See the rest of this amazing comic, from the ever Talented BikeyFace. Get some awesome prints of her great work here, tell her BostonBiker sent you over.
I honestly don’t know what people are thinking, but you need lights. You need a red one in the back, a white one in the front and you need to have them on and at full power. Its dark 24 hours a day now, so the USB rechargeable ones are nice, but I don’t care if you have to light the front and back of your bike on fire, you are 100% invisible without a light.
Reflectors are nice, but they don’t work for pedestrians or other cyclists, or if the car has its lights off, or if it comes at you from a strange angle….basically you need to be lit up like a gaudy Las Vegas sign all the time every day (seriously).
I almost ran into another cyclist the other day, there was a line of cars facing me (as I was going up the Longfellow towards Cambridge), and they had no lights or reflectors. They were completely invisible until I was about 3-5 feet from them. Similarly some crazy ass runner did the same thing, except he was running TOWARDS me.
All in all I would say in the last two or three weeks I have had more than a dozen close calls with people dressed totally in black riding or walking with NO LIGHTS. (I think that pedestrians need lights as well, especially when out for a jog in the street, or when j-walking.)
Get em, use em, love em. LIGHTS!
