Bob Ross

To elaborate on that: I'd be willing to bet real money (and note, I'm not ordinarily a gambling guy) that the number of incidents where a driver was:
A) unable to judge the distance to a flashing bike light and so struck the cyclist; or
B) mesmerized by the bike lights due to the "moth effect" [sic] and so struck the cyclist; or
C) any of the other plausible excuses for why some type of bike light (which is deemed worse than some other type of bike light) was employed but still resulted in the car striking the cyclist,

...are FAR outnumbered by the number of times a driver struck a cyclist because "I didn't see him."

Like, by an order of magnitude.

Anyone really wanna take that bet?

wphamilton

All true. Does it follow that being noticed more is necessarily better than being noticed? I don't think so. In my opinion, lights sufficient to be seen and recognized as a bicycle are sufficient for safety.

tagaproject6

Congratulations, your first post and you put faulty logic into play! Stop trying to place Germany above all else as if they are somehow superior because they outlawed flashing bicycle lights.

boswellbear

I suppose a response like that is indeed easier than reading why they have such a law.

Bob Ross

This presumes that there is even such a thing as Degrees Of Noticeability. Even if you could quantify that, would one expect it to be uniform across the range of different observers?

Or, the alternative to Degrees Of Noticeability is that there is a Threshold Of Noticeability, and all you need to do to be noticed is cross that threshold ...once noticeability is achieved, there are no further degrees, it's a binary state. If that's the case, it seems like it would be advantageous to Be Noticed earlier rather than later.

Note, I have no idea whether either of those theories are accurate. Seems like it would be a semi-useful research project for cognitive sciences to determine.

DrIsotope

To the Germany issue: laws are seldom put into place to protect individuals. They are enacted to protect groups, or entire nations. The law doesn't care if a blinking light saves one cyclist.

By the by, helmets are not legally mandated in Germany, but it's illegal to ride no-handed. You also need like 6 reflectors, a headlight, a non-flashing taillight, and a bell (legally.) Yeesh.

wphamilton

It's a hypothesis that could and should be tested, fair enough.

I don't know. My opinion is that if ordinarily attentive drivers see me from a block or two away, I don't really care if they can notice me from 3 or 4 blocks or beyond. Or if I can attract more attention, or "more notice" beyond being recognized as a cyclist.

peterraymond

I guess I have a few comments, all directed towards the idea that we want to protect ourselves and reduce accidents in general.

In general, driving is really pretty easy, otherwise it wouldn't be possible for just about everyone to muddle along with only infrequent collisions. But, I think most accidents happen when things get complicated and not one unexpected thing happens, but two or more. Along these lines, I don't think we want to blind or confuse drivers. We want them, 24-7 to be able to quickly and intuitively be able to understand that we are a bicycle and where we are on the road, so that they don't get confused in the heat of the moment and instead quickly make accurate correct decisions.

Following this, it seems important to look like a person and look like a bicycle to the oncoming driver. Our brains are programed to identify certain shapes, which is one reason camouflage works as well as it does. Break up the outline of a familiar object, and suddenly your brain can't snap onto the shape. We want drivers to instantly know we are a bicycle.

In the day time you don't want to fade into the background, so you want to be a contrasting color, but also maintain your shape as a person. A multitude of bright colors can work well as camouflage because it breaks up your profile. We all have to decide just what level of risk we are comfortable with and how much effort we want to put out for safety, but I lean towards my bright, solid, relatively light colored jerseys. Like my solid yellow ones. A jersey with lots of graphics and lettering isn't going to kill you tomorrow, but your fashion statement it is some small amount less safe.

At night it's really easy to confuse drivers. I have slowed down when I saw a very bright light on a bike coming the other way. That's not a good thing though. Not only am I not making decisions as well, it's bad enough that I realize it and act on my confusion. Is that a bike? A motorcycle? A car with a burned out headlight? I have to second the idea of something in the wheels or on your pedals. Not only does the driver see you because the lights are moving, but also knows instantly what you are. The light shinning on the ground sounds good too, as does something that lights the bike up from below. All those things that make it easy to see that yes, you are a bike, so long as they are not confusing the driver.

Also on lights, it's not just a question of how many lumens a light puts out. If you look at the back of cars you are following at night you can see that older cars with smaller tail lights are less visible. Some pickup trucks in particular have small lights and they don't stand out as well. The brain responds to no only how brightly your rods and cones are being stimulated, but also to how many are being lit up. The best tail light is probably the biggest.

