Side lights on cars

[Dan B]

But, with respect, that's codswallop. As a pedestrian, it's very easy to miss a poorly lit cyclist if he's the only thing coming down the road you're waiting to cross.

If you assert this to the case then it must be true for you, but it's so far outwith my experience that I really can't visualise how the situation arises. Are we really talking about the same urban 30mph-limit streetlit areas? How do you deal with poorly lit pedestrians on the pavement who are crossing your path? Why are they different? For me the bigger problem by far is car headlights that make it impossible to see the rest of the car and correspondingly much harder to judge distance and approach speed. And getting dazzled by cars coming over bridges or speed humps, while a minor problem by comparison, doesn't help either

 

[Rhythm Thief]

If you assert this to the case then it must be true for you, but it's so far outwith my experience that I really can't visualise how the situation arises. Are we really talking about the same urban 30mph-limit streetlit areas? How do you deal with poorly lit pedestrians on the pavement who are crossing your path? Why are they different? For me the bigger problem by far is car headlights that make it impossible to see the rest of the car and correspondingly much harder to judge distance and approach speed. And getting dazzled by cars coming over bridges or speed humps, while a minor problem by comparison, doesn't help either

When you're looking for cyclists, you're quite right, they're not easy to miss. But drivers and pedestrians (and cyclists, come to that) have so much to look out for in a moderately busy urban (ie, streetlit) environment that they're often using their peripheral vision for a lot of what's going on around them. This is neither bad nor good, merely a result of being human. This is why cyclists and motor vehicles shouldn't only be visible in ideal circumstances, but should be actively drawing attention to themselves: cars have bright lights, and ideally, bikes have both bright lights and flashing LEDs. I would venture to suggest that a car's bright lights don't make it hard to jusdge distance and speed: I find quite the opposite.

 

[Dan B]

But attention is a finite resource. When everything is drawing attention to itself with flashing bright lights, the best possible outcome is that none of them get any more of it than they would have if none of them looked like the Blackpool illuminations. Attaching more blinky disco balls to yourself doesn't create a surplus of mental capacity in the people around you, it just reassigns it from other things they might be looking at

 

[Rhythm Thief]

And of course, the same applies to making your lights dimmer than everything around you ... it just leads to lorry drivers peering earnestly into their mirrors, muttering "now what in tarnation is that?" and pedestrians missing the car with sidelights on behind the car with headlights on that they have seen. In reality, the only real answer is for everyone (but especially motorists) to look harder and make more effort to see and be seen.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Going randomly ot - walking back from the shops this evening I was reminded that the modern incarnation of "parking lights" seems to be the four orange ones on the corners flashing on & off together.

That means "I know I'm parked on double yellows, but look! It's ok because I've got my hazards on".
Unless you're a lorry driver, in which case they mean "I am about to reverse this 45 foot long trailer into a space roughly the size of your garage. Feel free to blow your horn, rev your engine and cut past me when there's barely enough room while I do so".