that overtaking collisions are a high percentage of collisions between bicycles and automobiles. Most of the collisions are going to be because someone failed to yield right of way properly. The majority of those are the fault of the motorist. However, most people are worried about being hit from behind and plan accordingly. Getting hit from the side or from someone turning in front of you (left or right) is far more common and could be much better avoided by the judicious use of front lighting. Most people think that something like a Fenix L2D is more then adequate. I think that much light is just barely adequate. If you ain't givin' 'em a 3rd degree sunburn, you ain't got enough light

Just to clarify:

As long as states grant driving rights to incompetent people there will never be enough
light's, reflectors et.al. to ensure a cyclist from harm to life and limb.

MORE IS ALWAYS BETTER!!

To make a point about this one --

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.

From my memory about the DOT data, I believe you are incorrect about the summary for type of accidents including injury only accidents. The links to the actual data on the MassBike site that you referenced are kaput.

Fine, you don't consider a motorist who comes from behind and "merges" into a bicyclist as an overtaking accident. Neither does John Forester, by doing so it helps him keep the incidence of "wrong" type of accidents down, what's your agenda?

Again, I believe you are in error about this summary of accident scenarios.
That's not what I see on this site about what these "statistics" include. Where is there any association of injuries with crash type/location (overtaking, left turn, intersection, sidewalk, etc.)?

And of course none of these "statistics" are evaluated for the exposure of the cycling population to the various scenarios. i.e. Road cyclist are seldom exposed to suidewalk collisions; sidewalk/bike path/bike lane cyclists may have much less exposure to overtaking accidents.

True, and your point is in agreement with my observation that the exposure to overtaking, especially at high speed, is not necessarily equal among all cycling populations. Those numerous city riders who choose to ride on sidewalks, bike lanes and even door zones rather than "take lanes" on busy, speedy, or narrow streets, presumably reduces their exposure to overtaking accidents. That numerous cyclists refuse to cycle at all on high speed roads, unless on a shoulder or some other alternative, thus almost eliminating their exposure to overtaking accidents also needs to be considered when discussing how "few" cyclists are hurt or killed by overtaking type accidents.

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you are. I realize now that the links for the Mass Bike site are broken. But you are working from memory. Even at that, the frequency of direct rear end collisions is still low, your paranoia not withstanding.

I have no agenda, other than to point out that people plan for an accident scenario that of a low frequency while failing to plan for an accident scenario that is of a much higher frequency, i.e. lots of rear light and very little forward light, relatively speaking. A very bright forward light (~10 times what the current batch of LED flashlights put out) would also go a long way towards keeping people from right hooking or merging into cyclist.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a believer in Forester's stuff. I know from your past posts that he's your red flag but I'm not waving it.

What's your agenda? Do you use a cannonball above your pop gear or just downriggers?

The Mass Bike site is only a summary and has dead links. You certainly can't expect such detail in a summary.

Road cyclists are certainly exposed to driveway and intersection accidents with similar frequency as sidewalk/MUP riders. Bike lane users would have about the same frequency of overtaking accidents as road riders. But then I don't categorize cyclists as either road users or MUP users. I don't ride exclusively on either and, I suspect, neither do most riders. At least not from what I see here.

Another great discussion with some very thoughtful posters.

Just wondering if the bike data include age groups of riders?
Also whether time of day is included.......just wondering if nighttime riding involves many accidents?
Yes, I realize that the numerator (# of accidents at night) needs a meaningful denominator: person hours of night riding or something similar...........just wondering.......

It might just be that the people who go to the trouble of commuting in the dark are also more likely to take the time to consider increased safety...........just a guess.........

Lately, I am hearing about near misses and unfortunately about one accident with a cyclist: all the cyclists were "ninjas." This I do not understand.........

I admire your bravery.........That would be too scary for me to ride in that situation.........

I forgot to mention the actual scary part: we all might be doing this dance on an ice rink. Here's a look back towards the intersection:

My agenda? Manipulation and misunderstanding of numbers and poorly defined/gathered stats to misrepresent risk, especially bicycle riding risk,raises my hackles. I used to give instruction on managing risk in an industrial setting; the numbers, stats and analyses bandied about on BF to demonstrate relative risk and "sell" the effectiveness of various countermeasures usually only demonstrates the posters' obtuseness or ignorance of the subject of risk determination.

Extrapolating anything about "most riders" from what you read from the narrow, self selecting slice of the bicycling population found on BF, especially the Commuting or A & S lists may be leading you astray. From what I see on BF Commuting, the posters are for the most part, quite unrepresentative of the bicycling population as a whole in almost every metric both in personal and equipment characteristics, as well as typical cycling routines.

I understand your desire to increase distance, but I would still change it. I would drop off somewhere between marker 11 & 12, head west across empire and the merge back up at mile 16. The intersection you were highlighting in first photo is way too risky for me. Accident data seems to indicate that bikes should not be on any road where speed limit is above 50.

Dropping off between mile 11 and 12 would require crossing private property and swimming across a medium-sized creek

Actually, that's the inbound leg of the commute anyway... I only have to deal with the Cheney-Spokane cutoff on the homebound leg. The best alternative route would be to actually take the right-hand turn at Cheney-Spokane Road, go about 3/4 mile and hang left on Qualchan, then follow Qualchan back to 195.

