[Closed] Flashing front lights - why?

How inconsiderate of them, they should know you only use cycle paths and purchase their lights in accordance with your cycling regime.

If that were me I'd tell them.

sleigh62 - Member

What I don't get is that some folk use them on my commute ... and it's all cycle path?

Do they work at your work, and live in your house?

Apologies if this has been posted before, but it's an interesting read. There's a couple of experiments you can try yourself, just to make yourself feel even more vulnerable as a cyclist. Further down the article it suggests cyclists should use flashing lights to be seen, to avoid the 'sorry mate- I didn't see you' scenario.

[url= http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/raf-pilot-teach-cyclists/ ]RAF Pilot Cycling link[/url]

Flashing is good. Slow flashing is not.

Flashing is good

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I use pulsing on my commute. I commute entirely within the city when it's dark so I don't really need a light to see where I'm going. This means that the priority is visibility. I used to cycle one day a week and drive the rest (I now cycle every day) and paid close attention to which lights stood out best to me on the roads I ride at the time I ride them, and flashing/pulsing won hands down.

paid close attention to which lights stood out best to me on the roads I ride at the time I ride them, and flashing/pulsing won hands down

Yeah I still don't think this is enough. Looking at a whole vista of traffic and picking out the cyclists is only one way in which we need to be seen.

You also need to be visible as someone glances in your direction in a fraction of a second before pulling out. If your light is actually off when he glances, he's not going to see you. If the driver watches for a second and sees a couple of blinks, he'll realise there's a cyclist, but not have much idea of how fast the cyclist is going, so might just go ahead and pull out anyway. Those are two main ways to be in an accident, which aren't helped by slow blinking lights. You can't very well track the movement of something that's only blinking once a second.