Adrian means well but his rules are not thought through and amount to victim blaming. They implicitly agree with the view that riders in other events have been hit by cars because they were too tired and/or inadequately lit. There's no evidence whatsoever for either. But accepting those arguments takes the responsibility off the drivers.
Exceedingly well put.
Given that a rider legally only has to have front/rear lights, front/rear reflectors, and pedal reflectors. And a driver should be over taking giving reasonable clearance (≥1.5m), there is no way that this should be the fault of the rider. No matter how tired and spaced out a rider is. If a driver can't see a rider in these conditions, then the driver is either going to fast, not paying enough attention, or needs their vision checked.
I object to the victim blaming nature of race rules that mandate specific lighting arrangements. It's as if the solution to gun violence was to mandate everyone wears a bullet proof vest.
I've entered an ultra race that has very similar (almost cut and paste) rules on lighting to those of the IPWR, even tho they technically contravene local traffic law for the country the race is in. I don't like the rules, but I want to do the race, so I'll play by the letter of them, have the rear of the bike in christmas tree mode, and be done with it, but I'm not exactly eager to do so and will remove all the excess bits after the race is over.
J