Being seen by motorists

I've been rear ended in the middle of a traffic intersection, just for not driving as aggressive as the commuter behind expected. On a recent occasion, I narrowly avoided being taken out by an older lady driving out of a shopping mall parking lot, impressionable because without a doubt she made eye to eye contact with me the whole time she was doing it ! ...I don't think she was intentionally attempting vehicular manslaughter, It was more like, she was mesmerized by my bright red bike or somethin. I call it, fly at the light bulb syndrome.
Had many more close calls and bad experiences, but enough of that stuff, if you ride as long as I have, it's going to be that way. Motorcycles have provided the best times in my entire life, don't let anything turn you off riding.
Great news is; motorcycles are fantastic for accident avoidance, they will brake faster, turn tighter, accelerate faster and occupy a smaller space than anything else on the road, so stay on track with everything your OP says, develop those cat like reflexes and don't let em' run you down.

Some (very) unscientific tests have shown that motorists are as blind to hi-viz riders as to non hi-viz but are remarkably good at spotting you if you look like a cop. Something to do with threat detection. In other words, they do see you but dismiss you as not relevant to them. Important to realize this is not people being dumb asses but it's just the way our brains are wired.

Other unscientific tests have shown that deliberately looking like a cop will result in some unfriendly attention from the real deal. Try putting some blue lights on the front of your bike and see how you get on (even when it is legal).

Having said all that I tend towards the h-viz end of the spectrum and solid colored helmets. My 2nd helmet has a fancy paint scheme and I regret not getting the solid white one (it was $60 more for solid white!) after following a group of riders in low light conditions. The guy with the white helmet stood out while the others disappeared into the background.

Google SMIDSY for some other light reading. There is another theory that some horizontal movement greatly enhances the chances the other person will see you (I'm thinking someone sitting at a junction you are approaching looking right at you). It's something I practice all the time whenever I see someone is waiting to cross over my lane.

I do all I can to be visible but you have to remember it is just your first line of defense. I would say it is more important to ride defensively and there are all kinds of strategies for that (a few of which have been mentioned here already). Grab yourself a copy of Proficient Motorcycling if you have not already. That is a great book for identifying the dangers you will face and how to recognize and avoid them before it becomes painful.

From head on a motorbike has a pretty small profile. If that bike is heading directly towards you it is going to get bigger only slowly, which makes it difficult for our brains to pick it out of the cluttered background behind it. Studies have shown that our eyes are good at picking out movement. So if that bike was to move relative to the background behind it, our eyes pick it up in an instant. So weaving slightly in your lane moves you across the car drivers horizontal (or lateral) field of view and makes you immediately more visible to them. The same thing happens if you are not moving, the car driver does not see you and starts to pull out. At that point you are moving relative to the background and suddenly they see you and hit the brakes. This is why you should never assume even if the car driver is looking straight at you that they actually see you. There is a well worn excuse after an accident of "Sorry mate I didn't see you" (SMIDSY for short). Sometimes they are telling the truth.

So if you can, a gently weave AWAY from the car increases your chances of being seen. If you move towards them you are getting closer to a 90' angle of attack which would make you less visible. Plus moving away also gives you more room if you need to take avoiding action.

... in that I generally wear a black and yellow jacket with a bright helmet. Solid yellow in my case. Your helmet is your highest and most visible point in traffic. My wife has followed me and says she can easily pick me out in traffic because of the bright yellow helmet. White and Silver also work well.

I am also a bit of a safety geek I suppose, but I do wear one of those bright vests. If people notice the vest and think it looks stupid then so be it. They had to notice me to think that. Besides, the thing lights up like the Vegas strip when headlights hit it. Here are some Hi-Vis tips along with a "score sheet." I will have 10 out of 10 covered once I add the auxiliary lights hehe.
http://www.motorcyclesafety.state.mn.us/latest/MMSCHomeSecondary.asp?cid...

