Road commuter

Have used front & rear lights day and night for years. Great invention. Would hate to be doored, or otherwise interact with a car.

Makes so much sense to use bright flashing front & rear lights. Even in the day! Great to see all the positive comments regarding safety in this forum!

Ride safe! Cheers

Bald Paul

Oh, there's still a chance you'll "interact" with a car, given the number of drivers who believe watching the road is low on their multitasking list at the time.
Bright, flashing lights will help. They can be especially helpful when the police show up, and the driver that just hit you says "I didn't see him", and the officer looks at your bike on the ground with the lights still flashing, shakes his head, and says "Uh-huh."
Don't ask me how I know.

noglider 

Because drivers are generally not trained to see us and because we are narrower than most other road objects, drivers truly can miss us. Vision acts in weird ways, and when you sweep your eyes or head, you think you're seeing all the things in between, but you might not be. Lights mitigate this risk a small amount but do not compensate for it entirely. I also run lights day and night. It might help, and it can't hurt unless it blinds drivers, and I'm careful to aim them well so I'm not worried about blinding people. It would be a mistake to say, "I'm running lights so there's no way anyone will miss me."

scottfsmith

I saw a quote of a study recently that a front blinker reduces accidents by 30%. That jibes with my vague impression of how many drivers saw me due to my front blinker (or not).

I’m glad I have it, 30% reduction in chances of injury is worth buying in to.

tcs

Bright flashing lights at night. Headlight: no. Just no. Taillight: maybe. Used in conjunction with a steady taillight on the street, I'm all in. But never on a path.

Germany_chris

I made eye contact with two of the three people that hit me so I’m not particularly sold on the safety benefits of much

bikebikebike

Other than in "peloton mode" it is hard to get feedback on how bright to be.
Just no way to give feedback. That said, I think a lot of folks are afraid of lights being too dim.
I was amazed at how bright my light models were when I saw them on another bike. Not always at a good level.
Even the small coin cell visibility lights do make a difference.
I ride enough where the value of a centrally controlled switching with modulation would be of value, but who but Varia even tries that?
I need something to light up the ninja joggers on the MUP, and spot the potholes. Flashing is hard to adjust between enhancing and annoying.
Frankly here, it is rare to see 25% of the night riders lit or reflectored, even to minimum legal standards.
You are more likely to see one with a gun than a headlight, here in the land of the free.

rut3556

>>front blinker reduces accidents by 30%<<

I would have thought it would be more than 30%.

scottfsmith

I looked and found one study which showed 19%. I also found an article mentioning 30-50%. Here is the study:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22884376/

It is not too surprising to me, cars are often not looking and sometimes it is the bicycles fault. Still well worth it in my mind.

10 Wheels

Eye Contact does NOT Work. Watch The Front Wheels when possible.

playera

I don't like flashing front lights. It is hard for me to estimate the coming bike's speed and the distance from me. And, I sure don't depend on any car giving me safe respect if I want to turn, or they want to turn in front of me. That is day or night. My front light won't protect me fully.

Jumpski

I totally agree with you on running both front, and rear lights. I started running a flashing white light for day time use around five years ago - take care.

10 Wheels

Bought all my lights for Day Safety.
Found they work at Night.