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almost got rear ended at a traffic light commuting home in the dark
so lately, I've been driving behind bikes on the freeway, to see what I could improve....
already added a strip along the base of the helmet:
similar to what a halo does, but the last one I got just shredded apart from the elements after a few months
the next thing was a big, ugly, strip up the middle:
now onto the bike...
here are some issues - 1 red taillight does squat from afar. Until my headlights illuminate the rider, I can't see anything but a single red dot from a distance...and even if there's a reflector, if it's really close to the taillight, they blend together. Wearing no hi-vis? then I'll barely see the rider...worse if I'm tired
so I looked at the back of my bike, and picked out the items that were as far away from the the taillight as possible so that they don't blend together. I found:
1.) the BACK of front turn signals:
2.) and just in case those were blocked by the rider, I also picked the rear passenger peg mounts:
how does it look?
I drove past a few times, and...
up close? great
but as you go farther away...
it gets worse...reason being? bikes are just too narrow to spread out the reflectors so you can see them better
also - the farther away you get, the less that car headlights point UP at the bike...
so what do I want to do next?
get some reflectors that are LOW on the bike - that way residual light from headlights will catch the reflectors from farther away...I was thinking the back of the swing arm...unfortunately it's dark, and my swingarm needs a good cleaning first
and lastly - I was blessed to receive a reflective from the cycle guy: