To hate with a raging passion those flashing cycle lights

[turnaroundtime]

Why in anyone's God's name are those things allowed. They are so bright and distracting that if some one walked out in front of my car I wouldn't see them due to being blinded by an oncoming cyclist with their flashing strobes of death.

Some of them make me feel really dizzy and ill. A cyclist wheeled past me in a train station once (so enclosed space, inside), and I seriously thought for a moment I was going to pass out.

Oddly enough, I wasn't in a hunk of metal at the time, I wasn't even on a road. I was just trying to catch a train home!

@Momicrone

Rummikub, cycle lanes can be one way or a wider 2 way

This was a narrow cycle lane. The scooters are unnerving anyway- especially if there’s two people on them!

Momicrone No!it's not that I want the road all to myself,it's just the stupidity of coming towards me on the passenger side with a flashing light,it's just so stupid last week coming home in early hours a electric scooter was being driven in the cycle lane with another one balanced sideways on it! really bonkers thing to even contemplate let alone do

I agree. It concerns me as flashing lights like those can cause migraines

In addition i am also concerned for those that suffer epilepsy, be they a driver or a passenger

Well I am just glad you see the cyclist as that might be my child. I put his on flashing this morning, but he changed to solid light. I think it's easier to spot the flashing lights, and I want the driver to see him.

@trumpisagit but it also might be your child that the cyclist passes. Are you sure the flashing light is within the allowed frequency range? Because it's clear on this thread that potentially there are quite a few out there that are not.

@RagzReturnedUnwrapped

DH told me it's against the highway code to have flashing lights on a bike. Apparently its actually harder to see how far away they are.

This makes sense to me - I find the flashing lights difficult to judge distance wise. Unfortunately our local shit Ubereats L plate scooter riders (riding while texting, wrong side of road etc) seem to have been replaced by equally shit Ubereats cyclists with flashing lights. Not sure what is worse.

Although we do also have a proliferation of cyclists who either have no lights or one very weak one at the front. Becomes somewhat of a challenge spotting them on unlit/ poorly lit roads.

@turnaroundtime

Why in anyone's God's name are those things allowed. They are so bright and distracting that if some one walked out in front of my car I wouldn't see them due to being blinded by an oncoming cyclist with their flashing strobes of death.

I think it’s great that you have noticed them, maybe you won’t run over a cycling with your heavy metal box,

I find them ridiculously bright too and it hurts my eyes
But equally I've seen those high raised cars such as Jeeps with ridiculously bright headlights too and they near blind me. Tbh I am sensitive to light so what do I know?

@Chloemol

I agree. It concerns me as flashing lights like those can cause migraines

In addition i am also concerned for those that suffer epilepsy, be they a driver or a passenger

Is this real? You do know that anyone who has had any epileptic seizures or blackout cannot drive and DVLA may revolve your license, and if you continue to drive you can hit with a £1000 fine ?

@fabulousMrfifty Have the rules changed? I thought it was only that you had to be seizure free for a year, and something about people who only have them during sleep also being ok to drive?

You can't ban everyone who blacks out once from driving for ever, surely - that would cover most of the population!

Because flashing bright lights are synonymous with cyclists. You see one you think "ohhh a cyclist" if it was just a normal solid red light or white light it would not be as noticeable and the cyclist would be more at risk. Flashing lights attracts attention.

It's the same principle as someone walking their dog in winter, it's sensible to carry a light that attracts attention.

I say this as someone with astigmatism who hates bright flashing lights by the way.

YANBU

My daughter has absence seizures and the strobe ones cause problems for her.

Over Christmas we were in a slow moving queue of traffic and a cyclist was behind us with a really bright, strobe light and she had seizure after seizure. I did pull over to let him pass us as soon as I could.

Pollution kills

@Chouetted
There are a myriad of rules surrounding epilepsy and driving depending on what seizures you had and if you lost consciousness and what you drive, but the bottom line is your license will be taken away and you will have to reapply, and that might be 6 months, a year, or 10 years, plus you have to be seizure free and what information your doctor supplies

www.gov.uk/epilepsy-and-driving

I know someone that has epilepsy and seizures from flashing light, definitely not allowed to drive.

www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/flashing-bike-lights/

This is an interesting article, including comment from a UK epilepsy charity

Totally agree with you, OP. Ditto when runners where there. The brightness gives me instant nausea.

*wear them

[quote FabulousMrFifty]@Chouetted
There are a myriad of rules surrounding epilepsy and driving depending on what seizures you had and if you lost consciousness and what you drive, but the bottom line is your license will be taken away and you will have to reapply, and that might be 6 months, a year, or 10 years, plus you have to be seizure free and what information your doctor supplies

www.gov.uk/epilepsy-and-driving[/quote]
Thanks. Reading that, it looks like the maximum absolute ban for car drivers is still only a year. The ten years is for bus and coaches and lorries.

So people who have had an epileptic seizure or blackout can still drive, subject to approval, which isn't quite what you said before!

YANBU. Flashing lights are fine for seeing a static object but really poor for tracking the direction of travel of a moving object.

Imagine trying to cross the road if car headlights were all flashing instead of steady. It would be a nightmare.

As a driver I much prefer cyclists to be lit with a steady light and some decent high visibility/reflective clothing.

Spreading arses indeed.. 😤😂

@Chouetted
Yes - point taken, but a member of my extended family has irregular fits, so he never reaches the “clear for a year” point to even consider reapplying - so his current Drs advice is that he will probably never drive again.

And it’s not a driving ban, like a court might hand out for DD, your license is taken away and you have to reapply and then be reassessed for fitness to drive

tbf most people I see using them, and the times I've used them myself, I run one brighter light on constant and have a smaller flasher running along side it, on the back my rear light has an always on with a pulse, do it never actually goes dark, it gives constant low level light punctuated by a bright throb once a second or so. I regularly drive and cycle and I also wouldn't run those icy white xenon bulbs on my car because many people find them bothersome

@Chardlettuce

I once saw a cyclist with a flashing front light and for some reason my brain interpreted it as being an indicator light and they must be turning left. I pulled out of the road in my car into his path but fortunately we didn't crash. I felt absolutely dreadful and ever since I worry about crashing into cyclists. I was carefully looking at him and knew he was there, but for some reason my brain thought the flashing light meant indicator light. The whole thing sounds implausible but it's true, and it still stresses me out whenever I remember it.

I know it wasn't intentional and you felt awful, but this made me feel a bit sick in my mouth.

Thing is, as a motorist you have the ability to injure or even kill someone just from an "innocent" mistake like that, and so you have to take a higher level of responsibility when you engage in that activity. If you struggle to process information on the road (and interpret a flashing white light on a bike as an orange indicator..which is quite a mistake to make! ), then I think you shouldn't be driving or at least should be looking to perhaps ensure you refresh your skills a bit and maybe assess in which circumstances, such as your brain being tired, that you should not be driving.

Yes we all make mistakes...but the mistake you describe could have ended really badly for someone else and you appear to be somewhat abdicating some of your responsibility and trying to blame the cyclist's flashing lights for YOUR mistake. It was your mistake.