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[i]you don't need 2000 lumens of powe[/i]
I know I don't need them, I could manage fine on 150 lumen, but it's bloody great having 2000.
The problem is that the 1" lense on bike lights isn't as big and diffuse as a car headlamp, so 2000 lumen looks very bright to onlookers, but acceptable to the rider, wheras the same from a car on diped beams is easy to look at (and more visible) because the lights spread out.
Same problem with these new LED lights on cars, they'r pretty dim, but painfull to look at.
"Also quickly flashing (or strobing) lights can sometimes have a kinda strange effect on me and make me feel a bit out of sorts.
Maybe you shouldn't be driving a car if you've got some sort of epileptic tendency..."
I didnt say I was epileptic and how are you meant to know these affects. How often do you let your eyes adjust to the dark them let someone suddenly start flashing very bright lights in your eyes ? Not very often ?
A lot of confident drivers make the mistake of assuming that most drivers are vaguely as competent as themselves, where as this is unlikely to be the case.
I reckon most drivers will suffer from some health issue /problem that may affect their driving in someway they just wont admit it because they dont want to lose the privilege of driving.
Ie weak heart, fading vision, fading hearing, diabetic, poor spacial awareness, old age, etc etc
I've never been blinded by bike lights yet. But every bike ride I do at night and when I go running by unlit roads - I do get blinded by cars on fullbeam. I cant see bikes are much of a problem really.....
Yes. Some guy asked us for directions on a night ride the other week and his lights were so offensively bright that I couldn't think straight to tell him which trail to take.
He had two bar-mounted lights, each of which was brighter than a Lumi HID. Yikes!
Actually, you probably can have lights that are too bright.
The human eye will adapt as best it can to cope with whatever light there is, just like walking into a dark room, initially seeing nothing and then seeing better after 5 minutes.
My friend uses a USMC tactical torch with a very bright but quite narrow beam. Fabulous if you're looking within the beam but TBH, anything outside the beam is virtually invisible, as the eye just adapts to the intensity of the light and can't really cope with anything outside it.
real men use the sSsStTtTrRrRoOo0O0OoBbEE setting!