I've never been bothered by blinking tail lights -but yeah I have worried about mesmerizing motorists. Back when reflective paint for fabric was fairly new I had a tee-shirt with it. I was walking across a dark parking lot and this car, I am pretty sure wondering what the heck I was, kept driving towards me instead of avoiding me!

Worse than tail lights though are white blinky headlights on bike trails. I had someone coming towards me with a really bright one attatched to his helmet at around dusk the other day. Darn thing was nearly blinding me. If you use one I would say please point it towards the ground when you are on the trail to avoid blinding the other riders - or better yet if you don't need it to see (it wasn't even nearly dark yet) turn it off when on a trail. It was worse than being high beamed by someone in a car.