Pro Tip: Get the Garmin Varia RTL series radar/tail-light. It’s a game changer in terms of how technology can make you safer on the road. Esp. in the nights. Esp. on country roads with sporadic traffic. I have had zero false positives and zero false negatives with the radar. The beep indicating that there is a car coming behind you can prevent you from “zoning out” at the wrong time.
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Plus you might be blinding drivers, most bike lights are still pretty point like and bike lights at full power are light high beams. In the city, I usually set my lights to solid + pulse where I get 200 lumens + 800 lumens pulse. That pulse illuminates signs several hundred meters away. In suburbs I find that 400 lumens suffice, especially if there street lighting. If I go for the full 800 lumens, I mostly do that on dark back roads with little traffic. On the road, I don’t see much sense in going much beyond 1,000 lumens. Having a spread out beam rather than a pointlike light source is more important.
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Yep- the Garmin Radar tail light comes to mind there. If you put it on steady, it goes to strobe automatically just as a driver gets near, which is f-Ing stupid. It’s not 800lm, but it’s pretty darn bright and enough to startle someone a bit. It’s also pointless, as they’re already in the strike zone. If you’re behind the guy with the Garmin, you’re suddenly getting a changing light to adjust to while you’re on the edge of the road.
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That’s why I think smart lights are a good next step, lights which react to your behavior (are you breaking or turning?) or to your environment. Although the implementation isn’t always perfect. And I completely agree, you don’t always need to blast your environment with light, and you shouldn’t blind traffic.
I’d consider something like an Apple Watch that will contact emergency services if it detects you crashed and don’t respond to its prompts.
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