You are most visible riding in full daylight. At night, two bright lights facing forward are better than one. I usually have one mounted on my helmet.

Riding in the evening is definitely more hazardous than riding before dawn - fewer distracted drivers.

Bike riders who do not follow the rules of the road are their own worst enemy and make it tough for all.....

Absolutely! Such behavior gives us all a bad name and makes it more likely that motorists will give us a hard time.

I use a narrow handle bar on my Mountain/City bicycle and real estate is at a premium for a couple of Fenix Bike Flashlight Mounts so I have fitted a Cinelli Euro Spinaci bar. The Fenix Flashlight Mounts work well.



The Flashlight mounts fit either side of the Spinaci clamps on the Bar. They also give an additional tribar aerodynamic position on the bicycle.

This allows me to fit a couple of Hi-Low-Flash mode Cree XM-L T6 18650 600-900 Lumen flashlights without the flashlights getting in the way.

That's my problem with the DRL's on any vehicle. They make you LESS visible under the right conditions. A car coming from the west when I'm leaving work with lights on is much harder to see due to the sun being almost directly behind them on a sunny day.

+1 to what hikermor said, and then some.

In this area, in the course of the past couple/three years, I can't count the number of moped/bicycle/motorized wheelchair riders hit/killed.

Bicyclists in the early morning vex me the most. No lights, dark clothes, riding in the middle of the turn lane. And it looks as if they are riding their sister's bike from 1975.

I still think the best was the moped rider who was on I95 when she ran out of gas in the travel lane, an 18 wheeler didn't/couldn't see her and that was all she wrote. Yes, she was using a moped to travel 50+ miles to work as her car broke down. Pure Darwin's theory at work.

Ped's aren't much better half the time. Jaywalking, dark clothes, no reflectors - accidents waiting to happen. And they do, Frequently.

I think the mindset of some of these people is - "they have to watch out for me" rather then, "I should take responsibility for my safety and welfare myself".

JB,

It is certainly true that many peds, bicyclists, etc don't do enough to make themselves visible, and/or ignore traffic rules. However, as always, there is another side to the story.

Lots of auto drivers don't really "see" bicyclists, even when they are plainly visible. A classic example is a car turning right from a stop sign on a side street, onto a busy road. The car driver is looking to the left, and hyper-focused on the oncoming cars. All too often they don't really look to the right enough, and hence don't see a ped or bike approaching from the right on a bike path or sidewalk.

Even worse, sometimes auto drivers are so distracted by traffic and so focused on seeing other cars that they don't seem to notice cyclists even when the car driver is looking right at the bike and it is in plain sight.

There is plenty of room for improvement in attitudes and awareness on the part of car drivers as well as peds and cyclists.

Unfortunately, seeing-but-not-seeing is an all too common experience. Many of you may have already seen a variation of this exercise. Count how many times a player in white passes the ball.

Particularly with cyclists, it seems that transportation systems where vehicles and bicycles are kept on separate roadways are ultimately the most effective method to reduce collisions because of the seeing-but-not-seeing issue of motorists primarily looking out for other motorists.

AKSAR, if I understand the situation you are describing, the cyclist is the one committing the biggest error - he, she should be on the far side of the street, well away from the driver turning right, at least according to the traffic regs in Cali...

Interestingly enough, I frequently use an intersection like the one you describe, both as a cyclist and as a driver. Yes,I have been surprised by cyclists approaching from my right,generally riding on the sidewalk, as I am searching for an opening in the approaching traffic stream from the left. So far,they have been wrong, but not dead wrong.

Riding in SoCal is interesting. Drivers are far more considerate than those in Arizona, where I formerly lived,probably in part because many of them cycle a lot,as I do. I see far too many cyclists blatantly disregarding the rules of the road. LEOs should start passing out paper.

Blackshadow terminator... illuminates better than most car headlights

I think you misunderstood me, but it was my fault. I didn't explain very well what I meant.

I was referring to the situation where there is a bike trail along side and parallel with a busy main road. A side road with a stop sign meets the main road. The side road crosses the bike trail at the stop sign. The car is trying to make a right turn onto the the main road, but must cross the bike path to do so. With busy traffic the driver stops, and looks to the left, looking for an opening in traffic to make his right turn. The bike approaches from the car's right, sees the driver stopped at the stop sign, waiting for traffic. As the biker crosses in front of the car (who is at a stop sign), the car driver (who is looking mostly left) suddenly sees a small opening in oncomming traffic on the main road and goes for it, without really looking to his right.

The biker is within his rights, crossing on a designated bike path, in front of a car that is stopped at a stop sign. The car driver needs to look both ways before making his right turn. But the driver is only thinking about other cars, so only looks to his left where auto traffic is approaching. The driver forgets that he is also crossing a bike path. Many drivers seem totally oblivious to bikes.

I've experienced this from both sides. I once almost hit a bike because I stupidly failed to look both ways before making a quick right turn where the road crosses the bike path. I've also had some close calls in similar situations when riding a bike. Now I try to be more alert both when riding or driving.