That Feminist Dyke

bittergrapes:

doofus-wainwrong:

desliz:

galesofnovember:

elphias-doge:

bittergrapes:

• Bike lights cause seizures when they’re flashed at someone’s face.
• Seizures are a terrible thing that can kill someone.
• When you go out with a flashing bike light, you may have someone else’s blood on your hands by spurring a photoconvulsive seizure.
• You can wear reflective clothing, which will make you far more visible than a tiny blinking light would, and you’ll be safer. You also won’t cause a seizure. Which is a very bad thing to cause.
• You could even spray-paint your bike with reflective or glow-in-the-dark paint if you want to be really anal about your own safety.
• There are plenty of other things you can do to keep yourself safe OTHER THAN FLASH A BLINKING LIGHT IN SOMEONE ELSE’S FACE.
• Not to mention that if you flash a blinking light at an epileptic driver’s face and they lose control of the car and crash, you will have caused the deaths of yourself and everyone within a ten-foot radius of that car.
• Shut the fuck up about your right to have a blinky light. If you are so dull-brained that you cannot come up with a reasonable solution that does not induce seizures, you don’t deserve to be on the road anyway.

Actually…

• Photosensitivity is an extremely rare seizure trigger for epileptics.
• Seizures can kill, but not all types of seizures can kill, and some are benign.
• Therefore, you’re talking about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the population.
• Assuming you cycle by someone who happens to belong to this fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the population, a dim, slow, blinking LED light the size of a credit card on a moving vehicle that is not pointing at them is pretty harmless.
•  Photosensitive seizures are less likely to happen when the flashing light is slower, as with bike lights
• They are also less likely to happen when the stimulus has less colour contrast, as with bike lights (not very bright, remember?)
• They are even less likely to happen when not all of the visual field is taken up by the stimulus, like when a tiny light far away from you is blinking, as with bike lights
• If someone is cycling straight into your face then they are probably either incapacitated or particularly malicious, and their unthinking use of a blinking light is unlikely to be the biggest problem.
• I don’t know about other countries, but in the UK, if you’re cycling during twilight or night hours you’re legally required to have a white light at the front of your bike and a red one in the back, plus corresponding reflectors. They’re not required to flash, but the battery lasts longer if you set them that way.
  • I live in a bicycle town for half of the year, where incorrect lights after dusk can and will get you stopped and ticketed by police, so ignoring regulations in favour of painting my bike glow-in-the-dark isn’t an option.
  • The rest of the year, I live in the countryside, where there are few to no cars, winding roads, and very fast speed limits. If I’m cycling at dusk and don’t want my battery to run out, then yes, I will set my back light to blink. Because the chance of a car pelting around the corner of a narrow road at 60mph, not seeing me in time, and killing me is much greater than the chance that I’ll pass by somebody who has epilepsy (rare) that is photosensitive (rarer) and is triggered by a small, slow, low-contrast light (even rarer).

Yours sincerely,

Epileptic Cyclist

1) Lol bittergrapes, you bridgefucker, you.

2)lol forever at tumblr’s use of epileptics as the stand in for why no one should do anything ever,  without ever seeming to consult any actual people with epilepsy.  In tumblr’s worldview, epilepsy is as common as freckles and makes people at risk of CERTAIN DEATH at the tiniest provocation. 

I am a crotchety epileptic who drives and I am reblogging to reiterate that people who ride bikes in low light conditions should put as many goddamn lights on their bike as possible, because they are infinitely more likely to be hit by cars than an epileptic is to have a bike light-induced seizure.

P.S. stop using us as tools to show how totally aware and conscious you are of lurking ableist dangers when you barely understand how epilepsy works, plz and ty.

is anyone else noticing that there is a really big problem if an epileptic driver would be fatally triggered by blinking lights on the road?

I AM A PHOTOCONSUSIVE EPILEPTIC. I AM USING MY OWN FUCKING EXPERIENCES TO POINT OUT HOW BLINKING FLASHING BIKE LIGHTS HAVE CAUSED SEIZURES SEVERE ENOUGH THAT I FELL DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AND STARTED VOMITING, PUTTING MYSELF AND OTHERS AT RISK.

Put as many fucking lights on your fucking bike as you want as long as they’re steady fucking lights, so that you’re safe and I don’t fucking die.

Did anyone actually READ THE ORIGINAL POST WHICH SAYS NOTHING ABOUT TAKING LIGHTS OFF YOUR BIKE AND EVERYTHING ABOUT NOT USING BLINKING FUCKING LIGHTS?

And shut the fuck up about turn signal lights. They blink slowly enough that they don’t induce seizures, because research was put into this when they were being designed. God, you are all such ignorant fucks. 

Oh, and nice ad hominem attack, because  my sexuality is SO pertinent to the conversation. Fuck you all.