MattTheHat 

The Moth Effect is a *theory*.

Drivers in general are not attracted to blinking or flashing lights, otherwise they wouldn't be used and I would have been run over multiple times so far this year alone. Yes, at least some small minority of drivers apparently manage to run into vehicles with flashing lights. I don't know how they manage it, but they do. I would guess the majority of those people are impaired, either by alcohol, drugs, mobile phone usage or they just plain fall asleep. Some number of people drive into lakes and other bodies of water. I'm not sure how they manage that, either.

And for some small percentage of people, flashing lights can cause seizures. Since flashing and blinking lights see such widespread usage (emergency vehicles, bicycles, modulating motorcycle tail lights, airport lights, billboards, etc), those people probably shouldn't be driving.

Miele Man

Drivers may not be attracted to a slow flashing light but they definitely seem to be attracted more to the rapidly flashing lights or strobe-like lights.

The flashing lights cause seizures in others are usually the really bright strobe-like ones. I hate it when I'm riding on a dark road and trying to overtake someone who is riding a lot slower than I am but has a super-bright strobe-like rear light that blinds me to the point that I have to fall back quite a distance to avoid it. I've had instances at dusk and full-dark when an approaching bicyclist from the front of me had a bright strobe-like light that blinded me to the point I had to hit the brakes and come to a complete stop because I could no longer see the road. IMHO those sort of lights at dusk and full dark are a blasted hazard to others.

Oh, about the moth thing. I think that some drivers are drawn to the flashing lights simply because they are staring at them trying to figure out what they are and thus drift over towards them. Where you look is where you go, is a well know saying of bicyclists. I've see bicyclists with a very bright flashing red light stopped at an intersection ahead of me but thought that it was a car with the turn signal on. Other times I could not even tell where the bicycle was because the rear light was lost completely in all the other car lights.

Cheers

YMMV

Cheers

MattTheHat 

Oh, I'm right there with you about hating them. I don't think flashing lights have much use on a MUP. I'd turn mine off on the MUP, but there are so few riders, and even less who seem to be going my direction and passing me. As a driver, I hate following a bicycle with a flashing tail light. But I don't feel like I'm drawn to it.

And I don't much care for flashing headlights, either. I run my headlight on steady.

Target fixation is a real thing. I know that from 40 years of riding off road motorcycles. Without some training otherwise, many people will indeed hit something they're looking right at...and even trying to avoid. Maybe some people look directly at flashing tail lights. I purposely don't...at least partially so I don't see spots.

All that being said, I'm still going to run my blinking tail light. In about 8,000 miles of doing so over the past year or so I don't recall any vehicle passes where I thought a driver was drawn to it.

restlessswind

I am totally sold on flashing front and rear lights for daytime use. I only use them in traffic. I have a 5 mile stretch of heavy traffic and get cut off and merged onto ...that is until I put 2 flashing strobes on my handlebars, pointed 45° in both directions. This now distinguishes the idiots from the jerks. I have way less issues, and cars preparing to turn onto the roadway actually see me and stop.

Daniel4

Could it be the loud speaker was designed to be heard clearly from inside a car?

Reminds me once when I was riding on the subway and the PA goes on : "Attention all passengers. Blah, blah, blah..." was all I heard.

The only thing you could possibly have done was to jesture back that you couldn't hear or understand.

However, if it was something serious, she would have flagged you down to speak with you directly.

canklecat

They don't call him Hotshot for nuttin'.

Fixed.

Queue lonesome prairie yodeling songs of unrequited love for women in uniform.