[ UPDATE 11/18: All Star Bike Shop is offering discounts to readers of Goodnight, Raleigh! on all lights in stock. Please check the end of the article for more information. ]

More specifically, this is an open letter to cyclists who ride on the road at night with no lights.

If you ride a bike at night with no lights, what is the reason?

Anyone who has ridden a bike on a public road knows the dangers and risks, and these become more acute at night. Eight of the ten most common bicycle accidents involving motor vehicles are caused by the driver of the automobile not seeing the cyclist or not giving due circumspection to the area around them. Over at bicyclesafe.com, the very first piece of advice on how to avoid the most common type of accident involving vehicles is to get a headlight.
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The “Adventures of Superman” television program was a favorite of mine when it was released in syndication in the early 1960s. Who could forget that stirring opening narration: “Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound! …Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!” Well, it left an indelible impression on me, anyway.

For the show’s first season or two, the landmark Art Deco E.M. Wilson Building (1930) in Los Angeles was used to represent the Daily Planet Building.

The E.M. Wilson Building in Los Angeles — aka The Daily Planet

Young as I was, the image of The Daily Planet on our black and white TV reminded me of the Durham Life Insurance Building in downtown Raleigh. As a kid, I nicknamed a number of downtown landmarks which I imagined a certain kinship with. Thus, the (now gone) Meredith/Mansion Park building on Blount St. became “The Castle,” the former BB&T Bank on the corner of Fayetteville and Davie Streets became “The Little Seagram Building,” and across the street the Art Deco Durham Life Building became the “Superman Building.”

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