|
I ride on dipped headlights all the time. I suspect few bikers ride on main-beam, but probably either have the headlight angled wrong or the suspension incorrectly set up so that the light shines higher than a dipped-beam should.
|
"Isn't that what your horn is for?"
In fact the Highway Code advises the use of lights as an alternative to horns. In real life I depend on the sheer size of the BM making its presence felt.
|
|
|
|
I'm a biker, and always use dipped beam.
I use full beam when filtering between lines of stationary traffic - I stress filtering, as once I'm actually behind a car I switch to main beam.
That said, I can understand if drivers think I'm on full beam when I'm not, as the bike is higher than the normal sitting position of the car seat and it may sometimes appear to be full beam in the rear view mirror.
|
|
....but at least they will have seen you full beam or not.
|
I always assume they do it to try to illuminate the road to compensate for poor eyesight or for darkly tinted visors, so I put mine on main beam when I meet them in the hope that this will help them to see me.
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
|
There is a sort of knee-jerk mantra going round that "visibility is everything". Yes, but not at the expense of distracting or startling other drivers, or compromising their ability to see other cars, road users, or pedestrians.
I'd be pretty visible if I had a 1000 watt floodlight on the roof, or let off a distress maroon when approaching other cars, but it wouldn't add to road safety.
In some ways I think the sudden appearance of main beams or incorrectly adjusted dips is even more distracting in day light than at night. At night one gets to expect late dippers or non-dippers or badly set lights.
|
The full beam on my bike is about as bright as the side lights on my car! Anyway, I'm not sure they do any good anyway. I take responsibility for my self and try to watch the traffic to anticipate when some one is going to kill me.
As for noisey pipes, sports bike riders, I can make more noise than you, but choose not to. Noisey pipes facing behind can't beheard in a car untill it they are very close behind anyway and if I can hear your illegal Akropovic pipes I need to turn the rock music up. Shhhhh keep the noise down.
|
I gave up biking a year ago. Actually it is twelve months to the day that my beloved Suzuki went to a new home, but during the final decade of my biking I never used a daytime headlight. This followed a discussion with an advanced motorcycle trainer who reckoned daytime headlights increased the risk of people pulling out on you because they had difficulty in judging your speed and distance as you approached. I was a bit wary of following his advice at first, but tried it and in the following ten years - five in London and five in rural Wales - he was proved to be right.
I think with vehicle lights there is unthinking acceptance of the "more is better" mantra, when that simply isn't the case. People who make a nuisance of themselves riding round on full beam and with all sorts of high powered dazzlers blinding everyone else are the first to complain when they see a chav in a Corsa using fog-lights.
--
|
IThis followed a discussion with an advanced motorcycle trainer who reckoned daytime headlights increased the risk of people pulling out on you because they had difficulty in judging your speed and distance as you approached. I was a bit wary of following his advice at first but tried it and in the following ten years - five in London and five in rural Wales - he was proved to be right.
I think this is a matter of opinion, not supported by any evidence. The Met Police now have standing orders for all police motorcyclists (surveillance exempt) to ride on dipped beam at all times. This followed a review by some of the most experienced and informed traffic instructors around.
|
I think this is a matter of opinion not supported by any evidence. The Met Police now have standing orders for all police motorcyclists (surveillance exempt) to ride on dipped beam at all times. This followed a review by some of the most experienced and informed traffic instructors around.
How strange then, that even with lights on and all the fluorescent stripes, people still pull out on police motorcyclists becuase they didn't see them.
|
|
|
|
Noisey pipes facing behind can't beheard in a car untill it they are very close behind anyway and if I can hear your illegal Akropovic pipes I need to turn the rock music up.
Exhaust noise isn't usually a problem to other road uses. The people who suffer are occupants of houses.
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
|
|
|
....but at least they will have seen you full beam or not.
Only if they were looking.
Rather a dangerous assumption to make IMHO. Put your safety in your own riding, not in what you think others might have seen, IF they happen to have looked.
Some riders (and drivers) use the mantra "assume everyone else is out to kill you". I prefer the much more realistic "assume the other driver hasn't seen you" Much safer, and it encourages you to be responsible, rather than blaming others
|
Some riders (and drivers) use the mantra "assume everyone else is out to kill you". I prefer the much more realistic "assume the other driver hasn't seen you" Much safer and it encourages you to be responsible rather than blaming others
you'd be pretty silly as a motorcyclist not to presume everyone else hasn't seen you...when you start to presume things it's going to come to grief
i wince sometimes when i see young lads tearing around on their scooters, relying on the other driver to get it right......which eventually they won't
|
you'd be pretty silly as a motorcyclist not to presume everyone else hasn't seen you...when you start to presume things it's going to come to grief
So what's the point of main beams in daytime?
i wince sometimes when i see young lads tearing around on their scooters relying on the other driver to get it right......which eventually they won't
Me too. But youths do seem to bounce very well
|
>> you'd be pretty silly as a motorcyclist not to presume everyone else hasn't seen you...when you start to presume things it's going to come to grief So what's the point of main beams in daytime?
