Drafting people whilst running a mad strong front light

jejv

Greg T wrote:

the_prophet wrote:

Pangolin - point taken, wasnt thinking about stopping / starting was thinking along lines of lights flickering around when travelling at a decent pace.

I don't mind flickering around, I don't mind fairies that much. I mind very much not being able to see behind me as I'm blinded by the light of my shadow. It's a bit rude riding up someone's ars* and blinding them at the same time...

And this is why you need the rear chainsaw as well. :roll:

prj45

Lest we remind people dazzling others with your lights is specifically illegal:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989 ... on/27/made

pangolin

In case we remind people?

rick_chasey

I usually tell people to keep their distance if they're agressively wheel-sucking.

Usually they get arsey with me.

*shrugs*

pdw

DonDaddyD wrote:

3000 lumens whether dipped or not - and in London they are very rarely dipped- will always be brighter than the 1800 lumens given in the link above.

What nonsense - on both counts. You do get the occassional idiot driving with full beam lights, but they're very much the exception, and dipped lights have a very sharp cut-off, so 3000 lumens of dipped lights can very easily be less offensive than 1800 (or much less) of unconstrained bike lights.

People never complain about car lights but do about bicycle lights.

Well quite a few people do moan about car lights, particularly HIDs/Xenons, but the reality is that these days, bike lights can very easily be much more annoying than car lights. Car lights get checked for alignment at an MOT. In the UK, we only have vague "don't blind other road users" rules covering bike lights.

kiwimatt

King Jeffers wrote:

Spotted a cyclist about a half a mile away when waiting at a junction, only spotted him because of his crazy super bright light. No idea what is was, was completely blinding tho and flashing... I can see the Daily Mail picking this issue up in a couple of months.

Resurrecting this - last night in Edinburgh (driving - apologies) had an extreme wtf moment as literally from 3/4 mile away up one of the rather dim terraced streets approaches a guy - strobing a minature sun at about 1 second intervals at an intensity that was just insane - really dangerous. As he got closer and closer it was even worse you couldn't see the other side of the road. This is not making any of us safer.

The contrast with the local students coming out of the gloom with a £3 lidl flashing set and low batteries was pretty marked as well...

Team4Luke

[quote="DonDaddyD Why is it car headlights, which are brighter than most if not all bicycle lights, are never considered an issue?[/quote]


indeed. Day Time running lights seemed to have got very bright now, together with these on at night with xenons they are a serious blinding hazard to others.

But to answer your question, the same reason as cyclist got bad press for using flashing/LED's when they were first invented, with claims as being illegal and distracting and whatever then all of a sudden car industry jumped on the bandwagon and fitted them to cars front and back without a winge from anyone.

EKE_38BPM

pdw wrote:

Well quite a few people do moan about car lights, particularly HIDs/Xenons...

The other day I was driving in heavy traffic and a van behind me had its lights on and was really dazzling me in the rear view mirror. At a set of lights I got out and went back to complain to the driver.
He was completely apologetic, but said that the lights weren't on high beam, they were HIDs. He said he was considering changing them to something of a lower power as I wasn't the first to complain to him. Perhaps because he was in a van and the lights are higher, in traffic they are more visible and annoying to the driver in front?

veronese68

EKE_38BPM wrote:

pdw wrote:

Well quite a few people do moan about car lights, particularly HIDs/Xenons...

The other day I was driving in heavy traffic and a van behind me had its lights on and was really dazzling me in the rear view mirror. At a set of lights I got out and went back to complain to the driver.
He was completely apologetic, but said that the lights weren't on high beam, they were HIDs. He said he was considering changing them to something of a lower power as I wasn't the first to complain to him. Perhaps because he was in a van and the lights are higher, in traffic they are more visible and annoying to the driver in front?

Very true about the height thing, they dip down onto a normal car.
I was lent a new Range Rover for a weekend a couple of years ago. Driving up the M4 in the dark I stopped overtaking people unless they were going really slow as every time I passed another car it would fill the passenger compartment with a ridiculous amount of light. That, and I couldn't afford the fuel consumption at any reasonable speed. Horrible car, glad to give it back once I'd finished with it.

mese13

Rick Chasey wrote:

I usually tell people to keep their distance if they're agressively wheel-sucking.

Usually they get arsey with me.

*shrugs*

Sometimes a monster guff in their face does the trick, and propels you further up the road, like hitting the Nitro button 8)