mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
I don’t bike, but I might if I didn’t live in LA. I’ve just known too many people injured while pedaling across town, or even in their own neighborhoods. Capering around town as a pedestrian here feels subversive enough, and until my encounters with crosswalks improve (in CA it’s illegal to keep driving if a pedestrian has just one foot on a crosswalk–thank you, all my friends who’ve lived to tell from Traffic School), I’m just not getting on a bike. Once I’m in Europe, then I’ll bike, and I’ll probably buy some of these sweet Danish bike lights, battery-free and powered by magnets built into the spokes. Reelight, the company that manufactures these lights, reported that accidents decreased by 40% when cyclists used bike lights. Daytime Running Light regulations for automobiles haven’t fared so well in the US, but they’ve been embraced in other parts of the world, including Scandinavia and Canada. DRLs have their detractors, though, and of course their blanket use would burn more gas. Anyone have a theory about the necessity or perils of illuminated travel?
Comments (4)
Comment
A couple comments:
1. The Danish design looks intriguing, but it looks like if you come to a stop (at an intersection or wherever), the light will go out. That’s a major shortcoming! There needs to be a built in battery or super-capacitor to store enough charge during operation for a few minutes (at least) of stationary operation. It’s really dumb to omit this when the technology exists. It’s not practical for the old magneto driven incandescent systems, but for an LED system, it should be a no-brainer.
2. While the US doesn’t mandate DRLs, the majority of new cars have them. Public favor for them varies with the system in use. Some of the systems work via depowering the high-beams. These especially have poor aiming for DRL use - there’s a lot of annoying glare at oncoming drivers, even when depowered.
3. Also consider that there is a fuel economy cost to running headlights. It’s not huge, but it’s measurable, and compounded over an entire nation of vehicles, it would add up to a few hundred millions of gallons of fuel and billions of pounds of CO2 (for those who believe in global warming).
4. Finally, anything that the driver can’t manually disable in certain special instances is really annoying. I took an early (1999) DRL U.S. vehicle to a drive-in movie one time and after our film was over, we drove out. Most cars were able to do this under just parking lights (so as not to disturb viewers of an adjacent movie still in progress). My car had the stupid DRLs on and I thought a mob was going to kill me. Most systems are now disableable, but this one was not.
posted by Sid Morrison on 9-5-2007 at 2:36 am
My girlfriend has the lights. They must be used in conjunction with other lights. In NY the law states a white light in front visible from 300 feet and a red light in back visible from 100 feet. Any other lights only add to saftey.
posted by gus on 9-5-2007 at 12:04 pm
I lived in Denmark for a semester and most people had the little LED lights on their bike that come off easily because people will steal lights that are left on. Also, they had cool bike locks that were built on the tire.
posted by al on 9-5-2007 at 7:56 pm
I just got the Reelights and will review them soon. A couple quick notes:
1. Sid’s obeservation that they go dark when stopping is correct, but I did see a version at Interbike last week that has a standlight capability.
2. The lights are a small and dim compared to modern battery operated blinkies.
3. My panniers obscure the rear light.
4. No batteries required, of course, and permanently mounted — there’s no quick release for these lights.
posted by Fritz on 10-1-2007 at 1:29 pm