[jandrese]

You definitely don't ride around here if you have not been blinded by a bike headlight. They can blow away your vision from half a mile away easily. I can't even see the trail in front of me without putting my hand up to block the light. I call it the nighttime salute.

They are much worse if they flash. That blinds and disorients. Even after they pass you won't be able to see anything for some time.

[crazygringo]

True, I'm referring to places where there are already car headlights. The bike lamps are so dim by comparison, there's nothing to complain about.

If you're somewhere without any other lighting and your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, then I can understand how they might seem bright. But I'm not really sure what you think the solution is. They're already vastly dimmer than cars, but make them any dimmer and the cyclist won't be able to see the ground and it won't be safe.

[jandrese]

That is still very much not my experiance. I ride on the roads a bit and usually cars are fine, although there are people with aftermarket lights and people who just leave high beams on all the time in heavy traffic. But I've experienced riding down the road with oncoming traffic in the other direction and doing just fine until a bicycle comes and blinds me just like the high intensity high beam guys. They are generally much brigter in terms of light delivered directly to the eyeballs of oncoming traffic. Are you sure people aren't seeing you because your lights are too dim, or because you're making it impossible to see anything around them?

[crazygringo]

Fascinating. I'm honestly quite confused -- most of the bike headlights I see simply run on 2-3 AA or AAA batteries, and it doesn't seem physically possible for them to output the kind of bright light you're talking about. I personally am very careful to angle them downwards, because the entire point is to illuminate the ground in front of me -- if I'm shining in people's eyes, then it's not illuminating the ground. And they're already so weak, you need all the illumination you can get.

E-bike rentals don't have anything adjustable, and where I am, they're quite fixed at illuminating the ground.

Maybe there are people with e-bikes who can draw a lot more power and have higher-powered headlights? Are you talking about e-bikes specifically? But it's just not something I've ever seen. I'm certainly blinded by vehicles while cycling under certain circumstances, but I've never once in my life felt blinded by cyclists or even anywhere close. That's why I'm so confused by what you're describing. When you say "blow away your vision from half a mile away easily", I honestly can't even begin to imagine what you're talking about.

[jandrese]

You apparently have a bunch of old stock incandescent AA powered bike lights in your area? Around here it's all LiPo or LiFe+ powered LEDs that easily put out 1,000 lumens (not an exaggeration).

Stuff like this:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bike+headlight

You can even see people posting pictures of the light where it's clearly illuminating 10' up the tree on the side of the path.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61a2EhfJeeL.jpg

[crazygringo]

Not incandescent, it's still LED. I mean I don't know what percentage of riders have switched from the AA to rechargeable lithium batteries, or how much more current rechargeable lithium batteries provide.

I'll start paying more attention -- I'm curious now -- but I can still definitely say I've never felt blinded by a bicycle, or even close.

And the lights in that photo seem fine -- the road is pitch black just 20 feet in front. The tree is getting a lot of light reflected from the road and grass. The lights don't seem to be illuminating anywhere even close to as far as car headlights illuminate. None of that looks anything like what car headlights produce.