But once I'd returned to 195, I'd still have to run the second similar gauntlet at 195 & Meadowlane Road anyway, because it also has a big ol' right-turn lane. There's no bypassing that one. And I still have to merge left to the median to get off Highway 195 onto Hatch. There's really no help for it, but I'm making an effort to be very highly visible (and to be fully aware of the overtaking traffic and what it's doing):

Current LED flashlights are regularly putting out 500-700 lumens of light, depending on how close you are to the cutting edge. Do you think cyclists need 7000 lumens in front, or are you referring to the nightlight-equivalent "bike lights" sold in most bike shops? If the former, I'd have to disagree with you. If the latter, you should probably note those as such, and distinguish them from the modern and readily available technology in LED flashlights.

The most popular LED flashlight suggested on the Bike Forums is the Fenix L2D. The maximum output on those is 130 lumens. Yes, there are some flashlights out there that are becoming more popular with outputs that are approaching 500-700 lumens and I'm quite glad of that. 130 lumens is a pretty poor light for urban conditions. More ambient light sources require more light output.

The 10x number is based upon the output of the Fenix, not the higher output LED flashlights. I see many people riding with a lot less than even the L2D...or I should say I barely see them

I'm not trying to 'sell' anything. The nightmare scenario...being run down from behind by a motorist...is a relatively small fraction of accidents involving cars and bikes. It's the scenario that we cyclist fear the most and plan for the most. Ask anyone what kind of accident they fear and that's the one the will come to mind first and foremost. Night riders plan for it the most by having a whole bunch of illumination to the back (I do so myself). However, there are other accident modes that occur in higher percentages. Even the summary shows that. Left turns in front of cyclist, pull outs from side streets and driveways and failure to yield right-of-way (on both parties part) are all far more common. Even if you lump right hooks and mergers in with being hit from behind, the other modes have a higher frequency.

I don't include right hooks and merging errors in with run down type of accidents for the simple fact that I don't consider them as "accidents". If a motorist runs over a bicycle from directly behind, I can see it as being inattentive and truly an accident. The motorist isn't blameless but it's still an accident. A right hook or merger "accident" is a decision by the motorist to pass the bicycle and turn in front of them. That isn't an "accident" but a blatant move by the motorist.

By the statement "At least not from what I see here," I didn't mean here as in the Bike Forums but physically here in Denver. Sorry for the confusion. However, I find the posters here on the Bike Forums to be about as representative in terms of riding styles and equipment as the mix in the Denver Metro area.

I've been trying to be car-free since the summer, and had my first two attempts at riding in the dark this week. First off, the crappy $30 multiple-LED head lights I had been buying from Perf are pretty damned disappointing. I'll keep the ones that flash, hopefully so I can be seen. They are worthless for lighting the road.

Last week I got a $17 Cree flashlight from DealExtreme (can't remember which one) that runs on two AAs, that beats every bike light I've ever owned (maybe five different brands). I will be mounting that next, maybe to my helmet. Amazingly, even the tiny single AA model I bought seems brighter than my bike lights. Don't know about run-time, but that one's just a toy/gift anyway.

Tonight I got a PB Blinky tail light in the mail (along with a new B17!), which I will definitely mount to my helmet, so it will be available regardless of which bike I happen to be on when the sun sets.

Just go all out with one of these:
https://www.drillspot.com/products/45...arricade_Light
https://www.drillspot.com/products/45...arricade_Light

Seen one guy with the below mounted, can't miss seeing him.
https://www.drillspot.com/products/79...Portable_Light

Seriously, a reflective safety vest, good lighting, and reflective tape/pants and wrists velcro reflectors/wheel reflectors is as good as it gets if you ride at night a lot. Cars will see the reflective vest first and at distance.

i see these on the road and i've been thinking about ripping on off and putting it on the bike. these Barricade Lights are 360 degree view, can be seen from 1000meters away, they come in red or yellow. the solar ones need 8 hour charge to last for 5 nights, can be steady or flashing. 1.5-2lbs, so pretty heavy. runs between 75-113 lumens...only wory is a cop pulling you over and asking where you stole the light from. solar ones are on ebay for 50bucks with shipping

dunno about the battery 6v and 12v, on how bright or how long they last.

Motorist "intent" is not a factor when measuring risk for cyclists; except for those who wish to redefine the commonly understood language to fit their own agenda (or whatever is the reason they may wish to downplay the significance of specific cycling accident scenarios.)

You mean in Denver Metro area there are few cyclists who are less than 21 or are students that are not also wrapped up in cycling exotica? Ya mean a very high percentage of Denver Metro area cyclists belong to cycling clubs, and are usually seen wearing helmets, bicycling unique clothing and pedal-shoe combinations on LBS sourced bikes, or ride various enthusiast specials like dropped handlebar road bikes, recumbants and fixies? Ya mean few Denverites ride low cost bikes sold at the various xmart/department stores?

Ya mean few Denver cyclists only ride short distances or only ride around their own neighborhood or in the parks on the weekend? If so BF cyclists, especially the commuting forum would be pretty representative of the Denver Metro area cyclist population.

Somehow, I am guessing that the Denver Metro Area cyclists you see that closely fit the BF poster profile may not represent all of the Denver Metro area.