Just because your rear blinkie is blinking doesn't mean it's doing anything useful

Being both a cyclist and an occasional driver in the GTA, I am seeing more and more the dangerous activity by cyclists of putting and using a red light (flashing or not) on the front of their bikes. AND the same idiotic people with a white light on the rear of their bikes!

Is this some kind of new fad? Do they think that they look cool or something??

Now think a minute. Driving along and seeing a flashing red light, in the bike lane: whats it tell you? Well the bike is moving away from you in the same direction, right? So when the bike lane line becomes dotted (meaning that vehicles can move to the right to make a turn) and I almost crash into (run down) a cyclist COMING toward me, on the wrong side of the road with a flashing red light on the front of his bike!

Any vocabulary exchange with most of these cyclists results in a flurry of profanity and ” you’re in the bike lane”.and “its my light I’ll put it anywhere I want to”!

So when I’m out riding my bike after dark and I see this happening and try to tell them that it is wrong and that they could get run over?? I just mind my own business as suggested. Take a ride on the monthly Critical Mass and see how many fashionistas think its cool to put their light backwards.

If the Police won’t police cyclists, maybe its time for cyclists to police cyclists!

On my recent ride home, I saw two riders decked out in black from hat to coat to pants to socks to shoes, riding bicycles with no lights, and it was getting dark. Either these were commandos on a night mission, or they're being awfully silly. Both of them were well out of the downtown core, so it's not like they were ironic hipsters on their way to their Lee's Palace gig or wherever it is that ironic hipsters ride downtown.

Be very careful, if they discover they were detected they make come back and assassinate you.

Wow, tonight about 6pm dark [within 1 block of Jarvis and Carlton] I see 2 bikes both with flashing red blinky's on the front and rear of their bikes, and a girl with 2 red on the front and nothing on the rear! .

So last night, I was riding down Palmerston/Tecumseth from Harbord to Niagara and while crossing College had a near miss with another cyclist who was using a (white) blinky as a headlight. Either he turned the thing on when he saw me, or the blinks happened for enough apart that my check for oncoming traffic was able to fit entirely between them.

Where the law requires a light, it requires a steady light. There are reasons for this. If you want the added attention-grab of a blinking light, then use a steady light and a blinky. Just don't rely on a blinking light alone to make you visible, no matter how good a blinky it is.

Thanks Ed, for the good advice, and for starting a thread with (mostly) useful ideas.

Here are a few thoughts on what makes a good light:
1. Size - Mountable 1-Watt LED models are way brighter than froggies and turtles. Spend the extra $15 and make yourself a lot more visible.
2. AA or AAA batteries - You can easily replace the batteries when they die, plus you can buy rechargables and save waste, $$$, and time (by always having a spare set at home charged and ready to go).
3. Colour - Odd that people are having trouble with this one, but: White in the front, Red in the rear.
4. (most importantly) Existence - Get some lights! You're invisible without them! If you get hit, the police are going to let the driver go, ticket your now-crippled ass, and possibly make you pay for the damage to the car! Lights are a one-time cost that's about the same price as a single tank of gas. Invest in your ride!
5. Number - If you run two whites and two reds, when one inevitably dies, you have a backup. Also, if you position them horizontally, it's easy for people to tell how far away you are as they approach you (perspective). Also, see kiwano's point above.
6. Attachment - I've noticed that the mount on my front white sometimes comes loose on potholes and bumps, so I've learned to check it multiple times per ride, especially right after installation.

Here's what I use:
Front - 2x MEC Shark One Watt LED Light (1W LED, $12.50 @ MEC)
Rear - 2x Portland Design Works Radbot 1000 Rear Light (1W LED, $17.50 @ MEC)

Anyone running those $100+ Li-ion models? Overkill for city riding, but I imagine they're useful in the styx. I've heard Li-ion batteries run better that alkaline/NiMH in cold weather.

What about side lights? Overkill? What colour should they be?

What about side lights? Overkill? What colour should they be?

http://gf.nd.gov/images/boat-lights-2.gif

Years ago, I rode without lights. That was the '70s, age of disco and weird haircuts. That was then.

As a fairly quick urban/suburban rider, I'm much more worried about being seen from the front than from behind. That's because I will often sprint up to 35 km/h + to make it across the intersection before the red (countdown walk signals really help). I don't need a car turning across my path, either a facing left turner or a side-street right turner.

I run a very old-school Cateye (at least 20 years old) and a Vistalite 6W (15 years old). Both use rechargable batteries, although I never fully trust the Cateye's elderly NiCd C-cells.

As someone who also drives, I find a blinking red rear light to be more noticable than a steady red light, espeically in traffic with plenty of other red lights of different sizes and shapes. So I keep my rear blinkie blinking (and the batteries fresh).

The front lights I aim straight out in an attempt to make me look like an oncoming freight train. Lots of times I see drivers planning to pull out, who see my lights and stop dead: "whoa, what's that?"

I'm not sure that having two lights side-by-side is a great idea. A careless assumption is that you're a car a long way away (and therefore ignorable) rather than a bicycle closer by.

Really bright front lilghts helps against dooring I assume. You need more than the minimum lumens to make an impression in their side-view mirror.

Most of my "didn't you see me??!?" experiences have been in broad daylight. I think that good lighting at night actually can make you more 'visible' than wearing bright cycling clothes at noon. That's because at noon, you are clearly a bicyclist, and maybe not worth notice; at night with a bright light, no one knows you're a bicycle.

