Basically, you need something flashy to protect your from all four directions. Headlights/ rear flashers do little to protect you from side streets.

+1

I have reflective sidewalls on my tires and a Down Low Glow dual (one light mounted on the down tube, the other on the left chainstay). I still want to get some yellow reflective tape for the sides of the bike, including a reflective sheet for my bucket panniers.

When it comes to bicycle lights and reflectors, too much is never enough.

+2

There are a ton of inexpensive options now for front fork side lights to protect you from side streets/driveways

Here's a sample list


niterider tl 5.0 , 5 led's, AAA battery, $10
https://www.rei.com/product/731473

mpi safety flasher, $10, 5 leds, AA battery
https://www.rei.com/product/735043

cateye lt130, $10, 3 led's
https://www.rei.com/product/745547

cateye td150, $15, 5 led's
https://www.rei.com/product/745549

planet bike, $16
https://www.rei.com/product/756356

I've had good luck with the MPI and cat 150. After 3 years one bulb on MPI burned out. Worst was I lost it on a hard bump and didn't notice until the next day. Advantage of MPI is amber lens to match what drivers are expecting, and amber allows more light thru than red. The TD 150 is not bad, it's advantage is it mounts closer to the forks and so is more aero looking.

It's time to put up or shut up. If you have other information that support your contention that the statistics of the study quoted by Mass Bike are wrong, post them! If your agenda is to correct them, then do so. So far you have presented no information to support your contention that the number of cyclist hit from behind is a high percentage of bicycle/automobile accidents than those reported. All you been is your usual contentious self


The Bike Forum 'profile' I see...both here in Denver and on-line...is of a wide diversity of cyclists from many age groups, equipment levels and income levels. I see people who ride very nice bikes to people riding Goodwill specials. I see equipment freaks and equipment luddites. All you have to do is look at the pictures that people so proudly post of very inexpensive bikes.

The rest of your rant is just too much sputtering and spitting flecks of foam to make any sense whatsoever.

Ah, Ye Olde Argumentum ad Ignorantiam ploy, i.e. Shifting The Burden Of Proof !
It is apparent that logical argument makes no sense to you either.

You are the one making an unsupported claim about relative risk of various cycling scenarios without sufficient data to support it. You don't support your claim by redefining the English language to meet your need to prove that adequate data is not necessary to determine relative risk. Nor do you support your claims by conjuring the missing data to fill in the fatal (to intelligent risk analysis) inadequacies of the skimpy data provided in your references.

I made NO claim that any specific scenario is low or high risk. I am saying that NO credible determination of relative risk for any type of scenario can be determined from the skimpy and inadequate data that you have referenced.

Sidenote:
I have never read a more single silly statement about defining risk than your obtuse argument about how merging collisions don't "count" because of your speculation about the involved motorists' intent.

They have the 4 "D" battery LED ones if weight is a concern. Supposed to last longer than the 6V lantern batteries in flashing mode.

Glad I read this thread last night. I went out and checked one of my two commuter bikes. I was pretty surprised to see it was missing front and wheel reflectors! I fixed that before today's ride.

PS. this serious night riding is fairly new to me.

Should we make this a sticky?

wow, our bikes must be distant relatives, I also have yellow reflective tape on my fenders, and white SOLAS tape on my rims. Stripes of engineer-grade white tape on the frame, too. I don't have as many lights as you, though.

Here's a picture in low light with flash, pre-SOLAS installation.

A home-built 2W LED up front and a Cateye TL-LD1100 in the back. My commute is only a mile, a straight shot with only 1 slight curve. Coworkers tell me both lights are insanely bright (at 10PM). Keeps me from getting run over.

I only have one light up front that I usually keep on blink in the city and only switch to solid light on the darker back road on my ride.

In back I have a big bright red blinky/solid light that I will usually keep on blink mode and a small dinky red light that came with my saddle that I usually keep on solid.

I also have a day-glo yellow construction vest with white and orange relfective strips that I put over my backpack at night. I think that's what saves me the most. Those little lights make you visible but are also small and hard to judge distance/location sometimes. Having my whole backpack glow yellow though makes me feel pretty damn confident that I'm going to be seen.

