Yandu LED Road Flares Emergency Beacon Safety Flare Flashing Warning Light for Car Truck Boat with Hook and Magnetic Base (3)

These are laughably dim. Even if these were sold as LED birthday candles at a dollar store in the 1990s, they would still be an overpriced disappointment.I am a flashlight aficionado. I have watched with glee as 21st-century LED technology and lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized the capabilities of portable light sources. You can find a >500 lumen flashlight in every room of our house, every one of our cars, and in my pocket every day. So it was with great enthusiasm that I sought to incorporate 21st century LED technology in our roadside emergency kits, by buying these LED "road flares."Real road flares burn bright enough to be seen in daylight, and by night, their piercing brilliance commands the attention of all but the most distracted or impaired drivers on the road. These LED "flares," on the other hand, aren't bright enough to draw the interest of nearby fireflies. I'm not kidding, even if you plaster your car with these magnetic lights, fill them with the freshest batteries on earth, and set them all to their most obnoxious strobe pattern, the brightest part of your car to oncoming motorists will still be the DOT-mandated reflector elements in your tail lights, not these overpriced gimmicks.The attached photo illustrates the relative brightness of one of these "flares" compared to the stock incandescent hazard lights on my pickup truck. Compared to the hazards, the light from these LEDs is laughably dim, even when I directly align my camera within the narrow emission cone of one of the LEDs. From most other angles, the difference is far worse, and from 500 feet away, I can't even see the LED "flares" unless the hazards are off and my eyes can adjust to the dark. I would estimate their luminous flux to be at least ~1000 times less than that of the factory incandescent bulbs on my aging truck.When it comes to roadside emergencies, I need something that is BRIGHTER than my hazard lights, and at least as reliable. Not only are these LED "flares" profoundly dimmer than a worn-out bargain-bin flashlight, but they also rely on 3xAAA alkaline batteries -- so if you want to keep them at the ready in your emergency kit, they'll quit working in two months, and by next summer, they'll be oozing blue crust onto your spare tire.Last year, I happened upon a real roadside emergency. I grabbed a 15+ year-old road flare from the bottom of my emergency kit. It lit on the third strike, and was the brightest thing on the roadway (and possibly on planet Earth) until the fire truck arrived. I still have two more flares left in that kit, and I know they'll be every bit as bright, and as reliable, as the day I bought them, for as long as have them. Plus they were only $2 each.If you want to stuff your emergency kit with useless feel-good gimmicks, then maybe this product is for you. Otherwise, buy real road flares or real emergency lighting. These belong only on the trash.

Got these for every member of the family who drives