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Comment by steveax | Hacker News Reader

And don't even get me started on the LED eye melters that cyclists are running these days. Some are about as bright as car headlights, but the spread and aim are inferior - especially since the folks that run those invariably seem to point them up from the horizontal. I keep thinking about mounting a 8 D cell maglight on a gimbal on my handlebars to give them a photon in-kind response.

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More often than not, they're not mounted correctly. When it comes to headlights, too many cyclists (most?) do not think of their bike as a vehicle. The headlight should be a solid light and the light beam should not be parallel to the ground. the primary purpose of your headlight is there to help you see where you're going. If it's not, you don't really ride in the dark. As with any other vehicle, being seen is a secondary reason for lights.

I've been commuting by bike, year-round, for 17 years. While my commute home may require lights, my morning commute requires them. (It's at 3:00 a.m. and some stretches have no lights.) If my headlight was parallel to the ground, it would not let me see where I am going. Oh, it will show a person or vehicle, but it won't let me see the road. It's aimed at a spot X feet in front of me, enabling me to see debris on the road, as well as anything huge.

Properly aimed or not, a headlight is only going to let a motorist (or anyone) see you if they are coming towards you. I can see them coming, too. A good reflective vest and secondary lights (helmet, side, etc.) is necessary to let people see you from behind or the side. (The vest is useless if the car is running without its headlights on, which has happened to me a few times in the morning.)

> the primary purpose of your headlight is there to help you see where you're going.

Sorry. Didn't see you.

If you were coming towards me, why were you in the wrong lane? If you were drunk or not paying attention, seeing me probably wouldn't make a difference.

If you were coming from behind me, you wouldn't have seen my headlight, anyway. That's why I have a taillight and a reflective vest.

I think part of it is a reaction to the poor bicycle infrastructure in many cities. Bright lights have stopped cars from hitting me at night a couple of times. While I'm simpathetic to other people (I try not to point them in people's eyes) there aren't that many other options.

I live in Portland, OR, e have pretty good bike infrastructure. If the goal is to be seen, there are indeed other options. LED glow or area lights are probably more effective than the eye melters pointing towards the sky and much less hostile.

> LED glow or area lights are probably more effective

Based on what?

Color other than white, large area illuminated, can be seen from any direction. All these contribute.

As a cyclist commuter who was hit by a clearly negligent car driver on Sunday in broad daylight, I fully support any measure to make bicyclists more noticed on the streets. In the absence of fully grade separated bike lanes, bicycles can only do so much to protect themselves against 4,000lbs of metal.

That's an unfortunately ironic response to a comment that basically says "I'm getting blinded by these bicyclists headlights".

If you see the biker then I think the lights did a good job. I suppose you could make an argument that it could blind people and they hit someone/something but I never heard of that happing - I only hear bikers getting hit because they were not seen.

> the lights did a good job

No, absolutely not.

Lights are to help the cyclist SEE.

To be SEEN you need reflectors. [1]

Worse, if a cyclist's frontlight is blinding other cyclists coming at him it means they're failing both the others AND themselves, as: The oncoming ones can't see shit and are more likely to make a mistake and the rider themselves isn't illuminating the ground ahead of them so they can't actually see where they're going.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfWzeGlaFvI

i'm a cyclist and i sometimes have to stop and get off my bike and wait for an oncoming cyclist to pass me (eg, on a multipath). it's not necessarily the brightness, it's that it's not constructed to be visible (and/or illuminate the road) without also blinding oncoming traffic. fortunately i haven't ever hit someone or something while blinded by an oncoming cyclist, but that's in spite of the crap bike light, not because it did a good job.

Yes, me too. I'm a daily bike commuter and am quite sympathetic to the being seen aspect. This goes way beyond that in some cases. Case in point: a good chunk of my ride goes through the Portland Springwater corridor. This is a dedicated bike/pedestrian path. Much of it is unlit at night. I've seen these riders a half mile ago (~2 minutes) and by the time we're getting close enough to matter their lights are blinding. It's like a driver who refuses to dim their high beams for oncoming traffic.

Just get a green laser and mess with the optics on it so there's a bit more beam spread at longer distances.

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