For christmas I might get those little blinking lights that attach to the axles and are generated from the magnets on the spokes just for the hell of being extra visible now that its going to be winter and **** road conditions.

I wouldn't mind having one of these on the back:

https://www.pf-flares.com/

Depending on how those 128,000 mcds were measured, this could potentially be a useful light.

After studying this thread, I feel like I should weigh in.

The Massachusetts study is very interesting, but other studies (like the ongoing UNC study) show a significantly lower measure of overtake collisions (i.e., around 3%). Like Mark Twain says, "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." All of these studies necessarily suffer sampling skew (like, only measuring emergency room visits, or police reports, etc.)

That being said, the risk of motorists failing to yield the right of way (left cross, pulling out from cross streets) is still the single greatest risk we face when riding after dark. I've given up riding on SR-8 between Beaverton and Hillsboro; even though it is well lit with a bike lane, the bright lighting and huge number of driveways for businesses work against me; I feel like I'm at risk about every hundred feet for a T-bone. (BTW, there are better routes out there anyway, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.)

So, shame on you folks who ride without a front light. You think that the front light is for you to be able to see? Hey, unless you're out in the middle of Yamhill County in the middle of the night, the most important purpose of a front light is for others to see you. There is a(n in)famous collision in Eugene Oregon in the 1970's. Night time: one bicyclist was cruising down the hill, the other pulled out from a cross street. Neither had lights. Both died.

No one has mentioned the specific advantage that a helmet mounted light gives. On almost every ride it seems I see a car pull up short when I lift my head slightly and look in their direction. When I'm very worried, I'll even shake my head as I look at them, thereby creating a flashing image.

Kudos for the anecdote about the dork who managed to drive full tilt into an emergency vehicle ensemble. To paraphrase, "there are none so blind as those who will not see." In spite of any attempts we make to become more visible, all of must--unfortunately--assume that we are invisible. Motorcyclists know this, and hey, they run a helluva lot more lighting than bicycles.

Next, there is a great benefit to redundancy. Lights fail. If you have only one light and it goes out, well, it sucks to be you. Bob Mionske points out in his book that having fully redundant light sources can even be part of a legal defense if you get hit, since it shows a heightened level of due care on your part.

There has been a discussion on bikeportland about the relative efficacy of blinking versus steady lights. Although blinking lights are arguably more visible, they can also be a distraction. To give you an idea of how serious this is, blinking lights attached to a bicycle are flat out illegal in Germany. International randonneur rules require that at least one of your lights, both front and rear, be steady--not blinking. YMMV, just give it some thought.

I'll conclude by sharing my lighting setup. I commute in a suburban area, with a mix of well-lit and very dark sections. I'll say that a January night in full rainfall with the cloud ceiling at about 150 feet is pretty adverse lighting conditions. On the front I run a MiNewt X2 on my helmet, another MiNewt on the handlebars, and a Trinewt on the handlebars. In full dark, I run all of these at full intensity, no blinking.

Rear facing I have a Planet Bike Superflash (wonderful!) doing its Annoying Strobe Thing and a Blackburn running as a steady point source. Finally, I have a second Blackburn attached to my left ankle in flashing mode. This adds the sinusoidal up-and-down motion characteristic of pedaling to the light.

P.S. -- Don't forget reflective clothing as well. I have reflective ankle bands and glo-glovs.

I didn't vote, because I have a head light and a tail light, not an option in the poll.

There is no such thing as 'too much,' but I think I have enough; it's mostly a matter of whether the tail light is bright enough, and mine is.

...and, as I said before, remember that not everyone rides in the same environment as you do. On my route, there is almost NO opportunity for anyone to hit me in a left cross, pullout, or other such front-end collision. The route is nearly all rural, and there's only one significant cross street. Furthermore, I'm heading from the country into town in the morning; hardly anyone is going the other way. I'll have 30 cars pass me in the 10 miles of my commute, and 0 or 1 car come the other way.

For *ME*, rear lighting is very important, because almost all the cars I encounter are approaching from the rear, at night, probably not fully awake, and there's NOTHING else on the road (not even other cars, really) nor any stop signs/lights or anything, to make them wake up.