I don't use them all that often, for the reasons stated above and i too find them irritating and distracting if other bikers leave them on.....but two times i will use them are:
1, coming up behind someone sharpish on dual carriageway, who by their positioning might pull out on me...(for no one in this country seems to want to use their mirrors properly)...i'll bung them on for a few seconds until the danger has passed
2, filtering in very heavy traffic......when i'm doing say 10-15 mph, up between stopped or very slow cars......i'll flick main beam on to make sure there is something bright in their door mirrors, again for the lack of mirrors reason and to try to combat the kamikaze lane changer
|
I'm not convinced that many motorcyclists actually use full beam headlights much at all. I reckon it is a bit of an urban myth regarded by other road users as a general fact. And I speak as an experienced sports bike rider who mixes in a lot of different biking cicrcles and thus I meet many other bikers, none of which I know to use their full beam headlights much at all.
My bike like many others is hardwired so that the dipped beam is on all of the time the engine is running. You cannot override it, this is the way it is designed. Now I know that my bikes headlight is correctly aligned with me sitting on the riders seat. It went for its first MOT last year and was spot on when tested with the beam setter. Now if I was to carry a pillion passenger it would obviously make the angle of the headlight point more upwards depending on how heavy the pillion was. There is very little I can do about this, its not like you can knock an automatic adjuster switch down. Likewise when bikes are MOT'd the headlamp is set with a rider sitting on the bike only. So you are in a bit of a no-win situation on that one.
Add to this the fact that the positioning of a bike headlight is somewhat higher than that of a car, just by the very nature of the design. So when a bike is following you the headlight will most likely be higher than that of another car and due to its position it may seem a 'more aggressive' light.
Bikes also tend to have jittery suspension and when I am following a car and my bikes headlight is not giving a steady straight beam. It almost looks like it is shaking up and down rapidly which again can make it seem aggressive and like someone is flashing their full beam at you, but they aren't it is just the way the bike jitters.
Finally with the advent of technology and the modern age bike (and car) headlights have less of a glow and more of a direct beam. Again this may make a bike headlamp seem very powerful and intimidating but it is most likely just the dipped beam and not a rider using full beam all of the time.
|
|
Sensible post.
|
Sensible post.
>>
...and a good reason to get rid of this daytime lights nonsense.
--
|
>> ...and a good reason to get rid of this daytime lights nonsense. --
i don't think it is nonsense......my bike, being older has the choice of using them or not.....i always do.....in the same fashion i deliberately bought a white helmet.
i want to do everything to give myself a 'bit extra'
i'll admit to not wearing a reflective strip....but think that i should...(i did try a reflective jacket, but it got very grubby, very quickly and i looked like 'compo' riding around).
of course if all vehicles have headlights on it'll negate the benefits of bikes having them, won't it
|
|
In response to Simon, I appreciate that in some cases the factors he outlines account for the apparent 'full beam' effect and understand the bikers' problem.
However, where a bike has two separate headlamps side by side and both are lit I assume this is a definite case of full beam, there seem to be quite a few of these around here.
Just as we are plagued by idiot car drivers with fog/spotlamps on when there is no fog or falling snow.
Not to mention all the buses which although 8 feet wide and 15 feet high seem to have a policy of constant headlamps in case they are invisible without them.
I curse the EU and the halfwit UK bureaucrats who slavishly follow (and even goldplate) the ill considered regulations issued from Brussels.
|
"assume this is a definite case of full beam,"
No, My old CBR 1000 had twin bulbs (albeit behind a single very large lens) both lit up on dip and main. That bike was brilliant in its lighting system, double redundancy in everything so you were never left in the dark so to speak, rode on dip beam on that at all times as far as I am aware that never had a bulb go in 15 years....(mind you I didn't exactly own it although I ended up as the main user). BMW has an asymmetric (Patrick Moore) set up. I hate the symmetrical set ups where the dip operates only one light (as Fordprefect suggests) they look odd. Kawasaki ZZR1400 has a 4 lamp set up but I suppose you'd need them with a 186 mph top speed...lights come on automatically on them.
|
>>However, where a bike has two separate headlamps side by side and both are lit I assume this
>>is a definite case of full beam, there seem to be quite a few of these around here.
Some do, some don't. It depends on what mood the designer was in when they created the bike. There is no hard and fast rule some bikes use one light for dipped beam with the other side being full beam and others use both lamps for dipped and both for full beam. The current Suzuki super sports range has one central light unit in the middle which contains both dipped and full beam in seperate units one directly above the other.
As for the buses running with their headlights illuminated all of the time, I am sure I read that a study had concluded that the bus was less likely to be in a collision if it was lit at all times. Hence the big service bus companies jumping on the bandwagon. Personally I think that if you can't see the bus regardless of its lighting situation in the day time then you ought to steer clear of the roads.
|
However where a bike has two separate headlamps side by side and both are lit I assume this is a definite case of full beam
No, my Suzuki V-Strom 650 has 2 dipped beams and 2 main beams in 2 headlights. It's not rocket science.
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
