I was watching a headcam video the other night from someone with a fairly bright front light, pointed dead ahead and flashing quite rapidly. The reflections off street signs were amazingly distracting and annoying even on video, I don't know how he could cope with it, then again people seem have different sensitivities to flashing (in case anyone has read this sentence in isolation, I'm talking about flashing lights, not a certain other interpretation of 'flashing' :P)
I'm another who has settled on one steady and one flashing light as being the best combination of attention getting yet easy to track/keep looking at. Also good in that I can drop to one steady light on lit paths and 2 steady on unlit paths.
I think its time the UK adopted a Germanic type of regulating what can and can't be used by bicyclists.
It's a nice thought and it always goes through my mind when I get blinded/dazzled/strobed by other bikes but I can't see it happening without immense effort. Strictly speaking it's illegal to ride at night without BS approved lights, yet almost all bike lights aren't BS approved, as I read recently even if they have a BS compliant flashing mode the light isn't approved if it has a non-compliant steady mode, even when used on flashing (is this making sense? It did to somebody).
Until very recently the idea of bike lights dazzling anybody was laughable and ridiculous. If we did have strict regulations on lights you'd end up fighting the tide of cheap ebay and amazon lights - which is a whole other sticky mess worthy of another thread in itself. Then you have the fact that some people legitimately need those sorts of lights for mtb and whatnot. I think you'd be better off allowing police to issue warnings to people running seriously dazzling lights, as it is a hazard to all road users. That is another whole can of worms in itself I know...
Tangentially related, but I was reading recently about high powered laser pointers. Just a few years ago you could easily buy a 3 watt laser pointer online no questions asked. Those things are legitimately terrifying, they can, will and have instantly blinded people, burned people, caused havoc when pointed at aircraft etc. It's now illegal to sell anything like near that power level - to be more precise I recall it's always been illegal, only just like bike lights it's cheap Asian manufacturers that have opened up such immensely powerful things to the average person, so the law had to start being enforced much more seriously. I dare say I could get my hands on one if I really tried, such is the internet, but I would not want to get caught with it.
Edit: Crikey that turned into some wall of text hasn't it.
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