Bike lights sold specifically for use on roads, some are great, some are outright dangerous and most are mediocre. I see a lot of cyclists on the roads with lights that that just aren’t bright or visible enough. Yet it’s likely that the owners are unaware of how poor their lights are, as you don’t ever drive behind or in front of your own bike so you don’t know how visible you are.

Should there be minimum requirements for what constitutes a bike light for use on public roads?

It could be enforced two ways, one regarding what can be sold as a ‘bike light’ and two as part of the highway code, ie must use lights that meet the requirements. It could work both ways for a minimum and maximum brightness. But it’s not just brightness, there’s beam type and flashing sequences too.

I’d reckon most people on here have decent lights so it’s more the wider general public who use bikes just as transport that this affects.

I doubt any lights sold aren’t bright enough. More likely flat batteries or poor alignment.

The main problem is that you don’t really see the need for lights when on a bike. When riding in town you can see everything very clearly, lit or otherwise. Its only when you drive you realise the limited visibility motorists have.

Some lights are truly rubbish, however ever brightened car headlights doesn’t help.

Fwiw, I’d like to see some meaningful standards for bike lights on road. There is a current legal standard which almost nothing but that big old ever ready you had as a kid meets, and it’s a useless standard.

reflective clothing & a couple of lights pointed at yourself – no need for major brightness

I doubt any lights sold aren’t bright enough

Completely disagree, you can easily buy crap lights. My dad has had few, thankfully has decent ones now

There’s already British Standards (and EU equivalents) for lights & reflectors, although as lights can be sold as supplemental not many bother.

The people with no lights, and the bellends with the latest super-bright thing from alibaba (pointed up and set to flash) are more problematic than not bright enough IMO.

There’s already British Standards (and EU equivalents) for lights & reflectors

The standards aren’t fit for purpose then?

Here’s CTC’s take on bike lighting.

The standards aren’t fit for purpose then?

Maybe.

So let’s say there’s new standards. Why would anyone making lights bother with the paperwork to get compliance with them, and who is going to bother enforcing it?

The police (rightly) put their efforts into stopping and educating people with no lights – when they do put their limited manpower into cycling. People with lights that aren’t bright enough are usually issues of low batteries or obscured/misadjusted lights, which a standard wouldn’t address.

What do you want as an end state? To run the risk of being stopped and fined on your way back from a night ride because of your non-compliant light? Enforcement of silly things like the need to have front and back reflectors on your pedals?

Nope, the existing standards are rubbish.

Totally agree also that overlit bikes are also part of the problem. Apart from outright dazzle blinding motorists, the aim should be to provide light to ride by and be noticed and accepted as part of the traffic. Lighting yourself up like a Christmas tree is actually causing a separate issue of driver distraction and potentially leading to accidents in my opinion. Overall I’ve found flashing front lights are counterproductive. They don’t look like vehicles so aren’t helpful.

The light standard used to be measured in candela units, basically it has to be as powerful as a candle to be legal! Virtually impossible to make something that didn’t pass, especially with LED’s. Goes back to when cars had oil lamps for headlights back in the beginning of the last century. Then you have the minefield of whether the light is sold as a main light or a supplementary one.

It’s the same story as the BSO’s in supermarkets passing all the safety standards to be legal on the road despite the brakes being awful and most of the parts being made of cheese. It’s the lameness of the standard that’s at fault not the products, they’re just a consequence of how cheap and crap you can get away with.

@simon_g, the state of current standards, there exists a possibility of a successful argument that you weren’t correctly lit if using non compliant lights. As basically none of the current preferred lights for road riding or commuter use meet the BS, that’s a problem.

Some of the cheap single LED ones, usually set in a rubber skull are almost pointless.

@vincieunp – read the link I provided:

“Thanks to a European Directive of a few years ago, wherever a British Standard (BS) is referred to, equivalent standards from other EC countries must now also be recognised – but only if they provide an equivalent level of safety.”

PUtting in the German rules about lights wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world…

BUT….

Bikes are viewed differently there plus the transition cost/effort would be quite big

Got to love the people round here commuting home from work along unlit country lanes with the mighty light ouput of a single £5 blinky LED.

Can’t really put regulations on it, as people can strap any sort of light to a bike, and there’s no way to enforce it other than natural selection 🙄

When I worked in cycle retail, I always told people to check the ouput of the LED lights at the end of the journey, as batteries that are very low will usually power the light at full brightness for a couple of minutes, before reverting to being really dim.

Mainly my comment is that a great many people use LED lights with very low batteries, or aimed badly, rendering them nearly useless.

Another odd trend I notice in the Netherlands is people using cheap button cell lights until the battery is flat, then just buying another and hanging it next to the first! What a waste of resources!

Something like the German light standards would be a good thing. Enforceable or not at first it could help in long term. Use an additional flasher if needed in town. Some LED types are worse for other road users than car lights that would fail an mot, but even a good front light with a cut off needs to be positioned correctly.

Point source and super bright rear LEDs are poor too. Bright yes but thats not the most important thing. It has been suggested the point source make it harder to judge distance on a dark road than a refracted or diffused light. Makes sense to me having taken a few LEDs out and stood a way back to look at them.

For MTB it’s less critical as I just adapt for road sections but my road bike does more miles in the dark so it has German spec non flashing lights and reflectives placed well apart from the lights. As a driver gets closer the 2 points give a better sense of scale or distance than one single light.

Some people do not charge batteries.

None of this makes crappy cheap little “backup” lights go away though, as they can be sold as supplemental lights thus don’t need to comply with anything.

All meaningless without enforcement, and the people without any lights at all are a bigger priority.

