Trials and tribulations of riding at night!

[Bren]

Well, I have been doing shiftwork for about 6 weeks now, and find myself commuting home from Porirua to Otaki at around 11.30 pm. The gripe I have are car drivers not dipping their headlight, they seem to think that as a rider I will not get blinded by their overpowerful lights. The oncoming ones are bad enough, but the ones behind me are worse...WTF is up with these drongos.I have mirrors too ya know! Sometimes I feel like kickin their fuckin doors in...

[Creeping Death]

Kicking their lights in would be more appropriate.

[Thaeos]

Doesn't matter if you're on a bike or not, a lot of people are generally meatheads with high beam on all the time, no consideration for others safety.

[LBD]

Mirrors you can turn down I can usually tell a car is behind me by the light on the road beside me....fixed.

Oncoming cars.....you know when a car is coming toward you with only one head light, you are wondering, is it a bike, or a car still a long way off with two lights still looking as one...(and the old landrovers were bad for that)...or is it a car with only one head light? and is it the left or right light that is out?

So drivers will leave high beam on until they know the scenario....give them a wee flash a long way off and they will get the picture. Although I do not think it is legal, but I have never known any bikers to get in trouble for this.

[sleemanj]

Conversely, when I'm riding at night I leave the highs on for as long as possible. In a car, I can afford to hurtle down the road at 100k's with the lows on for a while, road surface isn't such a problem, but on a bike, I damn well want to see the road surface well ahead of me and if that means high beams and pissing off drivers, so be it.

[swbarnett]

if that means high beams and pissing off drivers, so be it.

Dipping your lights is not about being polite. It's about not blinding people.

[sleemanj]

Dipping your lights is not about being polite. It's about not blinding people.

Never said it wasn't, just that I leave it till the last possible moment when on 2 wheels so I don't blind drivers where possible, but if I switch to low beam when most car drivers want you to (say about 300 to 400m away is when many car drivers give you the light-flash), I'm at least 10 to 20 seconds of lows for each car, with pretty shit forward vis of the road surface during basically all that time. That's a lot of road surface to take on largely faith at 100ks.

In a car, it's no problem to go to low beam miles away, road surface isn't much of an issue and you've got twice the lights.

But not on a bike, at least not on an older bike. Perhaps if I was riding some new fangled machine with better low beam coverage...

[swbarnett]

Never said it wasn't, just that I leave it till the last possible moment when on 2 wheels...

Understood. I thought I might be reading too much in to what you wrote.

[PirateJafa]

Never said it wasn't, just that I leave it till the last possible moment when on 2 wheels so I don't blind drivers where possible, but if I switch to low beam when most car drivers want you to (say about 300 to 400m away is when many car drivers give you the light-flash), I'm at least 10 to 20 seconds of lows for each car, with pretty shit forward vis of the road surface during basically all that time. That's a lot of road surface to take on largely faith at 100ks.

In a car, it's no problem to go to low beam miles away, road surface isn't much of an issue and you've got twice the lights.

But not on a bike, at least not on an older bike. Perhaps if I was riding some new fangled machine with better low beam coverage...

Or you could... throttle off? God forbid you might actually have to start riding to the conditions?

[sinfull]

Just keep ya visor up to scratch mate (scuse the pun)
Nice vent though !

[McWild]

I have high beam on pretty much all the time when I'm riding at night outside the city/suburbs.

And I still can't see shit.

Stupid budget RGV headlight.

[Leviticus]

Well, I have been doing shiftwork for about 6 weeks now, and find myself commuting home from Porirua to Otaki at around 11.30 pm. The gripe I have are car drivers not dipping their headlight, they seem to think that as a rider I will not get blinded by their overpowerful lights. The oncoming ones are bad enough, but the ones behind me are worse...WTF is up with these drongos.I have mirrors too ya know! Sometimes I feel like kickin their fuckin doors in...

.... and then you get the muppets driving with their front fog/driving lamps on. The road code states these lights "must be turned off as driving conditions improve". Fucking idiots.

[swbarnett]

I have high beam on pretty much all the time when I'm riding at night outside the city/suburbs.

And I still can't see shit.

Stupid budget RGV headlight.

Go to Repco or similar and get yourself a brighter bulb. I got one for my CBX that's 50% brighter for the same power drain. Made a noticable difference.

[Flip]

Go to Repco or similar and get yourself a brighter bulb. I got one for my CBX that's 50% brighter for the same power drain. Made a noticable difference.

Yep I concur with SWB. The plus 50's are much brighter. Well worth the investment.