Bicycle Lighting

Over the last several years, cycling has witnessed a sort of lighting arms race, with brightness now measured in hundreds of lumens. I'm sure that by now some company has broken the kilolumen barrier. It's gotten to the point where many morning Freds ride around with lights on their helmets whose brightness rivals Hollywood premiere search lights. If several Freds are riding in a pack, it can look pretty much like this image from the 1940 premiere of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

To make matters worse, riders wearing these photonic cannons think nothing of looking at other people passing by, briefly searing their retinas and rendering them momentarily blind. This is far from a good thing when you are riding on a multi-use path with other cyclists, joggers, pedestrians and the occasional dog, who have suddenly become invisible to you.

These multi-hundred dollar portable searchlights have their uses off-road, where there is little other natural light to light the way. They really have little, if any, use on bike paths or city streets. I can understand the desire to see and be seen, but I doubt riders with such headlamps are increasing their safety on surface streets when they blind drivers in two-ton metal cages either.