In a previous post I raised some concerns about cycling at night in the dense urban conditions of a city like Seattle.
Many of us don’t cycle at night because of safety concerns, but we understand the reasons that compel riders to pedal in the darkness:
1. Making a positive contribution towards reducing our dependence on petroleum
2. Using the commute as a way to maintain fitness
3. Saving money on commuting costs
4. Cycling is fun in all conditions
These are great reasons to cycle at night. But, in my opinion the deck is stacked against you, and night cyclists (in general) ought to be doing more to make themselves more visible.
During my (limited) research, I found an abundance of vague, general recommendations about how to safely cycle at night. For example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends:
1. Be sure your bike has reflectors required on all new bicycles by the CPSC bicycle regulation. Each bike should have front and rear reflectors, pedal reflectors, and side rim or wheel reflectors. Use front and rear lights (as required in many States) to help make your bicycle more noticeable to cars at night. Small battery-operated lamps strapped to your legs also help.
2. Wear reflective clothing to make yourself more visible to automobile drivers. Wear a reflective vest, reflective bands on arms and legs, and reflectorized tape on helmet.
3. Always wear a good helmet with a rigid (but crushable) interior material which may help absorb the force of an impact. (This is important for daytime riding, too.)
4. Avoid riding on dark, narrow roadways where the posted speed limit is more than 35 mph.
Along these same lines, here is a video produced by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition about cycling in wet conditions and at night:
As I motor around Seattle, however, I don’t think any of these recommendations are specific enough. Just strapping a couple of lights onto your bike and/or body isn’t going to make you safer. If you cycle at night, you need to be tactful about light placement. Here are some suggestions:
1. Blinky lights alone are visually confusing, especially in wet conditions.
Use a combination of steady and blinky lights.
In the front, wear a white blinky light on your helmet and have a steady white headlight on your handlebars. In the rear, wear a blinky light on your helmet and have a steady red light on the back of your seat.
The rationale for this is that the blinky light is a great attention-getter, but from the perspective of an automobile, it can be impossible to judge where the bicycle is during the dark intervals. A steady light gives the motorist a way to judge where you are at all times. If you do use just blinky lights, choose a high-frequency blinky setting over a slower setting to minimize the dark interval of the blink frequency.
I think the advantage of a combination of steady and blinky serves to get the attention of motorists, and provides them with enough visual information to judge where you are at all times.
Along these same lines, in a previous post, a commenter named bitterbikecommuter advised: “…You may be tempted to use ridiculously bright lighting gear on the trails. If you see oncoming traffic shielding their eyes or hear curses as you pass, your light is poorly aimed and/or too bright.”
This sounds reasonable when cycling on trails. When in automobile traffic, though, having bright lights pointed into the eyes of motorists may be just what you want. So, it’s important to be mindful of your context when lighting yourself and your bike. On trails be sensitive to how your lighting affects other cyclists, while on the streets, be as bright and noticeable as possible to motorists. If your night ride includes both trails and streets you might need to adjust the lighting along the way.
2. Light yourself in an eye-catching way, but make sure motorists can tell you are a cyclist.
This could include an unusual lighting configuration or color (blue, green, purple, etc.).
Some of the eye-catching lighting setups I’ve seen around town include a fluorescent green down tube (I didn’t see it long enough to figure out how it was done), a waistband of four blinky lights, and the spokes of a front wheel strung with blue-green LEDs, that looked like a blue-green disc when spinning. I’m surprised there aren’t more creative lighting setups like this around Seattle.
One off-the-shelf idea is this:
The Nathan L.E.D. Runner’s Vest goes for about $35. A small price to pay to get noticed during your night ride.
I’ve never seen one of these in action, so I’m speculating, but I think that when used in combination with steady and blinky you’d have a great lighting setup.
3. Frequently change the batteries of your lighting system, or better yet, frequently recharge rechargeable batteries for your lighting setup.
From the perspective of a motorist, a dim light on a bicycle can look like a weird reflection or glare effect at night. Eliminate this by being brightly lit at all times.
More:
The comments of that previous post included some great ideas for staying visible.
Read Peter LaPorte’s Rubber Side Down Portland cycling blog entries Bicycle Law and Bicycle Law 2 for traffic cycling strategies.
