wrote:
On February 12, 2018 at 12:50:27 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/11/2018 3:56 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 7:55:43 AM UTC-8, Joerg wrote:
On Sat, 10 Feb 2018 19:25:57 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Contrary to current myths, you do not need super-powerful lights to be
plenty visible. Any headlight that shows the road sufficiently will be
perfectly visible to motorists, and taillights need far, far less power
to make you safe.


I had plenty of opportunity to compare StVZO tail lights versus the over
there "illegal" lights such as PDW DangerZone or Radbot. HUGE difference
in visibility. This was as a motorist in Germany. Since I am also a
cyclist I paid particular attention to bicycle equipment because I
wanted to know. I also wanted to see if the purchase of some lights from
there would make sense since those wouldn't need electronics up front to
connect to the 8.4VDC power bus on my bicycles. My conclusion was that
it does not.

Where is "there"? Are you saying that the PDW light was no good and you need a 8.4VDC tail light?

No, Joerg is claiming that ordinary StVZO tail lights that are visible from
500 meters in Europe are not good enough for his and fellow Californians'
impaired sense of vision, and why he feels tail lights that feature 5000 ft+
visibility are preferable. And he is trying to confuse what can actually be
powered by dynamo with what he "remembers" seeing, back then, on inspecified
cycles in traffic.

My wife doesn't ride a night nearly as often as I do. She's most likely
to do it when we're on vacations somewhere, as transportation to and
from a B&B or something similar.

But her "normal" (not just cycling) lightweight jacket is by Illuminite.
It seems to reflect light very well - not that I consider that
necessary. Our bikes have lights and reflectors that are perfectly fine.

Perfect. No, wait ... how come you suddenly forgot about risk compensation?
Make her wear a dark burka so she doesn't fall victim to reflector
overconfidence!

I more than once said to runners and joggers that I, as a cyclist, rather
have that they wear a reflective jacket than running around like a
christmas tree.

That's not sound advice because the ankle and knee area is what would first
be lit by low-beam traffic. So, next time, fat-shame joggers by telling
them those dark leggings don't work!

(And you should appreciate to still encounter some christmas tree joggers,
not just diversity-black colored trash bags.)