RidesaJapanese

There are streets here I won't cycle or drive on, because it means running a gauntlet of unshielded LED glare bombs, horizontally mounted on the sides of buildings instead of directed downward. Many urban areas are far worse, drivers and cyclists are subjected to a sea of unshielded street lights, "insecurity" lights glaring out off the sides of buildings, LED billboards, headlights, the occasional emergency vehicle LED strobes, I could see even the most well lit bike not being noticed in all that light clutter.

RidesaJapanese

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-dot-ban...and-save-lives

It is clear to anyone who drives, walks or bikes the roads: the trend toward LED and HID headlights has become a source of dangerous, blinding glare.

In addition, LED daytime running lamps, as well as overly-bright LED tail-lights, brake-lights and turn signals, are a source of fatal distraction, creating what is known as inattentional blindness or the “Las Vegas Effect”, a visual field so polluted by distracting glare that the brain has a hard time keeping focused on the important subjects like pedestrians in a crosswalk.

RidesaJapanese

Thank you for your support. Light pollution is certainly bad on many levels, we need all the activists we can get. Maybe you could write to the local paper, or talk to the people with the lights and suggest they save energy by using motion sensors? Last week I talked to a neighbor north of me, he was leaving on a light on the back of his house from dusk to dawn that was as bad as any streetlight, he has since left it off and said he wants to be a good neighbor.

I just posted a petition (not mine) to ban LED headlights, the comments are well worth reading, some even specifically mention bicycle lights. There is a lot of frustration being wrought by this dangerous LED revolution, and it's equally frustrating when people act like you're a conspiracy theorist or something.

Maelochs

Absolutely!!!!!---except for facts, and reality, and that silly stuff.

Dude ... slow down and think.

Everyone Here walks, cycles and most of us drive ... and have done so for decades.

And guess what ... the cars around where all of us do those things are the same as the ones which you are telling us are intolerably dangerous.

Don't stress, you are not the first person who was unable to convince others that the Earth is flat ... or that 2+2=5.

First it was bike headlights, then "small-town mentality" (yeah, just like in big towns, small cities, and anywhere else ... people call a jerk, a jerk--not that anyone says that about you.) Then it was streetlights. Then it was light pollution. Now it is car headlights.

When I see someone so eager to fight, I walk away and let them fight with themselves.

Good luck. I hope you win.

By the way ... the freaking Sun is the brightest light in the sky half the day. I cannot even see my bike headlight, or car headlights, and forget about seeing other stars. Can you do something about that?

RidesaJapanese

What is it with mouth breathing, ignorant trolls like yourself? That was a quote from the person who started the petition if you'd bother to read it, you ought to also take a look at the comments. People are getting sick of this nonsense, whether it's administered by a city official, motorist, or cyclist.

The sun is out in the daytime, it's supposed to be dark at night, you idiot. There's a difference between using some simple common sense, and turning night into day with blinding glare everywhere. Can you not grasp that very simple concept?

RidesaJapanese

https://www.ama-assn.org/ama-adopts-...-street-lights

My God, the AMA is a bunch of tinfoil wearing conspiracy nuts!

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/light-pollution

My God, the UK has succumbed to this madness!

Local group heading effort against city's new streetlights / LJWorld.com

Dr. Melott, the nutty professor, graduated with full tin foil honors.

Davis, CA LED Streetlight Retrofit - Smart Outdoor Lighting Alliance

Davis, CA, city of snowflakes. Why not use that tin foil to cover your windows instead?

CB HI

Hard to imagine why you get so little support for your cause.

Bizman

I am considering writing some letters to these offenders suggesting motion lights if they have to have some kind of security light, dim it, and/or aim it down. I signed the petition too as there are allot of offenders on the road. I do use bike lights but make sure to keep them aimed down to not interfere with other road users or pedestrians on bike paths. I commute most of my miles at night.

Leebo

Just wear your sunglasses at night? I loved that song. Full of awesomeness. This is a BIKE forum, start there. Unless you're advocating for less street light for my safety when pedaling home. I run 8-10 lights on my bike, so awesome. bar light, blinky too, helmet light, wheel lights 3 blinkies on the back. My fav? A night strand of small battery op x mas light on my bike frame. I want to take away the saying" I didn't see you" from drivers. 12-1,500 lumens of the front is just about right. Might be 10% of a car. Very urban, suburban night commutes for me. Also need MORRR power for fast descents and bad weather light rain/fog/snow.

CliffordK

As mentioned earlier, there is a chunk of a median strip bike path with low light poles and traffic on both sides that just has too many lights to clearly see other trail users.

Yesterday, on another path, it was mostly off-street, but went parallel to a street for a bit. Two oncoming vehicles blasted me with their high beams, just as I passed a pedestrian with dark clothes and no lights. Whew, good think the pedestrian was to the left and I was to the right.

CliffordK

A few years ago, I had a bus ride at night in central Egypt. Perhaps the perfect place for the OP.

Once one gets away from the river Nile, and away from the cities, there is just nothing but sand.

