Daytime riding question

My 05 VFR has daylight running lights, as I am from the UK I have always ridden with my headlights on during the day as it is an excellent safety measure.

My question is this, do you folks use your high beam during the day? or in fact do you use high beam all the time? I know it can be irritating to car drivers especially at night.

thanks

 

low beams only - high beams will take the drivers eyes off of you to get vision back even in the day time.

 

I rarely use my high beams.

 

daytime highs all the time. But at night, only when appropriate. It is technically illegal here in BC but I have never had any problem with it. Never been flashed either by on coming vehicles.

 

I live in the country and have a death-by-deer phobia so I ride with high beams at night (except for oncoming traffic of course).

 

Bright bikes clothing and helmets are all utilized to be seen, so why not ride with your brights on during the daytime.

 

Low beam. High is for the morons in front of me and those coming towards me.

Xeipher

 

On relatively flat terrain during the brightest hours of the day, I keep the bright lights on. Why? Because inattentive, distracted, and particularly elderly drivers with visual and possibly cognitive impairments who are about to absentmindedly make a left hand turn into my path are more likely to see me coming and stay put until I go by.

There's a good reason why freight and passenger train locomotives have such bright headlights--they save lives by helping to prevent crossing fatalities, even beyond the warnings from air horns.

When riding during the daytime on roads in forested areas with stretches that are dark due to overlying tree canopies, etc., turn off the bright lights, for obvious reasons.

Let's go back to the situation in which you find yourself riding over flat terrain during broad daylight and you're bearing down on an oncoming cager who is contemplating making a left turn that would place their vehicle directly across and in front of your path. Whether or not you have your bright lights on, it's often a bad idea to toggle your headlights back and forth between low and high beam a few times in the hope of getting a spaced out cager's attention, because while you may think that this makes you more visible and noticeable, the cager may misinterpret this as a signal that you're granting them permission to proceed into your path, and that you are yielding to them, rather than the opposite.

 

University of Ill.....The great people that brought Countersteering,to the rider test for Ill.riders permits.....Among a lot of other things.....Also did a study on "High and Low" headlight burning during the day......Study showed that a high beam made the bike look farther away than what it was,and that people wouldn't look at it as long (as to get a better judgement of what the speed of the bike was doing)..........
What I do is more pro-active.....I do a few weaves to draw their attention...Which also makes them stay put because they don't know what I'm doing.....and I've been using this for at least 25 years......It works......I can see it in the actions of the cars I've stopped.......Monk

 

you know, never really though of that until you said something. when you have bright lights all you can see it a dot of light, rather than a bike with lights on it.


+1 on the weaving, helps with tailgaters too

 

Wow, I've had some great and quite diametrically opposite replies here.
I never thought about the "weaving" before but although the other driver assumes that you are just another sport bike riding idiot, it is actually reverse psychology!

 

As David Hough once wrote "If you allow another motorist to knock you down, you'll hear the same excuse: I didn't see you."

Hough emphasizes the need for motorcyclists to wear brightly colored riding gear, as well as choosing a motorcycle with a more conspicuous and bright colored paint scheme if possible.

On the other hand, Hough also writes "Conspicuity devices are based on the assumption that the other guy will get out of the way of the motorcyclist if only he can see you. The veterans [motorcyclists] know that avoiding collisions depends on being prepared to get out of the way of the other guy, whether he sees you or not." This is Basic Rider Course stuff, in which we're taught to defensively ride as though we're invisible to other motorists.

During a sunny day, whether I'm driving my Toyota 4Runner or riding my VFR, motorcycles with brights on really stand out quite unambiguously from afar, and I find that their brights don't create any optical illusion in which they look further away than they really are.

 

I only use high beams when i really need...I use everytime, day or night, low beams.

Here in Portugal if the police catches us using high beams and if someone is in front of us they give us a ticket...and its not a ticket to the theater...

 

Well...you've never ridden towards me....not that I'll flash you.....I will hold up my hand as in shielding the light......It's easy to justify ( "The end justifies the means" ) blinding people in the name of safety........as you get older your eyes become more sensitive to light,even when looking down and to the right.....Monk

 

I'll ride with the high beams on during high traffic volume times....


I have had people flash me before, but usually only in town where lanes of opposite direction are in close proximity. I even had a guy call me an asshole but he was in the turn lane in a POS Escort so I ignored him - I assure you no hooligan activity was going on either...just a slow 30mph cruise through the city


Oh, I also use these little guys...(but they need a new mounting location -scratched up my fender when I bottomed out! -stupid me didn't check for bottomed out clearance before mounting them -maybe new springs will help...maybe just wishful thinking)I'll run these whenever I'm riding and during the day when my low beams are on and I get flashed, I'll flash the brights and that will shut 'em up. I'd rather be a minor annoyance than involved in an accident. Kind of goes along with the saying: Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.









I might just fab up some mounts and get some of the little round ones that have had some kits floating around and mount them to one of the fender mounting bolt locations....anyone done this type of mod?