I have the Planet Bike Superflash on the rear along with 1w on the front...I generally have them set to blink (their blink patterns are kind of crazy & very active if you're not familiar with them). I can see the use in having a steady one on the rear too. I also have this on my bike...also has solid and 2 different blinking modes http://bikeglow.com/ plus reflective tape on every spoke front and rear. I probably look like a freakin' christmas tree coming down the street but hey...at least hopefully people are taking notice. I know it would be beneficial of me to get more color/reflectivity in my clothing/helmet so as I'm replacing or needing to buy new things, I'm making it more of a priority.

K, this thread got me excited about lighting--not gonna lie, it was the boat pic--so I went to MEC with the goal of figuring out a side-light system. Found that if I hang a pair of these...

http://www.mec.ca/Products/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524...

...off my helmet straps, one on each side, blinking, I can create the distinct illusion that I'm wearing a pair of lit-up police cruisers as earrings.

Because bicycles normally are to the right side of the road, it can be hard for cross-traffic to see you coming. A better headlight with a good beam spread will help a lot here, as will riding further out from parked cars, sidewalk hedges, and the like.

Too bad so many bicycle lamps put out a circular beam. We really could use a car-headlight-like beam, that's wide and not too high. At least that's the case for urban riding.

I've done a couple of the 24 hours of adrenaline events, and yes, you do need a round beam because of the extreme elevation and slope changes. Too bad most of the high-end lights seem to be for this kind of off-road riding.

My old Cateye HL-500 (http://www.cateye.com/en/product_detail/265), that I still use, has optics producing a nice wide beam from a not-very-bright bulb. I wonder if the HL-EL135 (http://www.cateye.com/en/product_detail/343) is the LED successor to the HL-500.

Anyway, you want the car to know you're coming, rather than you're right in front of them, as by then it will likely be too late.

I'm having an issue with my front light staying steady. It always sinks down on my bumpy ride. Using a standard clamp that comes with MEC lights. I tried some tape on the handlebar, but it doesn't really help. I will try to rig something myself.

Open to suggestions though for better clamp systems.

I very much agree with the post though. I'm a Weekday cyclist and weekend driver. I see a lot of bad behavior from cyclists and it works against me as a cyclist as far as gaining respect and credibility as a road vehicle. That said, I find the whole war between cyclists and drivers is blown out of proportion, I find people are generally good on the road. Most common I get is drivers getting confused when I act like a car and use the proper lanes to do my turns. Nothing negative ever came out of it, rather puzzled looks and confusion.

Most bike lights come with a rubber strip or two that fits between the clamp (light) and bike tube or handlebar; any bike shop should be able to supply one if you're rubber-less.

b/c my bike is older and has narrow handlebars I couldn't get the light mount tight enough to stay upright even with two sets of the rubber liners that come with. So for a while I undermounted it so it was under the handlebars = less topheavy= more steady. But I got tired of not being able to aim it - so i put an (uninflated) balloon I had inside the mount and its done the trick - I can't speak to long-term durability but two months in it seems fine. Anything like that should (in theory) work eg one of the nitrile gloves I use when I'm working on my bike was a second choice.

I recycled a piece of inner tube I found on the sidewalk outside the local bike shop!

MEC sell these for $7.50 - Nite Ize SpokeLit LED Wheel Light
They fasten onto the spokes and show up nicely from the side.
If you put one on constant beam and go at 30kmh it looks like an unbroken circle of light - my 9 year old son is very jealous :-)

There have been studies that show drunk drivers are attracted to blinking lights. That's why many cops have been hit making traffic stops after dark....with all their flashing lights. A steady light gives a point of reference for closing distance.
Also, low batteries make dim lights. If you have to use batteries keep the charge up. I've used a Schmidt Naben Dynamo hub generator light for 10 years. It has great focus and it also lights my led tail light.

I've heard of the flashing-light-drunk-attraction studies, but have not examined them in detail. I would not assume that the experience of police cars with hundreds of watts of flashing lights on the side of an unlit high-speed freeway would scale well to the experience of bicycles with AAA-powered blinkies on city streets. (Plus typically bicycles aren't on the roads much when drunk drivers are.)

I do recall that in the UK, the law said that rear lights could not blink, and had to be steady. This caused some controversy on Usenet, and whether the law has changed I don't know.

Nevertheless, when I was cycling in the UK, I used the blinking mode. (Downtown Glasgow to the airport....starting at midnight on a Friday.....having only a partial recollection of the route....)

It's my experience from the driver's seat of a car that the blinking immediately gets my attention. Remember, car taillights are much brighter and larger than a bicycle taillight, and have other cues such as lit licence plates and basically a large metal structure. Cars are also in the middle of the road, straight ahead of other drivers. They aren't off to the right side, lost against parked cars.

A steady rear bicycle light is simply not large or bright enough to be obvious to oblivious drivers. The reflection of a car's taillight on the side of a parked car can be as bright as the bicycle light. What makes the bicycle light distinctive is the flashing.

Also, while I agree that the blinking light isn't a great distance reference, neither is the small and relatively dim steady rear light. Again, with cars, taillights are large, and the distance between the lights gives a pretty good reference.

All in all, I will stick with the blinking mode. I think it works better. Of course, if you want, you can run both modes. Taillights are cheap.

And I do totally agree about the battery power....low batteries make the light level drop a lot, and sometimes the blinking rate can really screw up. (And we're back to the start of this thread.)