Lights

As this is foremost a cycling forum, my personal sympathies lie with fellow cyclists, and I really am less bothered by the predicament of those riding cosily around in 2 tons of steel.

Erm, it's in our interests as cyclists to stay alive, which does mean listening and understanding the risks to us.

I wish cyclists would drive more... truly. If only to understand how invisible the vast majority of cyclists are.

God, there are so many problems:

• Lack of lighting
  
• Blinky only lighting
  
• Not replacing batteries
  
• Weak lighting (small knogs only)
  
• Highly directional lighting (small lights pointing at the ground or in the air)
  
• No reflective stuff to compensate or help
  
• No side lighting
  
  

It really is no good to blame drivers and declare that as a cycling forum we don't care for the driver's opinion.

Ultimately, we as cyclists need to realise that the best thing we can do is to take responsibility for our own safety.

Which is not to say others shouldn't act responsibly too or aren't responsible for their actions... but is to say that we should be far more aware of when we do things that result in our increasing the danger to ourselves... such as, poor lighting.

Blinky only lighting makes it very very hard to judge direction and speed accurately. It's even hard to correctly judge position now when weather is sub-standard or there are contributing factors (i.e. wet streets at night that reflect a lot of other lights).

Regardless of what laws say, and people think... if you want to be visible in a way that allows other road users to quickly determine that you're there, which way you're going, and how fast you're moving... provide a constant stream of data rather than a few data points... i.e. a constant light and a pulse.