[ Main index » Bicycle components tests » (Dynamo) bicycle lighting analysis » Bicycle lighting regulations in various countries » Netherlands: Voluntary lighting specifications in NL: RKF ]

Voluntary quality label of lighting in NL by manufacturers: RKF

A reader of my site pointed out that there is a voluntary lighting standard (see "http://www.axa-stenman.com/en/bicycle-components/lighting/important-information/"), and I found it was created early 2013. As always, it's not very useful. The only reason such a voluntary standard was created was of course because of the non existence of proper rules in NL (Btw. What were the exact rules before the change in NL?)

You can find the specs they use for their rating in this pdf in Dutch:
Leaflet (Dutch, pdf)

So these rules specify 3 levels. For headlamps:

So they say 10 lux is enough to see 30 metres ahead. But this depends of course on ambient light and especially oncoming traffic... And any lux rating doesn't say much about how good a lamp really is, is it a wide beam, or narrow stripe? So this is rather bogus in how simplistic it is.

For taillamps:

The candela rating is pretty much irrelevant, as any of these tail lamps are enough to be seen at very long distances. Do you need to be visible at more than 300m? Certainly not in NL. And even in other countries where cyclists might ride on roads where motorist drive at a speed of 120 km/h (ca. 33 m/s) this would give a motorist 10 seconds to notice the cyclist. So these distance differences are not of interest. What is far more of interest is how well you can be seen, and how well a motorist can determine that a cyclist is ahead in such cases (big speed difference means the motorist needs to evade the cyclist).

Amusingly Axa says about these 3 specifications: "RKF-1: good, RKF-2: better, RKF-3, best".

I would say "RKF-1: rubbish, RKF-2: rubbish, RKF-3, poor"...

To email me go to the email page