TOWARDS A NORMATIVE CASE FOR BICYCLE LIGHTS

TBerk wrote:

Having a blinking front light would seem to casue these same drivers
to run into parked cars and trees, I'm not doing it.

Where did you get that idea? Not that I think that flashing front lights
are necessarily a good idea, but I don't think they'd have any effect on
driver behavior.

TBerk
and don't get me started on mandating daytime driving lights....

Fortunately, GM's efforts to mandate DRLs in the U.S. have not been
successful.

In fact, the big problem with DRLs in the U.S. is that there is no
"normative case." Some idiot manufacturers (i.e. Saturn) were using the
high-beams at half brightness for DRLs, and the NHTSA received a lot of
complaints about this sort of DRL. Properly done DRLs wouldn't be so bad
(low intensity, aimed correctly). Saturn did it this way because it was
cheap, and they didn't want the low-beams burning out prematurely. But
high-beams, even at half-brightness are extremely annoying to oncoming
traffic.

Disconnection of DRLs is one of the most requested services that car
dealers get by new vehicle owners. All you do is tell them that you
often drive on military bases, and they'll disable them, usually at no
charge.

As is often the case with do-gooders, statistical evidence on DRLs shows
no benefit in terms of accidents of fatalities. The only group that
benefited at all from DRLs was pedestrians, but pedestrians would
benefit equally from well-designed DRLs.

On Apr 16, 9:44 am, SMS wrote:
TBerkwrote:
Having a blinking front light would seem to casue these same drivers
to run into parked cars and trees, I'm not doing it.

Where did you get that idea? Not that I think that flashing front lights
are necessarily a good idea, but I don't think they'd have any effect on
driver behavior.


OK, seeing as how I'm new here I should wait to have folks get used to
me before going off like that.

Still, Nothing on the front of a vehicle should be flashing unless you
are in a ditch or are making a turn.

Flashing front LED bike lights disturb me greatly.


TBerk