Vehicles do mostly use lights... I think. However, when passing another vehicle, it is common courtesy to turn off the headlights and just pass with the yellow clearance lights to not blind oncoming vehicles.

Jim from Boston

I have previously replied to a thread, “Photochromic sunglasses – thoughts?”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

I don't like them, and I wear my non-tinted glasses when riding in bright sunlight. I never wore sunglasses anyways before I got them. I find they diminish contrast on bright days. In particular when riding into the sun, I especially lose contrast when looking into my rearview mirror. I think it's because my pupils constrict even with the photochromes on, yet the lenses are already darkened.

My preference is for a billed baseball cap under my helmet [to block out the sun].

I think using a similar strategy at night would be much more difficult. Probably one’s pupils may already be constricted from the oncoming glare. I find I am just looking at a small field ahead to assess the road surface to avoid irregularities that might be fine surface details, like cracks, or the MUP edge.

In the bright sunlight of day by shielding in my eyes with a visor, I’m looking at a wide field for big structures, like cars. I don’t bother with a billed cap at night, but try to look away to the right from the oncoming lights, as I might when driving a car. FWIW.

CB HI

I have found that it has NOT been difficult at all for me, and has worked extremely well. If small cracks in the road are a serious hazard for someone at night, then adjust the angle of the visor with your head to block the oncoming lights while still being able to see out 20 feet in front of you tires. Someone with that problem might also mostly stick to the roads that they ride on a regular basis and they already know where the irregularities are in that road.

Maelochs

Depending on the slope of the road, (both longitudinal and lateral) the width of the road, and ambient lighting, even dim headlights can be blinding---if one looks at them.

I did the majority of my night commuting between 1986 and 2002, but the majority of my riding nowadays is also at night--the problem has Not gotten appreciably worse with brighter car headlights. The old yellowish sealed-beam units were plenty bright enough to make it hard to see the road 30 years ago.

I learned not to look at them.

I learned to duck my head and to track the far right edge of the pavement just far enough ahead to ride safely---and to slow a bit if necessary, but it almost never is---and to use this amazing human brain people boast about in another thread to manage my environment.

Is it optimal? Surely not. However, so long as we have mixed-use roads, it will never be optimal for cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, farm equipment .... all the various vehicles which can and must use the roads to move around.

I hate to be harsh, but if folks can't hack it, they should park it.

We All have to compromise.

If energy were not an issue, we could light every road like daylight all day and night .... but I happen to like being able to see the stars, and also, energy is not free.

If space were not an issue, we could have separate roadways for each vehicle type. I guarantee you that semi drivers and auto-pilots would vastly prefer not to have to deal with each other, or with cyclists. And I Know cyclists would love to never have to joust with motorized vehicles.

Of course, building and maintaining four times the roadway is simply not feasible right now ... so no point in worrying about that.

I keep coming back to the question .... how do we describe issues even less important than "first-world problems"?

I was going to try to get some insight on this whole bike-light matter from the orphaned child of some Chinese couple who had been tortured to death for their spiritual beliefs, but the selfish kid was too busy picking through a trash heap looking for scraps of food to even listen to my questions.

That's what's wrong with the world, eh? Starving kids are so selfish, they never want to help others.

FBOATSB

Jim from Boston

Thanks for your reply, @CB HI. I find these encounters with obscuring headlights are usually brief. As I imagine adjusting my head position to avoid the light, and get a fix on my line of travel, that seems to be a complex maneuver to be performed quickly.

Sometimes I do wear my visor in the early morning anticipating dawn's early (bright) light, so maybe I'll give it a try. I have tried waving my hand back and forth across my beam to signal the oncoming car/bike to dim their lights, but usually to no avail.

Maelochs

I want to clarify ... I am not saying car headlights are not an issue. I am saying that claims that they are now incredibly more dangerous and damaging and potentially lethal that they ever were .... flies in the face of reality.

I have this major shortcoming--I tend to get angry when people tell me, "Don't believe your lying eyes, believe my lies." I don't depend on others to validate my life experiences, but i do get upset when people deny my experiences and try to force their own inaccurate interpretations on me---because so far, no one who has ever tried that has been trying to do me good, or trying to do serious good at all (something about denying reality not Ever being the best path forward?)

Car headlights, being bright enough to safely illuminate the road far enough a ahead that at reasonable traffic speed, a driver can see an obstacle far enough away that human reaction speed permits a safe response, are simply going to blind anyone up close in the dark by contrast---Jim from Boston's "dilated pupils" are not the result of drug use (I don't think) but a normal physiological reaction.

I doubt phototropic lenses could handle the contrast, the speed of transition, and still retain enough transparency---needing to be very transparent at one edge of the lens (to allow a rider to identify road features) while being nearly opaque at the other edge (to block the car's glare.)

It is Not a "safe" situation.

But ... life is fatal.

I grew up with the mindset that acceptable risk and sensible risk management were how people operated .... nowadays people live in constant fear it seems .... and we still have 30-40K killed by guns and cars every year.

