Hacker News Reader

Comment by sherr | Hacker News Reader

In addition to cars, I'm a cyclist and have noticed that LED cycle lights, both front and back, can also be far too bright sometimes. Blinding in fact. A few years ago, I was behind a bike which had such a high powered rear (red) LED light that I had to drop back to get away from it. It reminded me of the sort of powerful red light an airport might have. For bikes, it sometimes felt like an "arms race" in brightness.

View on HN

It's not that bike lights are too bright, it's that they use garbage optics in countries that allow it. US brands have a bias towards off-road mountain bike lights that spray light everywhere. Look instead for bicycle lights that meet the German StVZO standard. Busch and Mueller stuff is good, you can also find generic stuff on AliExpress all day long.

https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/stvzo-bike-li...

On top of that, strobing.

I still don't understand the point of having strobe lights on a bicycle. What is that all about?

It was found that drivers unconsciously filtered out a single small light moving like a bicycle does (weaving back and forth slowly, often towards the edge of the driveable area). Flashing lights are somewhat annoying but much safer for cyclists.

No they are not and explicitly banned in some country. The strobing light is way more blinding for any other user of the road. It also makes it hard for you eyes to adjust. This means that you struggle to understand how fast the bicycle is moving, and exactly how its moving (and therefor anticipate their movement correctly), but you also get blinded which might prevent you from seeing other user of the road (especially pedestrian and other bicycle). With strobing light, you not only putting yourself at risk, but every other user of the road.

Strobes are much harder if not impossible to effectively gauge the distance, bearing, and speed of. They are insufficient.

Both a bright solid light and a much dimmer strobe provide all of the benefits with none of the down sides.

And flashing lights are not filtered out? How can traffic even exist during Christmas season?

A continuous light at least gets perceived as a path through image space. Strobes on the other hand can easily fail at getting perceived as belonging to the same unit of light source when there are many other illuminated dots (xmas crap! rain droplets!)

I’ve read the strobes are bad because it makes it hard to see how close or far you are. Maybe the best thing is to just wrap yourself with some battery powered Christmas lights…

For me it’s mostly battery life. Most bike light batteries are tiny and would require more regular charging if put in solid mode.

As a car driver, I love strobe lights on a bicycle. Much easier to notice them and avoid them.

As long as they're at a reasonable brightness...

Totally agree. Bike lights also shine far into the distance, and I have the feeling that (with the old lights being weaker) didn't used to be the case. If these new overly bright LED lights shone a bit more downwards it might be an improvement.

This is sometimes the only way to make sure the drivers notice you.

But they wont. They will only be blinded by some surprise entity they can't put anywhere meaningful in their mental model of the traffic situation and pass by blindly.

It's a good way to get them to shine their main beam headlights in your eyes in retaliation as well.

I’ve noticed this s lot cycling in NYC. One alternative that I like a lot: play music from a portable bluetooth speaker to make your presence obvious.

This is often user error. Many bike lights have a daytime mode that is far too bright for night. But winning the arms race is so important...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com