Alain,

You know, I've been thinking exactly the same thing about redundant lighting. The multimode LED taillights are so cheap that the most economical approach would be to toss one of those in, but it would do poor double duty in my pocket. My lefthand pocket has a red Photon II and my righthand pocket has an ARC AAA-P. Might make sense for me to upgrade the red Photon. As for the white light - I was thinking about getting a Tikka to toss in the toolbag anyway - hands free light for repairs. But for now I'll toss in a converted minimag (TerraLux) and nighteyez headstrap because I already have those laying around doing nothing.

I'm more concerned about getting hit from the side, especially after dark, than I am from fore or aft. Not a big issue this time of year, but it will be soon. I'm feeling creative...

My lights are mostly for the purpose of being visible and legal; a serious headlight will force me to a large rechargeable battery and I don't think I need to do that for my commute. Guess I'll find out.

Say, your lighting system is driven by a dynamo - I understand that there are now regulated dynamos available. If that's true, you could put one of those on and stop blowing bulbs with overspeed. That happened to me years ago a couple of times and I remember how annoying that was - I quit using dynamo lights in part because of that.

There are also some very sophisticated hub dynamos available now, including at least one that uses some internal storage to continue to provide light while stopped. AFAIK you have a larger selection of bike gadgets like that in Europe than we do in North America, so I apologize if I'm writing something you know more about than I!

Regards,

Tom