Front lighting is also very important, because it's pitch black otherwise; I need a light good enough to see potholes in the gravel road, ruts in the ice, and the deer that are crossing the road ahead.

That's not typical, but I really believe that EVERYONE has a unique ride experience. It's good to relate your experiences, but it's also important to remember not to tell other people what to do; your solution may not be their best solution.

Personally I just bought Dinotte lights front and back. The rear light makes me feel safer in my situations.

I run multiple redundant systems.

Headlights:
- SON28 hub with E3 symmetrical
- Helmet mounted Princeton Tec Quad (4 LED, 4 mode, battery powered)

Taillights:
- dual PBSF blinkies, one mounted on a saddle bag and steady, one on the seat stay and blinking

Reflectors:
- Front white and red rear as required by RCW
- Scotchlite tape on all frame tubes (visible from front, side and rear of bike)
- Scotchlite tape on fenders (visible from rear and sides)
- Scotchlite tape on helmet (visible from all angles)
- Vinyl reflective trim on saddle bag
- Vinyl reflective ankle bands (both legs)

-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

For drivers pulling out from side streets you need a bright headlight that will cast a beam ahead of where you are going. I personally like a helmet headlight because then I can direct it towards the driver which may not be looking my way.

Here's actually an interesting question for those of you that don't run redundant lighting systems. What do you do if you lose, break, or have a light stolen, or unexpectedly run out of batteries? I've popped into a corner store to buy batteries before but lights are harder to pick up in a pinch. Do you just ride home dark?

I ask because my superflash was stolen last night after midnight, and so I rode home tail-lightless. I didn't feel too nervous (although slightly) as I had a reflective vest, rear reflector and reflective pannier, unlike the totally black totally reflectiveless lightless riders that seem to keep living around downtown Toronto. And a mirror, to see any headlights approaching too closely

Hoping someone really needed that light rather than more likely a drunk bike-less idiot that thought it was fun to blink it at others.

I used to run a single NiMH rechargable light up front, until the day I was out riding and it got dark... and my battery was down to 15 minutes of runtime when I was 15 miles from home. I had to take the unlit paths and sidestreets back to my place by moonlight.

For anyone getting lights stolen (I just saw a post on CL about someone up here who had a light and a saddlebag stolen): Take stuff inside with you. How tough is it to take clip your taillight inside your pocket? Obviously it's not difficult to remove, since someone else walked off with it.
One of my PBSF lights is clipped to a blinkie loop, but secured with a cable tie. Someone has to rip the bag, steal the whole bag, or snip the tie to steal it. My E3 is hardmounted to the bike. It takes 2 wrenches to remove the lamphead from the mount, and then there are 4 cable ties securing the wiring down the fork to the hub. That sucker's not coming off without a fight.

i do this, but its anoying and time consuming. i'd be willing to ride with more lights, only if i didn't have to take them off. i know it takes 5-10 to take it off and drop it in my bag, but still. i got a Q5, P7 flashlights, a superflash and mars 3.0. if i could somehow weld(or a plastic glue that welds and won't break off) the lights to my bike maybe, but a hoes clamp just isn't enough security for a +20dollar light that takes less that to walk off with. maybe i'm paranoid and cheap.

i also remove my saddle bag or just leave it in my messnger bag, again a nuseince, in addition stiping off my relfective vest, pull over orange pants, gloves, orange sunglasses, relftive ankle bands/wrist band, balcava and stuffing them all into a bag. its rather time consuming and anoying. worst part is leaving, pull all that crap back on takes twice as long.

At the very least travel with a cheap blinky stashed somewhere for backup. You could use it forward or backward facing depending on what you need (emergency purposes only).

A handle bar light and a helmet light. This time of year cars coming out of side roads or
intersections usually don't have thier side windows degogged /defrosted.
(sheer laziness) The helmet light shining on thier window usually gets thier
attention.
Rear seat post blinkie, on my pack and one on my helmet.
I noticed other riders with one small rear blinkie in heavy traffic.
The light spill from cars still won't show thier bicycle forms on dark streets.
That"s why I opt for the 3 lights at different levels.

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.

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.


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.