1- What you are completely ignoring is that many riders with bright lights use bike paths. The most basic geometry shows that when you are coming towards someone on a 6' wide path, you cannot look away from their dazzling lights and still look forward. That is different to dealing with oncoming car headlights, particularly since they have to be adjusted downwards and many guys with Ay-ups seem to love burning treetops.trailgumby wrote:Do you think I am the only one around Sydney having AyUps on my commuter bike? So long as I avoid looking directly at the oncoming lights I have no problem with being dazzled. Yes it is a little bit uncomfortable, but so what? You just just deal with it. It really isn't that hard.
In that respect it is no different to dealing with oncoming car headlights on country roads. You just look down and to the left of the opposing lights. They need to have enough light to be able to see where they are going too. I don't see how bikes should not be afforded the same allowance.
2- How sure are you that everyone else in the universe has eyes that react to your lights exactly the same as your eyes react to them? People with light-coloured eyes are generally more light sensitive. What is fine for you may not be fine for a significant number of others.
3- Studies about cycle lights have demonstrated what vision scientists know - that a bright spot of light is very misleading as it gives no information on distance, and the onlookers eyes adjust to the bright light and therefore cannot see the background which is needed to give a frame of reference if one is to judge speed and distance.
My wife is a neuroscientist research fellow at the nation's top university who earned her PhD with an international series of experiments on the accuracy of the human ability to perceive the motion of points of light. She has also ridden to work each day for years. She doesn't use unusually bright lights because she thinks that their dazzling effect and loss of frame of reference may cause car drivers to hit her.
4- Maybe those near collisions are caused by the fact that people looking into your lights lose their frame of reference and therefore can't see how far away you are and how fast you are moving?
BTW a Japanese (IIRC) study showed that bright car lights are different in this respect because there are two of them and therefore the distance between the lights allows people to judge how far away the car is.