I grew up when reasonable risk, sensible risk management and personal responsibility were the legs of the tripod of daily living. Don't point the gun at yourself or others unless you Just fully unloaded it. Don't drive like Speed Racer on public roads. Don't expect cars to see you or make room for you--Make Sure they see you. And (I know this sounds really painful ... ) Slow Down a few mph if need be.

As Jim from Boston said, it is exactly what sensible drivers do when sensibly driving their cars. Adjust to prevailing conditions.

Yeah, I hate headlights---there is a curve near where I live, a slight uphill right heading out from home, so when cars come around their lights flash over the far side of the road until Bang, they stab me right in the eyes, because they are eye-level and I am on a very narrow road with no safe verge, lots of random debris and broken pavement, and often traffic both ways.

The only response is to slow a little, take more of the lane---if there is room, because cars catch up fast there--and then sort of wing it around the corner. Not safe. That is one part of the road where on the approach I have pulled over to let several cars pass because I hate having a long, impatient line behind me--there is always At least one complete idiot---even though there is no "safe" place to pull off once I enter the chute (so to speak.)

There is No good "compromise" through there. It is never completely safe in traffic in the dark.

On the other hand, I have always manged it with relative ease .... and a little unease, but still, never even a close call at night. (During the day I have had cars pull into oncoming traffic to race me to the sop sign and then cut back in front of me.)

It is not the intensity of LED lights at fault here, it is the reality that there are not enough people riding bikes to make a cycling roadway economically feasible. it might thrill me when I rode it but it would piss me off when the budget which went into the bike highway meant fewer fire men and my house burned down.

I just didn't mean to come of quite as harsh as I might have ... but there is no way I an ever going to apologize on the internet.

Be well.

Maelochs

That is some compelling evidence.

Any chance that spending hours staring at a screen and not blinking could be a factor?

Yet again, we have a someone saying "I don't like this so i will invent a reason not to like it" and then trying to present that imagination as reality.

How do you feel about vaccination?

Milton Keynes

Or North Korea.

CliffordK

An Astronomer's Paradise!!!

Milton Keynes

I wouldn't call North Korea any kind of paradise. I can find other dark places on the planet without worrying about being thrown in a gulag or being publicly executed with an antiaircraft gun.

CliffordK

Yeah... so much better to be strapped to a table for public execution by injection in the USA.

Milton Keynes

But at least if you're executed here you're executed for your crimes. Unlike in NK where you can be sent to prison because your uncle's second cousin on his grandma's side said something the current regime didn't like.

And being put to sleep by a needle in the arm is a much better way to die than being eaten alive by a pack of hungry dogs.

Maelochs

Dead is dead .... but North Korea is one of the few places on the planet where most of the inhabitants might rather be dead than have t starve almost to death every day so the Fat Grandson of the fearless leader can afford stupid haircuts and weak missiles.

North Korea .... go to jail because you can't work hard enough because you have only had two handfuls of grass all day ... or maybe dared to point out that you could work as hard as you were supposed to if you were fed at all.

Simply no valid comparisons. The prisoners in the worst jails in the U.S. have more amenities, better food, and way better health care than the vastest majority of North Koreans.

Dude .... look at the two photos from this "Bike North korea" website and tell me you are signing up for their next trip.

https://www.north-korea-travel.com/c...rth-korea.html


And doesn't this sound inviting: "North Korea has installed cycle lanes on major thoroughfares in Pyongyang in an apparent bid to cut down on pedestrian accidents, as more residents are able to afford to buy bicycles.

"Bicycles are an expensive but increasingly popular mode of transport for many in the country where private car ownership, although on the rise, is still rare.

"They are often used by women to transport goods to semi-tolerated markets, where one of the most common services is bicycle repair." https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...lane-pyongyang

But ... there are No bikes in the picture whatsoever. And with bike repair being the big industry ... one has to figure all the bikes in North Korea are left over from before the war.

And check out who else rides bikes ijnn North korea:

"Exploring the mysterious nation of North Korea just got a lot easier -- at least if you're Chinese.
A new scheme has been announced that provides Chinese citizens with an (almost) hassle-free visa to North Korea within a day, specifically for cycling day trips.
The trip, including the visa, costs around $50.
Some 35 Chinese tourists embarked on the first short cycling tour on May 2.
They cycled across the border from Tumen, in the northeast of China, and visited Nanyang City in North Korea before returning to China the same day.
The group visited Nanyang train station, the Korean War Hero Martyrs Monument, a portrait of Kim Il Sung, The Tower of Immortality, attended a show and sampled local snacks from a small farm market behind Nanyang International Hotel.
That hotel is where Kim Il Sung reportedly met Zhou Baozhong, a famous Chinese World War II general.
The first trip took a little more than three hours.
Zhao Xin, one of the cyclists on the trip, told Xinhua, China's state news agency, "In North Korea, the food was pollution-free: vegetables, fish, eggs, they all tasted not bad. We had no worries eating there." https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/c...rea/index.html

So ... no bike stores, and the food is "not bad" compared to the food of people who eat pollution.

Yahooo.

Chris0516

Your last statement is a common problem. That all cyclists' have to deal with.