Exposure's DayBright Lifesaving Tech
Since Exposure launched their 'DayBright' technology some years ago, I became an immediate believer. As a regular rider on Jersey's roads, mostly on weekend mornings in winter, I realised that there was a big problem with visibility of cyclists by drivers.
The problem, was not the driver's themselves but rather the lack of any aid to ensure we are visible to them. I noticed over years that whether we were a group of 8 riders or 2 riders and despite bright colors with reflective strips on our clothing, they simply could not see us. The amount of times I felt like the driver pulling out of a junction was staring me right in the face but still pulled out in-front of me anyway, was alarming.
When I started using a DayBright light on 'strobe' mode, this issue stopped almost instantly. Don't get me wrong, there have been some close shaves but these remained as 'close shaves' rather than collisions, because of the strobing DayBright light that enabled the driver to see us, albeit late!
So What is DayBright Technology?
DayBright is a very bright white light tech from Exposure that can be seen from as far as a kilometre away. It is very distinctive and unlike normal LED light, pierces through bright sunshine and daylight. Put simply, DayBright is a tech that removes the excuse of sunlight or mist as the cause of collisions between us the cyclists, and cars.
So much so, have become convinced that drivers at junctions on sunny or misty days are my biggest enemy, I am almost indifferent about rear lights. I'm far from suggesting rear lights are not necessary, rather that I don't have the same fear about drivers not seeing me from behind. But junctions....... they scare the crap out of me! I can recount so many occasions in just the last few years when cars have almost hit me front or side-on at junctions. But car's almost hitting me from behind = zero.
It happens, of course it does. But my point is we need to think about daytime running lights as being OUR LAW as riders. Like a religion to help protect us. I don't believe we can continue riding without lights in the daytime anymore. There are simply too many cars and since 2011, all new vehicles have daylight running lights by law. This means, drivers are less likely to see us as they are used to only realising the presence of others by the daylight running lights.
I notice when driving down the motorway, the cars with no lights on during the day, much more so than those with lights. It now seems odd when there is a vehicle coming the other way without daylight runners! It is this psyche that has changed and I believe, makes drivers less likely to notice we exist.
Where do we go from here?
Well it's fairly simple. To increase the safety of not only yourself, but the rest of the group you are riding with, use a DayBright light. You don't have to spend hundred of £££'s! Whilst Exposure Lights do have DayBright tech built into some of their larger more powerful lights (such as the Diablo, Toro, Maxx-D etc), those are lights with 1000's of lumens designed to light up the path for you at night time.
In essence, those are 'seeing lights', as apposed to 'be seen' lights. What we're recommending here is a small neat low-powered but crazy bright day running light which can last upwards of 5/6 hours on strobe mode. For example, the Boost DayBright Mk2 as pictured here.
It's not 'Nerdy' and won't make your bike look NAF
If you don't like the idea of carrying lights on your bike because it's not cool, don't worry. We have tonnes of solutions to keep it looking slick and discreet. We have custom mounts from K-Edge, Exposure and others. A neat little GoPro attachment can be mounted to the underside of your computer so the clip is integrated. There's nothing 'nerd' about being safe!
Come and see us, join the Big Maggy's safety campaign - all summer we are offering 15% off a Boost DayBright Mk2 light if you promise to use it every day!
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