And, finally, I believe in not irritating drivers. They do not understand why and how bike riding is different from driving because they don't ride, but we do both. We need to make an effort to not create enemies. It may make us safer today, but it will make many more riders safer into the future.

slowrevs

Studies conducted years ago with funding from the US NHTSB showed that running both front and back lights during the day and night made an improvement in driver recognition of cyclists.

The best daytime combination was very bright flashing front and rear lights combined with visible clothing such as white, yellow and orange. This combination allowed drivers to notice cyclists and follow their movements.

The best nighttime combination was medium bright constant on background light with brighter repeating single or mutiple foreground flashes front and back. This allowed motorists to differentiate the cyclists from auto traffic and background light sources.

How bright lights need to be is determined by competing light sources. Country or rural riders need less lumen output than city riders under street lights.

tagaproject6

A logical fallacy followed by another logical fallacy

boswellbear

Life is too short to deal with a twit. Enjoy your forum. I'm gone.

Spoonrobot 

I'm amazed at people who ride in complete darkness with a front strobe as their only light. How do they see anything?

tagaproject6

My apologies. I really should be more specific:
This logical fallacy is called "ad hominem" with bits of "appeal to emotion"

Bob Ross

Interestingly, I've had more than one recumbent rider insist that they get a wider berth from passing drivers than they ever did when they rode upright diamond frame bikes, and they all attribute this to their supposition that drivers *don't* recognize the 'bent as a bicycle and so steer clear because they haven't a clue what that thingie is.

wphamilton

FWIW I think it's a pretty good point that Germany outlaws flashing headlights.

peterraymond

This works fine in a simple situation, where the there would have been no collision anyway. The distance is not what matters, it's the miss. If there is side traffic and oncoming traffic and something unexpected happens, that's when the confused, distracted driver that doesn't recognize the recumbent can start making mistakes.

Some driver might start to move over, see an oncoming car, panic and slam on the brakes and plow right into you. Much better to see you and the oncoming car and, knowing exactly what is going on, slide through the gap and continue down the road. I guess I just don't like needlessly making drivers uncomfortable.

Abe_Froman

Obviously, blinky flashy everything will increase your odds of avoiding an accident. But only to a point. The real issue is that as a country, we just dont care about people dying in traffic accidents. Especially if theyre cyclists (who obviously have it coming anyway because all they do is **** up traffic).

What we really need to be safe is some serious culture change and infrastructure improvement. Anything else is just lipstick on a pig.

frkrygow

So we should now use bright lights when riding day or night. We should also wear high-viz clothing. And of course we should never ride without a special hat. Oh, and gloves to protect our hands if we fall. And we should use mirrors to keep watch on approaching cars. And have video cameras front and rear in case something does happen. And it's high time we had bike lanes everywhere for safety. But not just regular bike lanes, we should put them behind parked cars.

Will it be long before we're told we need to wear elbow pads, knee pads and spine protection? Will Velo News tout carbon fiber safety flags? Will victims be blamed if they omit any one of those items?

I ride lane centered and move right if a car comes up behind, IF there's enough room for him to safely pass. I use German headlights and taillights at night, not in daylight. I have no problem being noticed. And as a driver, I've never yet seen a daytime bike light make a practical difference. You don't need to be seen from two kilometers away. 50 meters is usually fine, and a rider with good lane position is easily visible from 100 meters.

frkrygow

I don't find the 30% claim compelling without getting details. Here's a different example, to illustrate why I'm skeptical:

A 2011 study in Accident Analysis and Prevention made similar claims. A company (Reelight) gave away a bunch of their front and rear lights to Danish volunteers who answered an online ad, then kept track of their accidents. (The control group got their lights after the study was done, as a reward for participating.) The lights were very dim and mounted way down at axle height (I've seen them in action) and are powered by spoke mounted magnets. In my view, they're barely visible in daylight.

I'm skeptical when a company publishes research on its own products, even if it passes peer review. But they claimed 19% reduction in injuries for cyclists with the lights compared to a control group without them, which sounds fairly significant. Trouble is, the data included a 27% reduction in _solo_ accidents. These lights are not show-the-road headlights; instead they're rather dim blinkies, so it seems very unlikely that the headlights caused fewer slips on wet leaves, running into curbs, gravel falls, etc.

