Riding with full beam on all the time.

[edscoot]

I know it's wrong, and probably illegal. But having got sick of cagers trying to kill me I thought I would experiment and try riding with my headlight on full beam all the time. The result is a dramatic improvement

This is riding during daylight hours so nobody is going to get dazzled, at worst mildly irritated. I've ridden past police cars and nothing happened.

Has anybody else done this? I'm expecting quite a bit of criticism for this but it really is working! Since I started doing this only one car has pulled out on me, and one motorcycle. Before I would expect at least one incidence per ride, now it's about one in ten rides.

[Woolley]

is your pcx black?

[trigg123]

cant agree with this one.......check your height adjusment and if needed bring it up some,the lights on these things are ace.......but full beam too much lighty no likey !!
each too their own

[TC3]

is your pcx black?

Makes lil difference if black or not as the lights are very bright if adjusted right

[TC3]

Actually Woolley you do ask a good question

http://news.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx ... ilable.htm

[maddiedog]

I've never touched my light switch -- I ride on high all the time, day or night. It increases visibility, it's worth pissing everyone else off.

Never gotten in trouble for it thus far (5200 miles).

[Woolley]

I've never done that. Knowing insurance in this country if i did that and a car went into me head on it would be my fault for blinding him. And then the insurance would be void cus the bike has a sticker on it. Undeclared mod. And id have to pay out for the other drivers whiplash and constant pain. And id have to pay for his 7 months of using a hire car cus his car would be written off from the surface scratch on the plastic bumper.
Sound mad? Not according to co-op car insurance.





But anyway yeah i wouldnt do that anyway. Get enough dazzle from boy racers using 10000k HID's in their corsas round here with about as much beam pattern as an ignited fart, without people using full beam aswell.

[gn2]

Wouldn't dream of doing it and would happily kick anyone who did it in the balls with my steel toe-capped size 10s

[EddieC]

I ride with my high (or full?) beam on at all times while riding in the daylight. It is proven that it increases a bikers visibility (to other cars) by a vast amount. In fact, both the Arizona and California motorcycling handbook recommend that you ride with the high beam on during the day. At night, it's usually always on the regular low beam unless I have no oncoming traffic. The streets here are lit very well so I usually don't feel the need to use he high beam at night. Sometimes I flash the highbeam if I feel that a car doesn't see me but that's about it.

I can spot a motorcyclist from blocks away if the rider is using his or her high beams during the day. When they don't, they just blend in with other cars. As a cage driver I appreciate it when motorcyclists make themselves more visible during the day by utilizing their high beam, so I will ALWAYS use mine during the day.

[haildamage]

i think it is a non-issue for daylight riding and not a bad idea at all. you could also put a blue LED light strip on the front if you really wanna be more visible if that isnt illegal in the UK?

[gn2]

Blue lights on private vehicles are completely illegal in the UK.
As is driving with full beam during daylight hours.

[haildamage]

Blue lights on private vehicles are completely illegal in the UK.
As is driving with full beam during daylight hours.

thanks for pointing out the legal issues. what i meant is that there is no issue with safety or blinding drivers with the high beam in normal daylight conditions. however, i know the UK has a reputation for often being dark and rainy...

i doubt the police are gonna notice you are running high beams in the daytime. if you did have an accident you could always claim that you werent and it must have somehow gotten switched to high beam in the crash.

so maybe get a white LED strip or whatever color you can get away with in the UK.

[gn2]

what i meant is that there is no issue with safety or blinding drivers with the high beam in normal daylight conditions

I disagree, in my opinion it presents a risk of dazzling other road users.
Together with the new style of high intensity lamps it's a pet hate of mine and anyone who does it is on a par with a sheep shagger or kiddy fiddler.

[haildamage]

what i meant is that there is no issue with safety or blinding drivers with the high beam in normal daylight conditions

I disagree, in my opinion it presents a risk of dazzling other road users.
Together with the new style of high intensity lamps it's a pet hate of mine and anyone who does it is on a par with a sheep shagger or kiddy fiddler.

but does the PCX have such high intensity lamps? its a good headlight but its not that bright that anybody is even going to notice that its on high beam in the daytime!

[EddieC]

This is completely legal for daytime use in CA.

[Woolley]

This is completely legal for daytime use in CA.

Yeah but everyone would think your flashing them to let them pull out and just pull out in front of you anyway...

[EddieC]

I'm no fan...

[gn2]

but does the PCX have such high intensity lamps? its a good headlight but its not that bright that anybody is even going to notice that its on high beam in the daytime!

It's just plain wrong.
End of.

[edscoot]

I've been looking around the web and the opinions are fairly evenly divided, with maybe a small majority not in favour of this (but not by much). It's so close in fact that I'm going to do a more detailed test. I'll do 200 mls with full beam and count the number of smidsys etc. and then 200 without full beam, and see what the results are.

As for the legality, I'm not really that sure. It might be reasonable to say that it's illegal to have your lights on full beam all the time in daylight - certainly the God awful HID things certainly shouldn't be, - But as a rider you have a duty to yourself and other road users to be visible. On page 107 of the Police rider's handbook to better motorcycling, when discussing the purpose of signals it has the sentence 'Only give a signal when another road user may benefit from it' highlighted. This is open to interpretation, I want other road users and pedestrians to see me. They are therefore, potentially, benefiting from my use of the signal: full beam.

Anybody who wonders about it may like to try it for themselves and see if they notice any difference - with the caveat that this may be viewed dimly by the police in your part of the World, (if you get busted by the police, it's on your head, not mine ). One things for sure, if you do try it, the World won't grind to a halt, you won't leave a trail of destruction in your wake, cagers won't be blinded, etc. etc.

A common sense approach to it's (high beam) use in traffic such as switching it off when it's obvious that it may cause a problem to someone else, is all that should really be needed.

It's interesting that riding your motorcycle with your headlights on full is positively encouraged in some places and not in others. Like filtering/lane splitting in different areas I guess.

[gn2]

Full beam always on is inconsiderate.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/40/section/2
Because it causes discomfort to other road users.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989 ... on/27/made