If cities actually invested in safe infrastructure the need for such lights would go away.
*: technically, you're allowed to use blinking bike lights during the day, but what's the point
That makes them useful during the day
I wish they had this rule in the UK.
Recently I met one of these idiots on a dark cycle path and I veered away from them instinctively (partly because I could see they were present but couldn't judge where they were) and then overcompensated and swerved behind them - very nearly hitting their child on a kid's bike behind! I hadn't seen their child because I was blinded by the adult's light. They probably thought they were keeping their child safe but they were really putting them in danger.
[citation needed]. They sure are annoying to look at, but I doubt about the improved visibility. Drivers are used to tracking positions and velocities of steady light sources - like those from cars, traffic lights, barriers, reflected lights, etc. Blinking lights are harder to track and are unusual; they seemingly should draw attention, but other than bicycles, they tend to show up on stuff like ads, Christmas lights, broken light fixtures, etc. - that is, things safe to ignore.
In the same manner, a single bicycle light might not register as a vehicle in the minds of car drivers. By blinking the light the short-circuit is broken - or so the theory goes.
The problem is not even cars though, but other cyclists. Even with a cutoff beam it is easy to blind oncoming traffic if the light is not setup correctly. Flashing, it should be illegal.
The consensus amongst the cyclists there generally is that flashing front lights are a bad idea. The can be confusing and disorienting and are pretty unpleasant for other oncoming cyclists and pedestrians, not just other car drivers.
My impression though is I spot blinking lights cyclists at closer distances than solid light. Especially in rainy weather.
And I absolutely have a more difficult time judging blinkers relative speed to me.
This is exactly the attitude that gets people killed. I hope you never experience the feeling of taking someone’s life.
I have lost count of the number of times a driver has sheepishly smiled and waved after my screaming got their attention and narrowly avoided a collision. It’s a routine experience for cyclists.
So my conclusion is I spot cyclists with solid lights more easily than ones with blinking lights unless you think there is a scenario where at close range blinking lights become easier to see and so I miss solid lights.
There are also pedals that include front and rear lights. https://redshiftsports.com/collections/arclight-pedals
Surely they are just turning the light off half the time so half as visible?
Blinking lights are not legal according to road code in Germany and I assume many other EU countries nor do they necessary improve your safety.
Yes, strobing lights do draw more attention at a glance (which is why they are reserved for emergency vehicles and signaling an emergency) making you think you'd be safer, but actually not since it makes it very difficult for the human eye to determine the distance to/from that object in motion on the road if it's always blinking, making the use of only strobing lights on the road unsafe and therefore banned for non emergency purposes.
That's why your front and tail lights must be in a constant state. It's for your own safety too, hence why emergency vehicles don't strobe their running lights/brake lights but have additional strobes for that.
Street maintenance trucks and all such vehicles, at least in Europe, don't strobe their running lights which are constant-ON as on all road vehicles and the strobes are additional warning lights. So they get the best of both worlds.
But for cycling, blinking lights are stupid because you're strobing your only running light you need to see and be seen.
The UK has one quarter the deaths despite having ~3/4 of the population of Germany...
It's expected that if a lot more people cycle, you're gonna have more cycling deaths than in countries where fewer people cycle.
If nobody would cycle you'd have zero cycling deaths, hooray problem solved, you successfully gamed the metrics, if wining arbitrary metrics is the goal.
Was that your goal?
Random numbers alone mean nothing if they're meaningless and out of context. More people are killed every year by cows than by sharks. Does that make cows more dangerous than sharks or just that people are more likely to be around cows more often than around sharks?
If Germany has a higher population than UK, and also a higher percentage of people of that population cycle, then yeah you're gonna have more dead cyclists. D'uh!
Show me deaths per capita and cycling rates per capita, then we can talk about drawing a conclusion.
DE 5.5%: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
UK 1.7%: https://www.cyclinguk.org/statistics
Great Britain has half the bike usage of Germany. Germany has 36 million bikers (43% of 84 million), Great Brittain about 12 million (19% of 68 million), so the stats line up more than you'd think at a first glance. The difference between Germany and Great Brittain becomes laugably obvious when you look at the statistics for how many people use bikes as a primary transport method (6% GB vs 21% DE).
That said, biking outside of large cities in Germany is kind of terrible, so I'm not at all surprised about how deadly cycling in Germany, though that may just be my spoilt Dutch take on things.
Edit: my source for these statistics: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...