Night Cyclist Visibility: Driver's Eye View

[wildhawk]

Great ideas! I can’t really add much to it as we have reflectors on every thing attached to our bikes, dual bright LED lights, and dual flashing LED taillights, reflectors on our helmets and gloves, etc. I got some great ideas from this thread too - some “goodies� I will be adding to my bike. Working nights, I can tell you that alot of people ride bikes at night and totally disobey the crossing lights - just ride right out in traffic with little or no reflectors or flashing lights of any kind. Total idiots INHO. But there are the ones who commute who make darn sure they are seen by drivers - and late evening riders like my DH and me. DH made a special lightweight horizontal bar that fits to the rear of our rack between the two rear panniers and added dual taillights. The width of the panniers and the dual lights are easily seen and give a wider profile at night. We are of the thought that the more visible the better. We have had riders dash across the street in front our cars where the only thing that shows up is their sneakers and socks!!

[sfa]

Leaving the house tonight in my car, we saw a kid coming down the street on a bike. It was pitch black out and he had no headlights (or helmet for that matter) and my headlights didn't catch any reflectors that he may have had. But he DID have Tire Sparx and they really did catch my eye immediately. He was probably about 150 feet away when I first noticed him. It was impressive how bright they were, and there was no mistaking that it was a cyclist headed in my direction.

Sarah

[mary9761]

I have both reflective gear and lights on my bike and helmet. I've had bus drivers who have commented on seeing my lights when I was out after dark and watching for a bus coming behind me so I could pull over. The light set is made so you can wear them on wrists or in this case, I ran the straps through my helmet vents pointing the white forward and the red to the rear. I usually put them on blinking then my headlight on the bike steady. Sometimes my bike tail light is solid, but more often it's set to blink as well.

http://thebikeline.com/itemdetails.cfm?id=2128 Trek
Glo Headlight & Ember Taillight Combo





http://thebikeline.com/itemdetails.cfm?id=2128 Trek
Flare 7 Taillight

http://thebikeline.com/itemdetails.cfm?id=2631 Trek
Ion 6 LED Headlight

I also wear ankle biter reflective straps one on my wrist and one on my ankle on my left side facing traffic.

When I'm using my new kitty litter bucket panniers, I have a large red reflecter on the backs and amber on sides and fronts. I plan on adding reflective sewn on tape to the sides of my tights that I've made for colder weather riding and more reflective material to my helmet. I've never been worried about looking like a dork as long as I'm seen.

[Xrayted]

this seems like a good video on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epZdXfvrRmU

We have a local guy who has put reflective stuff and lights on every surface of his bike and himself. It is actually too much. It makes you focus so much on him, that it's distracting. (What happens when you look at that hole in the road as you approach it? You run into it. You drive or ride where you are directly looking.) He takes a lot of chances that most riders wouldn't because he is so lit up. I've seen him cut across 5 lanes of traffic at night in rush hour on a busy road when he could have crossed at the light just 150 ft away. Nuts!! Light up, by all means, but don't assume you are totally safe.

Lots of riders here in Portland. The best advice I can give is to light up the sides too, not just front and back. It's nice to have a blinkie up front in the dark as well as a solid. It differentiates you from cars and motorcycles. Lit strips catch my eye. Cars don't have long reflective strips typically.

[crazycanuck]

Please..please pleeeeese have your front lights on solid. I can't say how often i am blinded year round by cyclists who don't understand what Ã*t's like to have one pointed directly at me/etc. You do know how hard they are on the eyes.. AGHGHGH..

Don't tell me you can actually see with a blinking white light..

Just have the front white light on solid..please!!!

[wildhawk]

Please..please pleeeeese have your front lights on solid. I can't say how often i am blinded year round by cyclists who don't understand what Ã*t's like to have one pointed directly at me/etc. You do know how hard they are on the eyes.. AGHGHGH..

Don't tell me you can actually see with a blinking white light..

Just have the front white light on solid..please!!!

Good point. Actually, I ride with one light on solid and one on blinky just before dark and switch both headlights on solid to see better once the sun has set.

[Eden]

I find that I can see cyclists better if they have a flashing white light.... In the city at least, with all of the other lights around, a flashing white front light identifies you immediately as a bicycle. A steady headlight can look like other things... I prefer to use a steady headlight to see with and a flashing one for safety myself. Of course all lights should be positioned so that they are not directly in the eyes of other people. My steady headlamp is aimed at the ground and my flasher is more straight on - but it is not a super bright HID light...

[PscyclePath]

Please..please pleeeeese have your front lights on solid. I can't say how often i am blinded year round by cyclists who don't understand what Ã*t's like to have one pointed directly at me/etc. You do know how hard they are on the eyes.. AGHGHGH..

Don't tell me you can actually see with a blinking white light..

Just have the front white light on solid..please!!!

After playing around with the Stella for the past week or two, you actually can see pretty well with the light on strobe/blinky mode. It's the oncoming ninjas and other folks that catch heck...

One of the main reasons to run the light in blinky mode is the power savings on your battery... whereas the Stella and similar lights will run about 5 hours on steady bright (full power), it will run nearly 100 hours on a charge in blinky mode. Most of your "good" lights are only useful for about 2 hours on a single charge; if you're going to be out for awhile and aren't sure when and where your next charge is coming from, you can stretch your lighting a substantial bit by running in blinky mode. The Stella, Vega, and similar lights run on a steady strobe (which can definitely be annoying from the opposite side of the trail); the Dinotte models will blink in different pulses, which is just as visible, but less irritating.

What I've found to work well for the average commute or night training/recreational ride is to run a steady white headlight, and then have one of the small Knog lights on the handlebar running in blinky mode. Good light to see by, and it's not as irritating to your fellow trail users.

Light pollution (not only from bike headlights and folks like me who like to try and burn a hole in the ozone layer with my lights) can be a problem. Unshielded parking lot and especially stadium lights can blind you to what's actually out in front of you on the trail. Motorists will hit you with their bright lights trying to figure out what that is way up in front of them.

If you're blinded by someone else's oncoming headlights or overbright street lights / athletic field lights, don't look directly into the beam. Look off to one side and use your peripheral vision. I wear an MTB helmet most of the time when I'm out at night, and the advantage is that it has a visor, and I can use that to help block a blinding light, sort of like a sun-shade in the car or the bill of a baseball cap. Another handy trick to protect your night vision is one that I learned as an artillery officer at Fort Sill's School of Fires: Close one eye. Yep, it’s as simple as that. When you’re in the dark and headed for a bright spot, or vice versa, close one eye for a half minute — once you get to back into the dark, open that eye and you’ll have your night vision and will be able to see that pedestrian or the patch of loose gravel.

Tom