Even his thread title here has two errors in it...

Visibility: Being Seen at Night

I think he is just trying to fit in here, with the pervasive use of horrible gramer, tipos, random Capitalization, and the like . . .

Good post, but the post #1 and book mention at the end sounds suspiciously like a shill situation for his upcoming book on safety.

Here's the easy answer:
- Buy 2 PBSF's for night riding, keep the batteries well charged, and you're good to go in 99%+ of nonhighway bike riding. (Get a DiNotte if you're on highways a lot.)

I wear a backpack at all times when commuting. For the ride home at 1:00 a.m., one blinkie clipped directly to the back of the pack, one in the mesh left side blinking at a different frequency, one clipped to the seatpost blinking on random (all three different models), and a Magicshine up front. Reflective ankle bands and a 90 lumen mini flash mounted to my helmet.

And very frequent glances over my left shoulder and when approaching traffic stops in all directions. This is the most important part.

True.

I think that you are referring to the "Moth Effect." I wouldn't worry about it. It's very unlikely to play a role in car-bicycle accidents.


1. Placing to much faith in point source lights, moving or otherwise.
2. Dismissing the value of a reflective vest
3. Failing to appreciate that driver expectation is a major factor whether you are seen
4. Overestimating visibility to drivers.
5. Blaming drivers. Sure, sometime drivers make conscious decisions that cause an accident. In many cases, however, drives fail to see bicyclists because of the unconscious limitations inherent in human perception. In either case, you can't do anything about it. You have no control over drivers and they are not going to change anytime soon.. All you have control over is yourself and your own actions. This is the biggest piece of safety advice anyone could give you.

There's a guy around here I've seen a few times while driving at night. He's got some incredible lights pointing forwards, and good, bright blinking stuff pointed back. Every time I've seen him, what's clued me in that "that's a bike!" has been his pedal reflectors. If you're riding at night, taking off the rotating reflectors that came with the bike is less than clever.

Clipless pedals, and a lot of after-market platform pedals don't come with reflectors, though, so it's not a matter of un-clever people taking them off, in many cases, hence the suggestion to add a reflective strap.

Your bike came with at least two rotating reflectors, even if it does have defective pedals.

I don't agree with #4, about the night riding. I don't know about other cities but at night the roads in Tallahassee are almost bare, it's when I feel most comfortable taking the lane because nobody has trouble going around me. I have my magicshine either on my helmet or handlebars, and my blinkie on the back of my helmet. Many times at night, I come up with useless errands because it is the best time of the day to be on a bicycle.
Those looking for side visibility should look into the Bright Bike kit. I ride a red bike and aim to buy yellow reflective bands to cover the frame. If I'm hit by someone who does not notice the WacArnolds bike, they need to lose their license.

You mean those things on the wheels that drivers won't see until they're about to t-bone you? Utterly useless from a safety perspective.

My pedals aren't defective.

I don't think side visibility really helps unless you plan on sitting in the middle of an intersection for a while.

Totally agree with you re: #4 and night riding. It would be ridiculous to not ride after dark if you are using a bicycle for transportation. If you live in the city you probably have the option of sticking with low-speed roads, but if you live in the country you have no choice but to ride on high speed roads.

I've found riding on quiet country roads at night, first of all you notice easily when there is traffic coming. And secondly with little light pollution the traffic sees you from hundreds of yards away and slows right down to near zero as they try to figure out WTF is on the road (yes I agree most places in NA drivers on fast roads do not expect to see cyclists after dark)

I don't think riding on gravel shoulders or shoulders where there is likely to be debris when your own visibility is already reduced is a good idea at all...

Having a mirror is good so you can use the shoulder as an "escape route" if the headlights are not moving over.

Randonneurs do a lot of night riding, and it's required to have a reflective vest and ankle bands. These are very effective. I have overtaken riders at night with very bright lights, and the reflective gear stands out as much or more than the lights. Roads with high speed limits tend to have very good sight lines, so I'm not sure that it's any more problematic to ride on these roads at night than any other road. In fact, if you are going to ride on a road with high speed limits, in many cases you may be more visible.

I've lived in a lot of states, and I've always heard it referred to as a California stop . ID cyclist laws are good.

All good points I'll add these few thoughts:

Riding in rain... be extra allert. Visability tends to be awful so even when I wear a full ANSI Class III rain coat and have multiple top notch lights in the front and rear I've still have some close calls.

Riding in snow... being from the Buffalo area snow it pretty much unavoidable in the winter. Strangely in the Winter the worse the weather, the more room cars tend to give me. The other good thing is that everybody is moving slowly.

On a nice Summer's night is when I've had some of my closest calls with cars brushing by with inches to spare. It seems that the better the weather the less alert the drivers are and the more likely they are to underestimate just how closely they are passing.

I personally do enjoy riding at night. It can be a very zen like experience.

Happy riding,
André

The problem with staying on a sidewalk is that the sidewalk usually ends up intersecting roads and driveways.

Driveways are really terrible, for reasons from terrible visibility (fences, trees that keep you from seeing the car and the car from seeing you) to the fact that the guy backing out his large SUV can't even see in your direction a lot of times. He can barely see the road he's backing out onto. With modern car design, a lot of small and medium size cars are now like this as well - can't see anything hardly when backing up.

When you intersect roads, the only way to be completely as safe as a pedestrian is to get off your bike and walk across like a pedestrian. Otherwise, you sometimes cannot be seen on the sidewalk because of barriers (fences, trees, etc) between you and turning cars, and often cars are not looking for high speed vehicles on the sidewalk, or they already have to much to look for themselves without adding sidewalks in - cars going the way they're turning, cars turning in their path, cars going straight in their path.

There are a certain number of areas I ride on the sidewalk myself as well - I'd rather act as a pseudo pedestrian for a short stretch and avoid crazy road conditions before getting back on my regular bike path or good stretch of road. Just be aware that you need to treat every intersection like a death-trap where cars can't see you - only ride fast across it if you can clearly see the necessary distance in every direction cars come from, and if you can't stop or nearly stop and look around before crossing - cautiously.

Reflective vest or sash, IIRC. There's plenty of randos here using a shoulder/waist sash, or a reflective harness like the AmphiPod (my favourite).
Either way you're right. The reflective gear is usually more eye-catching than tail lights.

Whether anyone agrees with all points being made or not; some of these are perhaps valid points to consider while riding at night.....

Also, not a bad way to direct traffic to one's website. Google the name, and voila, Dr. Marc Green at your service.

I'm not sure about that last part, but while you can always see taillights (since they put out light, rather than just reflecting it) while reflective material is much more picky about whether you can see it (someone else has to shine a light on it).

I'm sure both is best. But if you had to choose one, I'd stick with the light for sure.