Thanks for the further references, Dan. I've seen the Philips Saferide lumiring lamp and would have been more impressed if its light output were greater. I am not interested in sacrificing my safety for the convenience of motorists. The principle behind the Philips design is mutual cooperation on the road, and the writer of the article assumes it axiomatically. But drivers in the States, in Britain and here in Ireland don't cooperate with cyclists in the way they do in The Netherlands where a different presumption of the burden of proof in auto/cycle accidents has created an entirely different attitude on the part of motorists, which causes them actively to look out for cyclists not to hit, which in turn makes the Philips light useful, perhaps even superior as the writer claims. In any event, it makes it the decent thing to do in The Netherlands not to irritate drivers. The purpose of my Catseye TL LD-1100, with both bars run on interfering blinking patterns whenever the bike moves day and night, a lamp I use in addition to a steady BUMM light, is specifically to catch every motorist's eye, and I don't care a damn if people who routinely mishandle their lethal instruments within six inches of me are irritated because I know that otherwise they won't even see me.
Il Padrone: I also run my Cyo front light day and night; I just don't see the point of turning off a lamp with a 50K hours life expectancy. And, as a longtime believer in Volvo estates for my wife and child's safety (but dull for me, though I liked one I fitted with small block Chevy), I like daylight running lights not only for myself, but also appreciate them on other people's cars and bikes as making them visible further away.
Stuntpilot, I think you will find that the German law was made at a time when blinkies were limp. The other evening I came out onto a busy road, cars, buses, motorbikes, bicycles, and the vehicle visible furthest away, and which transfixed me even when past me, was a bicycle ridden with verve by a young lady, blinkies like spawn of Satan front and rear, buses and motorcars braking to let her in. She was riding that bike like I used to drive a Porsche in traffic when I was young. I back up my front Cyo with a blinkie that cost a tenner and is a good deal leas puissant than whatever she uses, but is still clearly visible in traffic 300 yards away, which should be good enough. I think we're approaching the point in the brightness of blinkies where that old shibboleth, that a blinkie acts as a magnet for the half-asleep driver who will drive directly to the point of the accident which the cyclist can't win, could soon come true. But, until it is proven true, I shall be buying blinkies. By the way, where I previously lived I was on the main road down the Carbery Coast. I used to stand on the pavement and stop the bicyclists coming by -- hardly any of them local, almost all foreign tourists -- and have a chat. Almost all the Germans, the moment they were out from under their silly laws, fitted blinkies for touring in countries where they are permitted. Only the most uptight, those who bristle at even an unintended and tenuous suggestion that they might not be perfectly law-abiding, stick with the steady lamp only. I received my first grounding in bicycle accident statistics, and my abiding interest in bike lamps, from one of these Germans I stopped beside the road to ask if I could look at his BUMM halogen lamp (gee, I'm giving away my age!); several of them were keen on reading Ken Kifer, an American who stripped away roadie prejudice and bias to study the statistics rationally. He taught me that the most important blinkie is actually the front one, to stop idiots hitting you from rights angles by showing them that you're coming, and the brighter lit the junction, the more important the blinkie becomes. A lot of this stuff is counter-intuitive.
Andre Jute
