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…and I don’t mean just bright lights but the newest ones like I viewed at the cycle show the other week and the person demonstrating them to me nearly burned my retinas out. I shouted at him and he apologised! He pointed the lights right in my face and I could not see for a few minutes, my eyes all spotty and blinded.
I am psting this here as it was someone cycling home from campus who dazzled me last night and I wanted to mention it.
A chap cycled past me yesterday on my way home to Wantage and he had some of these super bright red rear lights set in flashing mode. How bright do they need to get? Mine are bright but these were the some of the newest ones just released. Probably about 600 – 800 lumens or something like that?
I stopped and waited for him to disappear up the road as following him was not an option for me. I mean they were dazzling and offensive and really, along by the villages to don’t need them. Even on the main road you don’t need them.
Sadly I am in my car today, hopefully back cycling tomorrow but I promise you, I can see you. I know you are there! Please do not dazzle me.
Being seen and safe is important, especially on these increasingly nasty dog eat dog modern roads and I kind of feel that everyone is going out now looking for a fight or on the attack all the time. Overly defensive. These lights though, they were weapons!!
I was impressed with a white Scotchlight jacked I spotted some cyclist wearing the other week while cycling home. If I get chance I’ll ask him where he got it. Much more useful than dazzling everyone with these super bright lights! They are anti-social and potentially dangerous. You don’t drive along with your headlights on full beam so why is it acceptable to dazzle people while cycling?
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just in the UK In 2014 21,287 cyclists were injured in reported road accidents, including 3,514 who are killed or seriously injured.
20% of these are occur at night,
Around half of cyclist fatalities occur on rural roads
75% happen at, or near, a road junction
source: http://www.rospa.com/road-safety/advice/pedal-cyclists/facts-figures/While many young cyclist don’t use lights, I don’t think I have seen a commuter cyclists without lights(apart from when it was be because i forgot to pack them in my bag once)
car uses usually claim that they did not see cyclists(usually because they are looking for cars) .
having been knocked off my bike by both cars and pedestrians while wearing fluorescent jacket , reflectors, and flashing lights on my bag and helmet front and rear. I would advocate brighter flashing lights.. because when people are not looking for you and driving you need to GET there attention. lights can be blinding yes,, but this is the same as sharing the roads with BMW drivers and white vans.
Im sorry that you were blinded, (and just to be clear it wasn’t me , I need brighter lights) but to me stupidly bright lights seem to be part of bike safety these days. you say they are weapons, but I could not find any stats on the number of people killed each year by weaponised bike lights.
ps: if anyone knows what lights mike is talking about post a link i want some.
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I’m with Mike. Let’s not have an arms race please. ANY super intense lights in your eye-line are a dangerous menace. How is dazzling other road users ever reasonable or acceptable? Whatever happened to common consideration?
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Reasonably bright light are needed as the rural tracks/roads are mostly unlit. Combined with poor weather during the night not using bright light is a danger for the cyclist and other road users. Even in well lit roads, someone with black bike, black cloths, black gloves/shoes and some cheap flashing light is very difficult to see during rain accompanied with strong winds.
Having said that, I have also been dazzled by cycle lights more often than car lights. Sometimes this is unavoidable to a degree because road/track inclination means even correctly adjusted car/cycle lights target my eyes for a brief moment while on the move.
Last time I chcked, not many places mention that the lights need to be adjusted also, rather than just installed. Even a not so bright light will look so if it points straight to other people eyes. Lights should point slightly towards the surface and to the left (most cyclists seem to do stay on the left both on road and off-road) so you can see with a brighter beam the surface immediately ahead of you-say around 5 meters at least. A weaker less focused beam should be used for longer distances. Many cycle lights these days in fact seem to have these feature without the need of two bulbs.
I do not know if there is any law limiting the strength of cycle lights. Even cars with the MOT regular checks can be dazzling regularly. Worst offenders for me are people with helmet mounted bright lights because they blind everyone they look at without realising it.
Probably best course of action would be to ask fellow cyclists to adjust their lights so as not to point straight to other people’s eyes – aka the beam should NOT be parallel to the ground.
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Very bright lights need taming to make sure they do not blind other road users, by either keeping at an appropriate fixed angle, diffused, and being aware of light scatter/beam shape, and also knowing when to change modes to something more appropriate…. As lights get steadily brighter, there is probably a good case for helmet mounted lights being for off-road only. In all this it probably doesn’t help there doesn’t seem to be much consistency in the stated spec of lights e.g. in lumens, lux, watts…
When I winter commute (Abingdon) I generally have:
Front (bar mounted – fixed angle):
2000 lumen XML-T6 ebay special, but with DIY ‘hood’ for improved horizontal cut-off and diffuser lens to spread beam hotspot on the road
Smart (25) light on flash (2xAA)
Rear:
Smart Lunar R1 1W (50lumens?) Bag mounted on steady beam and in a diffuser for a much larger visible area.
Smart lunar R1 set to flash. Fixed angle on seat stay. Angled slightly down (I have been known to add a second Smart 0.5W flashing).I have to say that heading home generally after 6:15pm in the dark, I don’t encounter that many other cyclists…
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Warning: hobby horse alert!
I’ve been dazzled by cyclists coming the other way, both on a bike and in a car, and it’s interesting to see that CTC (http://www.ctc.org.uk/cyclists-library/regulations/lighting-regulations) confirm my suspicion that it’s illegal to do that. The route from RAL to Grove has everything: unlit mud tracks; quiet country lanes; busy roads. For my last set of lights I had some cateye dual tungsten filaments that I was able to rewire to include a dip-switch in reach of my thumb so I could switch from high beam to low beam when I saw people coming the other way. Sadly I haven’t found a way to do the same with my LED ones (Ebay cheapo max lumens per lucre). I haven’t seen any easily dippable LED lights on the market, which I suppose makes it sort of forgivable to cycle around the place dazzling everyone, but only just. But sadly, until easily dipped lights are available and mandated, I suspect being dazzled is just another improvement of modern life we’ll have to put up with. Bah, humbug, my young day, etc. More common sense (and actual relevant data) on this topic here http://www.ctc.org.uk/blog/chris-juden/bobby-dazzlers.
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A helmet-mounted light is easy to dip or raise, just by inclining your head! As it sits higher up, the ‘natural’ angle for illuminating the road / track a suitable distance in front of you is more steeply down than for a bar-mounted light, thus reducing the tendency to dazzle an oncoming car or bike. And you can look into the darkness round a bend before you turn. And you can – ahem – ‘remind’ a driver who’s about to pull out of a side-road in front of you of your presence. And you can follow the flight of the barn-owl that flits out of the hedgerow in front of you across the field.
And that’s with using only half the lumens. -
I’ve had this light for a few years – it has 5 different levels so is dippable once you get used to finding the right button in the dark, and is supposed to have some baffling of the light for oncoming vehicles. I like it alot, although I don’t actually know what its like to cycle towards it when I have it on..
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I just manually dip (tilt by hand) the lights when there’s an oncoming bike/pedestrian/car/badger. At night I always use lowest intensity in town .
Bright lights are also for being seen during daylight hours (flashing mode), especially if you are overtaking during rush hour.Also i find the amount of reflective material put on high-end cycling apparel to be comical, more decorative than functional.
https://www.fancy-tapes.co.uk/for-safety/reflective-tapes/3m-solas-reflective-tape
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Out of interest what heat source/method do you use for the heat transfer trim?
Re. stick-on tape, I use “Silver High Quality High Intensity Reflective Tape” off ebay – which is good value and works well.
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