Legal Lights

tesla

Hello. Apologies if this is a FAQ - please point me in the right direction if so. My general preparation to commute by bike has involved buying the cheaper things a bit willy-nilly, so I have ended up with a number of lights:

Front: Cateye HL-EL135 and HL-EL410
Rear: Cateye TL-LD600-R and a couple of Smart Superflash Half Watt from the ProBikeKit cheap offer.

I'm now at the point where I decide what to actually put on my bike. I note that all 3 Cateye lights say on them "When used for cycling, this light should be used in conjunction with a British Standard 6102/3 cycle light". The Smart ones say "This rear light complies with the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations, when used in the all LEDs steady mode".

Does anyone know if I really need BS 6102/3 lights? Are there any good cheapish ones? How likely is it that I'll get a telling off if I use the ones I've got (I'm not going to use them in silly flash modes)? At the moment I'm only likely to use them in early morning/dusk/rainy conditions, not pitch black middle of the night.

Also, Cyclecraft says it's better to have one front, one rear, to avoid confusing other road users. What are people's opinions on this? I was thinking of perhaps having one front light pointing down at the road, one straight ahead, then one rear on my seatpost, one on the back of my rack. Don't know whether that's overkill! :roll:

Thanks for any help & opinions,

Julie

ince

If in doubt use lights that comply with the lighting regs. If in the unfortunate event that you are involved with an RTI it's much better to be legal.

As for the amount of lights, I have three up front, 2x tesco LED torches to see with and little halfords bike light thats ment for the roads. At the back I have one very bright light and one flashy LED as a back-up if the main fails.

Spudpig

Hi Julie,

I based my light choice on the following guidance:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4071

Favouring EC compliance I opted for Busch & Müller 4DToplight senso multi and Busch & Müller Lumotec IQ Cyo senso plus and a bottle dynamo.

I bought everything from a German website (Starbike.com) for 155 Euro (including postage) and they were extremely efficient. I received everything within 5 days.

Even if you would like something cheaper, all their lights seemed very good value compared to those in the UK.

tesla

Spudpig, that is a *really* useful article. Thank you! And why didn't I think of checking the CTC website - I'm a member myself, just didn't occur to me.

I'll have a look at the Starbike website, cheers. My commuting at the moment isn't likely to need much lighting, so I'll start off with what I've got, but the point about needing to be legal if you were involved in an RTI is a good one, ince. If my rides do stray into proper darkness I'm going to make sure it's all legal.

cheers,

Julie

tjwood

I dilligently went and bought a set of Cateye BS LED lights (which are very hard to find) and they were so rubbish that I didn't fit them to my bike. They were cheap and plasticy and sure to break quite quickly, and weren't terribly good lights. I've just sold them (at a loss) on eBay.

I took a step back and reasoned that it's surely much better to be clearly visible from all directions and comply with the spirit of the law than with the rather outdated letter of it. If I do this, I reason, I'm actually safer than using some crappy BS lights, and it's unlikely that any police officer would ever notice my lights weren't technically BS compliant, and even if I did and they were being a real jobsworth I'd only be faced with a relatively insignificant fixed penalty notice. So what the heck. I've just bought some decent lights that offer good visibility from the front/rear and the sides (one of the main considerations of being BS compliant is getting sufficient side spill, which many modern lights don't provide) and will be using them. If I ever do end up in an accident, and in court faced with a lawyer who wants to be really picky about my choice of lights, I'll point out that I was lit up better than I would have been with any BS set and hope the judge is feeling reasonable. To be honest the possibility of that happening seems so remote that I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

My lights are: two Knog Geckos (mounted on my forks, one either side), which provide excellent front and side "see me" lighting, two Fenix L2Ds (bar mounted) which provide masses of "see where I'm going" lighting (the last mile of my commute is down unlit rural roads, and I'll also be using them for off road MTBing occasionally), and a Blackburn Mars 4 mounted on the seatpost, which is super bright and visible from both the back and the sides. All run on rechargable AA/AAA batteries. I haven't yet had to use them on my commute, but I was playing around outside the other night when I got them, and they make the bike VERY visible. If you exclude the Fenixes (which you wouldn't need if all your riding was on lit roads - and if you did that you could mount the Knogs on the bars) then this lot cost the same as the crappy Cateye BS set and is much more visible.

whyamihere

The best thing to do is to have a set of BS lights, and supplement them with some good, high powered lights as well. As long as one of your lights front and rear is compliant, you can have as many complementary lights as you like.

Worth noting though, the Smart 1/2 Watt lights are compliant. The rear when in constant mode, and the front when in flashing mode.

tjwood

Note there is a difference between "compliant with the requirements of BS..." and "marked as BS approved". It's a bit crazy, but the former is meaningless in the eyes of the law. Do the Smart lights actually have a BS6102 marking? Because if not they're no more road legal than any other set of lights.

See http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicle ... edalbi4556

I assume if you're worried about this you also have the required BS-marked pedal and rear reflectors fitted?