Have we got conspicuous lighting all wrong?: Jimmy Beam Downlights

[Danneaux]

Hi All!

A recent innovation called the Jimmy Beam Downlight has me wondering if perhaps we have taken the wrong approach to conspicuous lighting (lights "to be seen", different from "lights to see with").

These lights take a different approach, casting pools of light at the ground to better stake a place on the road and supposedly aiding drivers in passing with adequate clearance.

A very clever approach, I think, but perhaps as easily accomplished by simply aiming four LED blinkys downward after setting from blink to solid? The effect is a bit better than the recent laser-projected "portable bike lanes" I've seen and is considerably more noticeable unless long exposures were used in the photography. I wish they had shown some long-distance shots approaching from the rear. Very effective when viewed from the loft perspective of a truck cab, but at a distance? Not sure.

Manufacturer website: http://www.jimmybeamdownlights.com/
Explanation: http://www.jimmybeamdownlights.com/jb-downlight.html
Gallery: http://www.jimmybeamdownlights.com/gallery#!JB2_24 <-- Bicycles appear if you wait or click through the gallery, but no pricing info on bike-specific applications.

Thoughts?

Best,

Dan.

[mickeg]

I would rather depend on the driver seeing my light than see the reflected light off of dark asphalt, especially when the drivers eyes are only a few feet above the pavement.  And if the asphalt is wet, it is even darker (more light absorbing).

Recently I saw an interesting comment.  Flashing lights are great at getting peoples attention but you can't get good depth perception on flashing lights.  I wonder if the best option is a flashing tail light and elsewhere on the bike a steady tail light.  But if the flashing light is too bright would it prevent you from getting good depth perception on the steady light?

I was almost blinded on a narrow winding bike path through a forest, some idiot on a recumbent bike was coming towards me with a very bright flashing head light, the light was up almost as high as my eye level.  It was daytime, but overcast and under the tree cover it was not very bright.  If it had been night time, his bright flashing light might have caused me to crash into a tree.  People like that are a hazard.

[David Simpson]

A new start-up in London called "Blaze" has a similar idea.  Their light has a forward-facing regular white light, but also uses a laser to project a green bicycle shape onto the ground about 5m ahead of the bike. 

http://www.blaze.cc

However, it is not cheap: GBP 125.  At this time, they are taking pre-orders, and are planning to ship in January.

- Dave

[Swislon]

I really like those Jimmy Beans.
It doesn't replace normal lights of course but basks you in a warm glow.
It must make you more visible, a bit like a UFO.
Drivers are going to give you a wider berth as you look a lot bigger than you really are.

Steve

[Matt2matt2002]

A few years ago my brother brought a second hand car and found brackets fitted underneath the sills for down facing lights.
He enquired with the police about if they would be legal and was told no.

Anyone any thoughts or opinions on this. (UK)

Matt

[Andre Jute]

Drivers are going to give you a wider berth as you look a lot bigger than you really are.

That's the key thing. If you've ever seen a bike with a Dinotte rear lamp from the side at night, what is immediately obvious is that the lamp lights up the road strongly, immediately impressing on drivers that there's something moving out there which could damage an automobile's paintwork, the other key consideration. (Sorry to sound cynical, but that's the truth.)

[triaesthete]

Nah!  You need one of these http://www.aerostich.com/holographic-vehicle-projector.html  


To someone with 1000kg of steel armour a bicycle is no threat unless ridden by a suicide bomber!  Drivers often perceive you and then consciously or  subconsciously decide to cut you up because of the low perceived personal risk in doing so....perhaps small contact mines installed on the bicycle extremities would help address this  

Topical solutions for a political and cultural problem??  

BTW Flashing light equals homing device for impaired driver, impairs speed distance judgement for the rest and illegal in Germany too methinks...

Manning the barricades
Ian

[Danneaux]

Nah!  You need one of these...

Oh, drat, and the Christmas budget used up or spoken for.

'Just have to make one, I guess. There's enough spare parts out in the garage...

All the best,

Dan. (...who may have been a bit too heavily influenced by Doc in _Back to the Future_)

[Andre Jute]

Nah!  You need one of these http://www.aerostich.com/holographic-vehicle-projector.html  

Amen!

[triaesthete]

Quick! Wait!

They have even better stuff 

http://www.aerostich.com/a-to-b-utilities/special-products/sphere-of-paradoxness.html

Hallelujah!

[David Simpson]

The Sphere of Paradoxness requires 12V.  My SON28 only puts out 6V, so I would only have a Hemisphere of Paradoxness.  But that would probably be good enough.

- Dave

[Andre Jute]

Did these guys pay their way through physics at college by working as standup comedians?

I only wish I thought of the Sphere of Paradoxness first!

[Danneaux]

Somewhere, I hear the hearty chuckling of Sheldon Brown...and it is not even April!

Certainly worthy in the same league as http://sheldonbrown.com/5and5.html

Best,

Dan. ("ShelBroCo lives!")

[triaesthete]

Careful Dave, 6v may just cause a dimming contradiction and let the rain in.

Have you thought of this Andre? As they say in motorbike land if you can't be careful be seen:

http://www.aerostich.com/a-to-b-utilities/special-products/krilion-2-bioluminesance-impregnation.html

If Sheldon made one I'm sure it would have had internally suspended laws of friction and internal Sunshine to boot.

[Andre Jute]

At 4am I was standing in the kitchen, quite a way from the bedrooms, when I read about Sheldon's 5+5 symmetrical sprocket set, and a prolonged, involuntary burst of laughter woke my family. I explained that the fellow they want to curse is Daniel of XXX (street address, with CPS coordinates, given).

Careful Dave, 6v may just cause a dimming contradiction and let the rain in.

I'm not so sure it would work on 6V at all, due to the contra-rotation of the electromagnetic (sanguinary) flux. Maybe in Australia, as Down Under the flux flows contrariwise anyhow. Nor would David's Hemisphere of Paradoxicalness be good enough: by the rules of physics, which you'd better not break if you have only two wheels -- unless you're a masochist, of course -- the missing half-Sphere will be under you, the hard part of your surroundings. This is called Murphy's Law.

Have you thought of this Andre? As they say in motorbike land if you can't be careful be seen:

http://www.aerostich.com/a-to-b-utilities/special-products/krilion-2-bioluminesance-impregnation.html

I didn't think of it. I didn't have to. I was it. Back when I lived in the southernmost house in Africa. I'd wake up with a hangover, tip half a dozen Air France stewardesses out of bed straight into the raging waters of Cape Agulhas where two mighty oceans clash (the cold Atlantic and the supposedly warm Indian) and make them dive for lobster for their breakfast. You had to be quick, or the lobster would eat your fingers instead, and anyway if you stayed in that freezing water longer than eight minutes you got hypothermia in dangly bits (toes, fingers, suchlike). I ate so much lobster, I started to glow in the dark. The simpler peasants thought I could cure their diseases but, since I was trained as a psychiatrist, I knew no medicine, but they'd touch me reverently anyway just for glowing.

But note that my glow was different. I got it from washing most mornings in that icy water while I caught my breakfast, or at least supervised the stews catching it for me. The ad says that you can't wash the clothes treated with their product. Not that I've ever known motorcyclists to need an excuse for not washing...