Dimming or shielding lights

[off2ride]

I think bike lights outta be set up like compact car lights. Mount it waist low or lower. Level it out then have an internal low beam/high beam with a flick of a switch. Instead of the “covering of the hand” kinda thing for courtesy.

[mstone]

@off2ride 71227 wrote:

I think bike lights outta be set up like compact car lights. Mount it waist low or lower. Level it out then have an internal low beam/high beam with a flick of a switch. Instead of the “covering of the hand” kinda thing for courtesy.

The biggest factor in bike lights pointing at people is that a lot of lights (especially the cheap flashlight type) are a round beam that aims much of the light away from the road. People refuse to fix that much–preferring to strap on a bargain-priced flashlight instead of a properly shaped beam–so it’s unlikely that a big chunk of the population is going to jump on even more expensive multi-source beams.

[dkel]

@mstone 71226 wrote:

The other piece is that at 20MPH it’ll take you 15 feet to stop, so you have 0 chance of avoiding something if you can only see 15 feet ahead (plus reaction time). At 12MPH you’re probably ok seeing to 15 feet as long as the pavement is dry and your reaction time is good (and your average isn’t based on speeding up down a hill ).

All excellent advice. I was just estimating my lighting distance in my earlier post…I don’t feel like a lunatic out there, so maybe I am illuminating more than I think I am. If it stops raining, I’ll measure it.

Regarding speeding up down a hill: I try to improve my average speed by going UP hills faster!

[Author]

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