I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you on daytime running lights, too. When I was a kid getting my driver’s license back in MO in the early 60s, the safety slogan “Lights On For Safety” was drummed into my head.

In those days, you were driving 70 mph on two-lane roads over bridges that are now marked one-lane. It sure helped to tell whether the car off in the distance was someone going in the same direction as you passing someone else or if it was an oncoming vehicle.

My vehicle doesn’t come with DRLs, so I drive with my low beams on, day and night. S FL drivers need all the help they can get.

But I think that it’s reasonable for me to make my lights at least as conspicuous as those of cars–after all, I’m more vulnerable than the cars, so they should be asked to cut back first. I’m not sure where the light in question is in brightness compared to car tail lights and brake lights.

I’m more concerned with MY safety than worrying about raising the visual noise floor. It seems to me that you’re arguing that I should reduce my night lighting so that motorists will be more vigilant about looking for unlighted riders.

I was on a Freakbike Milita ride a few months back where everyone was “encouraged” to have lights for the evening ride (they are legally required to have them). Too many of the riders felt like they’d be sandwiched between riders WITH lights, so they didn’t bother to light up.

http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/rear-video-camera-mount-for-freakbike-ride/

On this particular ride, we were hit by hard rain that caused the group to fragment. I was concerned that motorists, coping with driving rain and everything else, would see us lighted cyclists, avoid us, then crash into an unlighted bike.

As far as I know, everyone made it back home OK, but it was a dangerous situation.

Given that scenario, I’ll still go with the option of making myself as visible as possible.

I used to drive professionally, a 12 passenger airport shuttle, back and forth to SF Intl. Airport, days and nights. Of course many readers have been on both sides of a windscreen, but I just wanted to mention that.

My problem with anything over a standard (based on local regs.) light and reflectors set up is two-fold, what I call acute and chronic effects:

Acute: This means that during the “illumination event” a cyclist who is hyper-illuminated effectively blinds a driver to anyone nearby who is not so illuminated, including pedestrians (and dogs).

Chronic: This means that if people use these drivers become used to them, and then look out only for them, and less for normally-illuminated cyclists (and even less for the un-illuminated, who may be illegal but still deserve respect!). The Chronic situation is obviously worsened by the Acute effects.

This my feeling of how things work, especially after driving that van, at night, in the rain, on hills, in a town with quite a few cyclists.

Does this make sense? I am not stuck on language, so feedback on that or anything else would be useful in persuading someone to do some good research on it.

Editorial: Speed, hardness and number of motor vehicles is the issue. Hyper-illumination and helmets are a distraction, and separated infrastructure is a understandable reaction by people who feel motor vehicles moving unguided at high speed is inevitable. (I do think that cycling in Amsterdam etc. is quite safe, relatively speaking).

Cheers!

As for the post above regarding the camelbak there are products out there…
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-LED-Wear-High-Viz-Rucksack-Cover-32L-Max-/160436706957?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Cycling_Clothing&hash=item255ac5de8d