High beam's during the day.

KTRIC

I'm sure I'm going to get flamed out of it for this comment , but here goes anyway.....

I've had some very close near misses with stupid cager's cutting me off in the past week for some reason. So I decided to try and increase my visability by driving with my headlight on high beam during the day (not at night). This has worked amazingly. People seem to take alot more notice now.

Just wondering if anyone else does this and what do the guards think ??

seamus

Yeah, I did it once before on my old bike, when the dipped blub blew as I mounted up to go home one evening. Everybody saw me

Tbh, I'm not sure it's the best of ideas. People do see you, but you end up pissing off everyone, other bikes included.

Idleater

I think it is better to drive with Dipped Headlights on (during the day) rather than full headlights because it is actually surprising how bright they are - even in full sunshine. I would be of the opinion that the tradeoff between increasing your visibility and reducing the annoyance to other road users is breached with full headlights.

You would be better making yourself as visible as possible with a reflective vest/Sam Browne belt and driving within the limits that the road conditions allow than relying on your full beams. I mean, what is likely to happen is that you begin to rely on the headlight to, for example, show someone wanting to emerge from a sideroad that you are approaching rather than taking account of the situation, slowing and adjusting your road position to increase your visibility.

Also, what happens if *everyone* decides that your idea is great and all start driving around with full beams?

L.

art

As a fellow biker, I'd find having someone in my mirrors with fullbeams as annoying as hell, plus distracting and thus causing a potential danger to my own safety. Its not a good idea at all :mad:

Cassiel

I am wondering is there appropriate and inappropriate times to use them? I've put on high beams when "filtering" at motorway speeds on the M4 and M50, people do see you. Which is good.

I also do it when I'm riding on main roads when the sun is low and behind me. I don't know how it looks to other traffic but when I look in my mirrors at a wet road catching the full glare of the sun, I think I'd be invisible to oncoming traffic without the high beams on.

Cassiel.

KTRIC

Cassiel wrote:

I am wondering is there appropriate and inappropriate times to use them? I've put on high beams when "filtering" at motorway speeds on the M4 and M50, people do see you. Which is good.

That's mainly when I do it myself.

pbergin

People with full beams during the day really annoys me, I occasionally use full beams when filtering on the N4 which I think is ok because its slow moving traffic and people tend to chop and change lanes allot, full beams constantly is dangerous, it is harder to tell how close a bike is if he\she has full beams because it is so dazzling. As Art said, it is really terrible to have someone riding behind you with full beams on, in extreme cases I have to move my mirrors because someone behind my is cutting the eyes out of me, at the next set of lights I will politely point out that your full beams are on.

Idleater

pbergin wrote:

...full beams constantly is dangerous, it is harder to tell how close a bike is if he\she has full beams because it is so dazzling...

Not only that but it is harder to determine the speed that the vehicle is travelling at. Which in the cases that you describe it to being of use (ie filtering in traffic) might lead to some drivers underestimating your speed and actually change lanes in front of you because they think that the gap is actually bigger than it really is.

I only say this to highlight the "idiot factor" which should never be underestimated when dealing with traffic (especially when filtering and dense traffic). As I said before, reliance on one method of being seen is not a good idea and at the end of the day, safety is paramount.

L.

saobh_ie

I wouldn't ride with them on, but I would be prepared to flash them, beep the horn too.

The horn's sole purpose is to alert people of your presence. People hear the horn they all start cursing, "yeah F you to you f'ing ahole" but while they're doing this they're looking at you making lewd gestures and therefore not going to run you over.

jacool

i agree with the last writer about flashing them being more effective.
e.g. i go demented behind people who don't know they have their foglights on. most of them are genuinely unaware, and should not be driving therefore !! i would suggest that using full beams might have the same effect on people. and if you pee off a car driver and he lamps on the brakes, he'll stop before you do !!
all in all, its not a good idea me-thinks.

causal

Like most people here I find full beams in daytime a pita.
I don't know whether I'm part moth or part rabbit - but I just get sucked into the brightness :eek:

Having said that, I recently used full beams in the daytime - filtering two-up on the M50 with heavy but slow moving traffic in evening time with a lowish sun.

imho if you're filtering past 20-30 cars each side per minute then flashing isn't really as good an option as full beam - if they looked in their mirror and didn't see your dipped beam then it's unlikely they'll happen to look in their mirror again at the exact time you're flashing the full beam. I'm talking about flashing as a "whoaa, don't you see me, don't you hit me" warning, as opposed to a 'get out of my way' gesture.

Of course the smidsy is impervious to all forms of light, maybe even sound, and is best avoided altogether.

causal