Testing this morning was interrupted by these happenings:
For sideways or an angled visual impact in the dark one doesn't need anything special, I see some riders with coloured spoke reflectors on each spoke . All I see is a bright coloured wheel moving along .
www.pedelecs.co.uk
As I spectulated on these forums some months ago, control over shutter speed may well be key to capturing clearer views of vehicle number plates at night (something my cheapo Crosstour 4K lacks) - there is much less motion blur, but oodles more noiose because of such high ISO... but I'm pleased to report that ISO 1600 and shutter at 1/240th of a second, is more often than not, capturing large sections of, or whole number plates - these screengrabs from video don't look cinematic, but that's not what want from a cycling-flight-recorder-in-case-of-horrible-accidents.
When passing fast and close:
When passing by fast (from a brief period of shooting @ISO 800):
Also a fast pass (ISO 1600 again and hereafter)
It appears I can even get some plate info from approaching vehicles, if they're close enough to the beams of my headlights:
I'm not managing to capture 100% of passing numberplates, I'll do a proper calculation at some point, but it's much more often than not.
Well, there you have it - if you own a GoPro Hero 7 Black or similar action camera with full manual control of the same era or newer, it's quite likely that you too can capture number plates while cycling about at night.