What Do You Consider To Be Minimum For Outdoor Activities At Night?

I took our dog for a walk last night after dark. I brought my Inova T4, traffic wand, Streamlight ClipMate USB, and wore a high visibility vest. I live in a rural area, so I was walking along the road, not on a sidewalk. I did notice that when a vehicle approached, if I slipped on the traffic cone and used the flash function a bit, it really seemed to help slow traffic down. Also, it seemed to be quite handy to have the Streamlight ClipMate clipped to my baseball cap to light up wherever I looked, but then I used the Inova T4 to illuminate other things. I also have a new LED vest coming soon to replace my well worn one.

Anyway, what do you folks do when you are out walking, bicycling, etc., at night? Is a flashlight enough? Do you ever use a headlamp? Do you ever use BOTH a flashlight AND a headlamp at the same time? What about clothing with reflective strips? Is it overkill or does it just make good sense?

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I don't often walk next to a road at night, so usually for me it's in the woods on a backpacking trip. In that case I often just use a headlamp as light, but I have a throwier light in my hand in case I want to see something farther away (it's usually left turned off). I also bring extra batteries and an extra light or two in my backpack.

I think it does make a lot of sense to have a setup like you have (the reflective strips on clothing). I think that can often be a lot more obviously seen to drivers, so I would wear it if I did that often.

I think the one time I walked along the side of a road at night that I can remember I had a really bright light that I pointed at the ground in front of me, and that seemed to make the cars slow down effectively. I still think the reflective vest is a great idea though.

It highly depends on where I walk and when that is. In urban area I wear a reflective vest or jacket and have flashlight in my hand. But when I'm at the forest I want to be as visible as possible. It also depends on/next to what kinda road I'm walking. Do cars drive 30, 50 or 80km/u.

The roads I walk on are in the burbs, and the speed limit is usually 25mph. Which means the cars are actually going between 40 and 50 mph. I use either a RRT26 or SRT7 on high and pointed 10 to 20ft in front of me and towards the edge of the road. If they don't see me or have their highs on I can flick the light towards them briefly. If they are coming around a corner I shine the light on the opposite side of the road so that they can see that someone is there and aren't surprised. Almost everyone slows down, sometimes almost to the speed limit. I find that one light is enough, although I always have a couple of backups.

For walking next to a road, 500 lumens minimum and a taillight; a Mag with a good drop-in and a Flash-Cap fits the bill nicely.

I've spent some time trying to get a consistent system down for my lights and I finally nailed it a couple of months ago.

I always take 3 lights with me whenever I go out at night. One 2 AA workhorse. A single AA back up. And a 4 AA thrower. Right now I use a Foursevens QP2A-X with a Fenix LD12 for back up and a Fenix E40 for the thrower.

That setup fits easily into a pack carry system or jeans/ cargos. I would prefer using my LD22 for my primary and I tend to when I'm deep in the woods on a trail. But I prefer a moonlight mode when I'm in an area around people.

The irony is that I try to use my lights as little as possible and only go off of starlight (rural area). So that E40 on medium mode is just staggering when it flips on after you've been using moonlight mode or nothing.

I use that system for short walks or long deep woods hikes. The batteries are commonly avaliable, all the lights fit into pockets and aren't too heavy. And it covers close up, distance, and having a back up.

As a side note, I take a headlamp and a back up only for my night runs. For some reason, I always tend to run a bit faster when I only have 50 lumens to see the trail with .

I walk my dog off leash on a rural/suburban dead-end street with no sidewalk or street lighting, and often with little illumination from house lights. There's not many cars, but 1 or 2 is not uncommon, and I can hear them coming from a good distance away. I always use 3 lms on my lego'd QPA-X (w/14500) for the walk and will use its momentary max from ON "feature" to fire two quick millisecond flashes (~400 lms) at approaching cars (~50+ yards away) to warn them pedestrians are ahead, and you can see them let up on the gas. Light always returns to the previously set 3 lms, which I keep pointed in the car's general direction as a locator. My dog wears a reflective collar, but he's trained to stay off the road on the right side and will freeze when I say "stay." This method works great for us

I used to live near a rural area where I ran on the roads at night. There was not a lot of traffic, but it was very dark with no lighting around. Initially I used a Zebralight H52w, but I was slightly underpowered for that task. I started using the H600w and felt MUCH safer. I typically used the 330lm setting.

Now that I live in a more developed area with neighborhoods around, there's usually enough lighting to run at night. I still use my H600w on a lower setting not so much to see, but just so others can see me (crossing street, darker areas, etc.)

What works changes depending upon the specifics of the area. The reflective vests are good because its a passive system, so that you are always more visible regardless of what you're doing when a car hits your line of sight, etc.

In places with limited sight lines (Traffic is on a bush/tree screened road with parked vehicles and/or curves/hills, etc, so that when they do pop into view, they are already very close) - you really need to grab their attention ASAP.

On locations with longer reaction times for the drivers, so they have more time to process what they see, you don't need the same degree of stridency to get their attention in time.

If their are other light sources competing for attention (On coming traffic, houses, signs, etc), YOUR light needs to DELINEATE you as a pedestrian to have a better chance of recognition. IE: If the road has a lot of reflectors along it, YOUR reflector may not trigger a response. If the PATTERN looks more "Person-Like", say showing legs, torso/limbs/head etc...you are more quickly identified as a pedestrian than as an ambient reflector.

A moving/swinging flashlight for example shows motion, and will trigger delineation reactions...as the eye goes first to motion.

And so forth.

JAS said:

Anyway, what do you folks do when you are out walking, bicycling, etc., at night? Is a flashlight enough? Do you ever use a headlamp? Do you ever use BOTH a flashlight AND a headlamp at the same time? What about clothing with reflective strips? Is it overkill or does it just make good sense?

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I've found 5 lumens isn't enough, but 15 is just right. I prefer to walk around without a light, if the moon or streetlights is enough, but when needed the 15 lumen low mode of Surefire's 6P/P2X/P3X/LX2 etc. is just enough for getting around without tripping on stuff. It also doesn't call undue attention to me, and doesn't disturb the wildlife that I went out to see in the first place.

Outdoors, the 500 (real) lumen Surefire Fury lights up the woods like daylight, and is floody enough to provide great peripheral view of whatever is going on. Like I said though, I can't imagine walking around with a spotlight.

When I walk at night, I use my Quark Mini MA on low mode with Nite Ize headband for ambient lighting, and my SureFire G2X Pro ready in my hand to flash any errant autos. Both are EDC.