Government Committee proposes £1800 car tax for 4x4

Sorry you think it's a good plan to drive around blinding other drivers? Methinks tis you who's the dipstick. Please go have your high speed accident elsewhere where it doesn't involve me!

I've had this problem a few times, occasionally during the day a bike comes up behind me and does the hide-and-seek thing, with lights so bright that I can't keep an eye on him as he dodges around. Lights on helps a lot, but too bright and you have to avoid looking at them.

It doesn't work. Over the years I've had two nice superbikes written off by drivers turning right across my line. The first one got busted for Due Care and the second for Drunk In Charge which made the insurance claims easy but I was still the guy who went flying through the air and bouncing down the road.

That was despite having the headlamp on, a white helmet and in both cases (luckily as I didn't always wear it) the reflective yellow overjacket.

nigelH

Reminds me of the Public Service Announcement of the jogger who had headlights (voiced by Giles Brandreth?), and he visited his Harley Street Mechanix to have a dipswitch fitted.

Actually, this also fits the other strand of this thread about bikers running headlights on full beam...

Stuart

I think you are right, GbH. When I was a regular rider, I didn't use my headlights at all during the day (as was standard MAG advice), precisely because (a) it annoyed the bejesus out of car drivers, who (b) became used to them and so started to ignore them (or took them as a signal to pull out of a side road - "'ere Mate, you flashed at me to pull out in front of you, why did you run into me?") and (c) because once every one started doing it, the Gubmint would say "let's make it compulsory, because everyone's doing it anyway"

Stuart

Exacterly, I don't object to bikers riding illuminated, darn good idea, but I do find doing so on main beam particularly irritating and stoopid. I seem to recall it's proscribed by one of the RTAs (Acts not Accidents).

I have to say you appear to have an intersting take on 'lucky' ;)

Hummm...... Maybe I didn't phrase that too well but spending most of my 20s, 30 and 40s club racing F2 bikes I tend to think that anything I can walk away from isn't bad.

That's the aggravating thing about being tipped off a bike. I KNOW I can make it go where I want it. Just give me somewhere to go. The DIC guy pulled across in front of me, saw me coming and stood on the brakes blocking the whole road. It was a white van. It cost him for an 18 month old Fireblade and he'd been done before so he got a fine like a mortgage and several years on the bus. I wasn't even speeding but it was wet so it wasn't a night to stand it on the front wheel.

Maybe driving about with the lights on was a mistake because I don't do it now and nobody has cut me up in the Rangie yet that I've noticed. Or maybe two tons of Solihull steel just grabs the attention more. The white helmet, yellow jacket and the headlight was normally the business: you came up behind people and they dropped back to the speed-limit like magic.

nigelH

My new bike (Honda Fireblade) doesn't have a switch for the dipped headlight or sidelights. They come on a soon as the ignition is turned on. I always rode with them on anyway- its amazing how many drivers simply don't see you!!!!! (No need for a radio there are too many idiots on the road to keep you occupied trying to second guess what they are going to do)

I tried it both ways in my biking days, and headlight on is definitely the way to go. I reckoned it reduced the incidence of cars pulling out etc to about 1/10 of when I rode with it off.

However, speaking as a car driver, a headlight on full beam makes you look away and screw your eyes up, even in broad daylight - exactly the opposite of what is needed. A dipped headlight is bright enough to catch the attention and show the location of the bike, so that appropriate action can be taken. Pissing off motorists by half-blinding them is a second undesirable effect of full beam, but not the worst from a bikers point of view. Having every motorist in your path looking the other way is a definite disadvantage.

|| Doubt that fitting pedestrians with DRLs is possible, cerainly not || politically.

Shhhhhhhhh! Don't give 'em ideas.

Dipped, not main. I ride my Blackbird all the time with dipped. Main beam just blinds other road users and is a silly idea,

Aye, and the people who have come up here and used said it was fine and looking at my YQ I don't see the huge traffic jam along the orginal M6 from J4 all the way up to J12 and the top end of the M5. This used to be the case every working day, all day.