So many other things which are a bigger priority that any suggestion of better standards is simply pointless – I’d rather Policemen didn’t waste their time checking compliance of lights. Though I suspect that those complaining about dim LED lights are probably quite young, and possibly are completely unaware of bike lights before LEDs. Does nobody here remember Never Readies?

Does nobody here remember Never Readies

Oh, yes 😳 🙄

Why would anyone making lights bother with the paperwork to get compliance with them, and who is going to bother enforcing it?

I see it being Trading standards with a regulation stating any light sold with fittings to attach to a bicycle would have to meet a minimum visibility and brightness standard (maybe even have to have low battery warning/indication). I think ‘type approval’ is the description of this process…? If it doesn’t comply you can’t sell it.

This would fix it at source and make enforcement by Police a lesser, secondary process.

EDIT: Over-brightness would be more difficult to fix in the type approval way, as it would put limits on MTB lights likely only to be used offroad

Should there be minimum requirements for what constitutes a bike light for use on public roads?

As above, there already are, but problem is two-fold

1 > massively out of date
2 > un-enforced

One of the aspects to point 1 that rarely gets considered in such discussion is that half the problem is not the lack of brightness of the bike lights, but the general brightness of everything else nearby in modern towns and cities.

When the lighting regs were first drawn up the level of background light was much less, fewer streetlamps, fewer vehicles (with dimmer lights themselves), fewer lit streetsigns, fewer 24hr shops and takeaways with the lights on and big glass windows etc.

Curiously, in most modern towns and cities, save for a few dark areas it would actually be entirely possible to ride and drive around with no lights at all, see where you’re going perfectly well, and also be adequately visible, you could certainly do it with sidelights/DRL alone on a car in most circumstances, it’s pretty much the lights from other traffic that mean you then need bright lights to stand out against the sea of other bright lights.

This is what makes some lights inadequate, but throw them out into the countryside and you’d be surprised how visible they are even from a distance with a ‘dim’ light, but in the middle of a modern urban space it’s lost in the noise….

It’s noticable just looking at cars too though, sidelights and DRL have been getting brighter, a gloomy evening with some water on the road, add some traffic and suddenly you need a silly amount of light just to stand out, and even high contrast clothing isn’t as effective as it could be due to so many sign and billboards and the dazzle from other lighting nearby.

Then of course you have the problem of putting that light on the road and not into other people’s faces, but how on earth you start to tackle that now the horse has bolted I have no idea…even a wholesale swap to german lighting regs and an outright ban (how?) of (most!) non-conforming lights from tomorrow would take ages for it to filter out to the public.

You’d need a concerted effort to tackle both 1 and 2 to make any meaningful improvement, and it would have to be nationwide (and fairly enforced), sadly I think there’s not enough will* to do either 🙁

* By will of course I mean money.

Though I suspect that those complaining about dim LED lights are probably quite young, and possibly are completely unaware of bike lights before LEDs. Does nobody here remember Never Readies?

I don’t get your point, why is what happened in the past relevant to a problem today? Poor lights existed then and still do now. Amedias’ post above outlines what’s going on, the urban landscape is brighter, like it or not.

How are you planning on defining “fittings to attach to a bicycle”? You’re asking for a fundamental change to the law there if you want something which is going to be in any way effective. For example it is perfectly legal to buy a number plate which doesn’t comply with the regulations for “show purposes”…

Though in any case you also need to be aware of unintended consequences. It seems plausible that such a regulation could result in more cyclists riding with no lights at all, as it would inevitably result in a significant price increase, and the complete removal from the market of cheap lights (not because they’re not effective, but because complying with such regulations would be prohibitive).

As for the point about pre-LED lights – poor lights might exist now, but they don’t bear comparison with even what was seen as a normal light back then – even the cheap LED lights you complain about are way better. You really had to go out of your way to get something halfway decent when I first rode bikes. Towns might have got brighter, but they haven’t got that much brighter since LED lights became widespread and massively improved things.(the regulations were drawn up long, long ago). Though amedias also points out that whatever you do with bike light regulations (unless you’re going to get totally unrealistic about it), there will still be an issue with trying to stand out against other lights – when drivers being drivers are just looking for other cars. Unless you’re suggesting the minimum brightness is the same as the lights on a car?

(not because they’re not effective, but because complying with such regulations would be prohibitive).

That’s a fairly sweeping statement. Care to tell me what a prohibitive price increase would look like and how that figure was arrived at?

Aracer, I agree with the points raised. With the number plate analogy though, that’s firstly about tractability and prosecution, but granted it may have an indirect effect on safety. E.g. you’re not likely to get away with speeding just because your number plate can’t be read. How about helmets (motorbike or cycle) as analogy? Can unsafe types of these be sold?

Brightness doesn’t equal visibility, which is why I included both. Visibility could be defined by beam spread, light colour/tone, flashing sequence/speed, among other things.

Fittings for a bike are unique, what else could you say the clamps or bands are for instead?

EDIT: Also any pricing increases could be offset with subsides or other schemes, e.g. VAT exemption.

That’s actually quite a good one 😉

Here’s a helmet:

and if you have kids, here’s a helmet for them:

Should we ban the sale of those?

Fittings for a bike are unique, what else could you say the clamps or bands are for instead?

Well I’ve put them on my kids’ scooters and also my unicycle (which lighting regs don’t apply to). I’ve also clipped bike lights to my pfd for kayaking. Though you already mentioned the biggest loophole (hence the number plate analogy)…

Brightness doesn’t equal visibility, which is why I included both. Visibility could be defined by beam spread, light colour/tone, flashing sequence/speed, among other things.

So you don’t want a simple test for compliance?

EDIT: Also any pricing increases could be offset with subsides or other schemes, e.g. VAT exemption.

So why don’t we just do that now without introducing any additional legislation?