How to get drivers to dip their lights?
Comments
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As far as I can tell, that cateye Strada doesn't have a shaped beam, it just relies on reducing the brightness in 'dipped' mode.
Properly shaped reflectors appear to be the domain of German lights and dynamo ones in particular. Some of them are switched, but not remotely.0 -
Well I tried out my new Philips Saferide 80 lux front light last night for the first time.
I'm pretty happy with it. My cycle last night was on wet/damp roads so not ideal for making a light look good! It's not a massively bright but even on damp roads it seemed bright enough and does give a very good spread of even illumination as expected. I think I had the angle set about right with the cutoff just slightly above the horizon. From a couple of meters in front of the bike out to maybe 45m is very well and evenly lit with enough lateral spread to include both sides of a 2 lane country road starting just in front of you and out to that ~45m distance. The light drops off from about 45m out to perhaps 70m or 80m but at that distance there's still enough to see more obvious features. I found this pattern of light very satisfactory for my purposes and much more pleasant to use than a more focused spot which I think can give you a sense of cycling through a narrow tunnel with no real sense of your surroundings.
I expected the low setting would be sufficent for comfortable cycling at 20 to 25 km/h but was a little disappointed. A dry road might make enough difference for this to be very usable but on wet roads you'd really want the high setting.
Now to the subject of this thread!
About 30 mins of the cycle was on unlit roads where cars with high beams can be a problem. I don't recall any car staying on high beam which is unusual. Normally I'd be blinded at least a couple of times along that stretch of road. It'll take a bit more experience to know if the light is responsible or if I just got lucky. However I also got no signals from drivers that I was blinding them (i.e. no-one flashed me or slowed down dramatically as they approached me. I knew this would be the case after having a look at the light at home. Mounted on the bike with the cutoff just above the horizon you can look straight at the bike without any discomfort. The cutoff does a good job of preventing anything more than about 1m above the ground getting the full light intensity.
There are a few negatives:
The bike mount for the light is not good. It doesn't give you very positive feedback when you slot the light into place. I'd heard the mount wasn't brilliant so before my first cycle I took the lamp off and checked the mount to make sure it was solidly attached to the bike. Then I slotted the lamp back on and off I went. 15 seconds later the lamp fell off the mount and bounced along the road. I obviously hadn't pushed it fully home. I'd been worrying about the connection of the mount to the bike not the lamp to the mount. Even with the lamp pushed fully into place, it can be pulled out again without pressing the release lever. It seems to stay in place fine but I'd prefer a much more positive locking mechanism.
The very sturdy aluminum body is a bit scuffed up on a couple of corners which is a little annoying but it seems otherwise fine. It's not the prettiest piece of hardware anyway so this helped me not to be too upset. So a poor mount but on the positive side the lamp is rugged and can clearly take some knocks.
Runtime is not good. It only gives 70mins on high and will then continue on low for hours. I'm not sure if this is a fault on current batches or an intentional change. I've seen conflicting reports but nothing direct from Philips. The early ones gave 2hrs at high.
The battery indicator consists of a row of blue LEDs on top of the lamp. These are too bright in my opinion. I found them quite distracting at first but got used to them after a while. I think I'll put some tinted tape or paint over these to dim them down. Also I'm undecided about the bezel that spills some light around the edges of the lamp. Presumably this is done to improve visibility and I think it works but the top edge which slightly illuminates the rider is also slightly distracting. This wasn't really bothering me after the first few minutes (but the blue LEDs were) so I might just leave it alone as I reckon it does make me more identifiable as a cyclist. However if I decide it's a problem it's easy to remedy with a little strip of black tape along the top of the bezel.
Summary: I think the Philips Saferide is probably the best light available for my needs. It's not pretty or terribly dramatic but it does give excellent usable light without blinding other road users. It does have a number of faults however, the most significant being runtime. The reflector works very well and is surely the tricky bit in developing a light like this. It should be relatively easy for Philips to fix the shortcomings of the light and I hope they do. If the runtime and mounting flaws were remedied I'd unreservedly recommend the light to anyone. They should be able to cut down a little on bulk while they're at it (Li-ion cells) which would be nice but isn't essential.0 -
I had a car stop on a country lane last night due to my Magicshine MJ808e front light
cars usually keep coming towards me with high beam on till within 12 foot of me 
I've added a signature to prove it is still possible.0 -
You think that's a good result?redvee wrote:I had a car stop on a country lane last night due to my Magicshine MJ808e front light cars usually keep coming towards me with high beam on till within 12 foot of me
If they were being courteous and letting you pass on a very narrow single lane road - great.
However, if there was enough space on the road for both of you and the reason they stopped was because you'd blinded them, then I consider that unacceptable. If this is the case they're no longer the problem , you are.
Like plenty people here I'm both a motorist and a cyclist. A blinding bike light is as much of a problem for all road users as a blinding car high beam. Worryingly, I've read several light reviews and other posts from cyclists happily claiming their lights are so bright they force motorists to slow down or pull over. What's wrong with these guys? Are they being intentionally malicious or just ignoring the consequences of what they're doing?
Intentionally blinding either a cyclist or a motorist is unforgivable. I consider anyone who does it an inconsiderate, irresponsible jerk (at best) and you can assume that's what other road users will think too. With very bright lights now becoming cheaply and widely available there is, in my opinion, a real risk that foolish cyclists could make a very bad name for the rest of us and create more and more alienation between cyclists and motorists.
Aidan0