The researchers realized their lights couldn't improve solo falls, so they guessed that the light recipients cheated and omitted some incidents to make the lights sound better. The researchers therefore introduced a fudge factor to make up for this assumed cheating; and with the fudge factor still got a 19% benefit.

But to me, the entire exercise seems far fetched. The fudge factor is an unproven fudge. There doesn't seem to be data on the severity of crashes, there doesn't seem to be data on whether cases or controls used other lights. And as they say, they couldn't rely on police reports because "the number of accidents reported to police and insurance companies ... is too small." IOW, bicycling is safe enough already.

If a company has a product to sell, they are very likely to find a way to make it sound good. ("Our toothpaste is 37% sexier!") And a person who has spent money on a "safety" product is very likely to perceive that it made them much safer. Personally, I'm positive my St. Christopher medal has reduced close passes by at least 22%!

Marci

A well lit bike. Nightrides here I come.

slowrevs

It turns out there is both a Degree of Noticeability and a Threshold of Noticeability and they are critical to functional day and night riding safety for cyclists. However, it is not a Binary State.


It's been sometime since I read the research, but the same study I quoted earlier indicated that because of motor vehicle driver distraction by other drivers, by trying to find where they are going, by children, by other adults in the car, by radio/CD players, by cell phones, etc., drivers often lose track of where cyclists are relative to their position after initially taking notice of them.


This is especially true when cyclists rely on reflectors, dim or flash only lights at night, or fluorescent clothing. Reflective clothing is better, as are wheel reflectors or wheel lights, but they are not the best solution as they do not generally increase cyclist visibility beyond a couple of hundred yards.


The threshold distance for safe recognition is .25 mile for a driver traveling at 35 mph (55 ft per second = 24 seconds of time to react) farther out for one at 45 or 60.


AT NIGHT: Medium-bright, constant on foreground light with repeating intermittent or random bright flashes work best in both head and tail lights. Bright single flashes only at night are counterproductive and undesirable. They increase the likelihood that a driver will lose track of a cyclist.


DURING DAYLIGHT: Very bright single or multiple flashes work best in both head and tail lights. Especially when combined with single color (white, yellow, bright orange) shirts, jerseys or jackets.


At dusk or sunrise, use NIGHT MODE when you are riding with the sun in front of you. Use DAY MODE when the sun is behind you.


The density of cyclists on the road in Germany is orders of magnitude greater than in the US unless you are dealing with a peloton. It is understandable that flashing lights are prohibited. Running into and killing cyclists there may carry stiffer penalties than in the US as well.


The research is out there to read for yourself if you are interested. use https://scholar.google.com for best and easiest results locating it.

slowrevs

Abe makes a good point here.

Because many cyclists don't follow traffic regulations, they make it harder for those who do and increase driver animosity.

Running STOP signs, crossing multiple lanes in the middle of a block, riding on the wrong side of the street, running RED LIGHTS when no cross traffic is present, pulling stupid stunts because it pleases the cyclist are bogus behaviors. Fortunately there is an element of Natural Selection involved and sometimes those riders are "removed from the circuit" permanently.

Abe_Froman

Hah, that was NOT the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make was we need to reduce the murderous impulses of vehicle drivers. There needs to be a basic respect for other peoples lives that currently does not exist in this country. A cyclist blowing red lights does not endanger anyones lives (except their own, of course). A driver feeling it is perfectly ok to break driving laws, speed, or blow by cyclists 6" away DO endanger other peoples lives. That needs to stop.

slowrevs

Reducing the impulses of motor vehicle drivers is only likely to follow a change in behavior by dangerous cyclists.

I have seen drivers avoiding cyclists doing totally stupid things, resulting in near multiple car crashes because of the quickness of the cyclist's act and the relative invisibility of the cyclist in traffic. In that case, the vehicle drivers would have suffered while the cyclist rode off.

Cyclists wearing earphones and playing music, oblivious to their surrounding and thinking they are entitled to the right of way in all cases give all of us a bad name.

You too, Abe.

Don't put the cart before the horse.

Abe_Froman

It's only possible for a cyclist to be disrespectful to a pedestrian. If a driver is at risk of getting into an accident brcause of something a cyclist does, the driver was going too fast. Driving 37 in a 35 is disrespectful to cyclists and endangers human life.

Also: Could you pleasegive me an example of a "dangerous" cyclist? I have never encountered such a person, and can't concieve of how it would even be possible aside from very isolated instances.