Adding to the gear I have placed reflective Solas stickers on the Helmet and tape my bike frame to increase visibility at night. The frame on my bike is black so I have used the black tape. It is barely visible during the day, but reflects brightly when headlights hit it. I have placed this one the forks and a couple other areas to increase side visibility at night. The reflective helmet stickers I have placed front, back and sides. Some I got from here... http://www.nightfirepatches.com/Decals.html

I do always pulse my brakes to grab attention, but I have also added a Kissan license plate frame. In addition to having redundant turn signals in the form of progressive LED's (5 LED's for each direction) it also has a modulated brake light in the center. http://tinyurl.com/y8fwenx

I changed my headlight out for one of the PIAA Plasma bulbs. Sort of a bright white with a purplish hue similar to the HID lights. Watching oncoming traffic, even in the day, I find I always pick out those purple/white HID headlights out of the crowd of more yellow and white of the standard headlights.

I am going to add some additional lights to the front as I only have the headlight. From what I gather the human eye requires more than one source of light to properly triangulate speed and distance. I am also considering adding a headlight modulator and bar-end turn signals.

The different modulators vary a bit, but I believe that the most popular modules all have the availabiltiy of switching it off, typically by switching to high or low beam.

I don't have one, but I think they are amazingly eye catching. I've put off getting one primarily because I drive alot on mountain roads where I can sit behind folks for a good amount of time and worry that I will forget to turn it off and become overly aggravating to the guy ahead of me.

But, I have added aux lights to the sides of my fairing to give the bike lighted width and I also notice that they "jiggle" at a bit different rate from the headlight, so hopefully increase my visibilty to cars. They are also awesome at lighting the forested sides of the road, which is great for lighting up deer suffering from depression and intent on commiting suicide on the front of my bike.

I'm not a fan of having high beams on. Yes, it certainly gets you seen but at the expense of blinding other road users. Was on a group ride yesterday and the guy behind me had his high beam on all day. Was pissing me off as every time I glance in the mirror to check he was still there I get dazzled, leaving me with retina burn as I looked forward again. So yes, it will get you noticed but it may cause aggression towards you.

And be aware any oncoming drivers are not going to see any signals you make.

I don't agree that a properly adjusted full beam blinds other road users; not during the day anyway.

If I'm lane splitting behind another motorcyclist, I'll dip the light (use low beam). If I'm sitting (static) in traffic behind another road user, I'll dip the beam. If I'm going through a tunnel I'll dip the beam.

Otherwise, it's on full time.

My life is far more important than someone else having a slight inconvenience.

Well this guy was on a V-Strom and I have read they have extra bright lights. The fact he was behind me for 10 hours didn't much help but it was certainly a very very bright light that I could still see if I shut my eyes.

I'm not sure what you mean by "properly adjusted full beam". Aren't full beams by definition shining directly out in all directions?

When I started riding more and more cross country trips, it became evident to me that motorcycle headlights, at least the one's being produced when I started riding, were woefully underpowered to be safe. My first mount, a ZX-10R (no, the 1989 model) had an H4 headlight, and couldn't reliably be upgraded...I had to tough it out with an 85w highbeam...not much difference. My next mount, a '93 BMW K1100RS also had a single pathetic H4, but it also had 700w of power. First thing I did was add 85/100w main bulb and two (that's right, 2) six inch 110w PIAA. Let's just say it made traveling towards Crawford, CO at O'dark thirty a wee bit better!

My main road tripping bike now is a BMW R1150RT with full HID conversions, and an additionally 220w of forward looking lights. I only run the single (low beam) during the day, but it's much higher intensity light is much brighter than a halogen.

I am cautious to try not to blind the drivers in front of me, or oncoming of course, but it's a fine line between being seen and not. As someone mentioned, left turning drivers are one of the main causes for vehicle/bike collision...actually, they are the highest. Even with a high beam, some people have a hard time judging closing distance.

Here is another idea if you want to increase your visibility; try lower, fork mounted lights much like motolights. This gives oncoming drivers three lights instead of a single light to judge closing distance. I have not tried them, but I have heard that they seem to work...with the added advantage of not blinding drivers in front of you...

I like the look of a silver helmet but I've read, and agree from personal observation, that silver helmets are not very visible on the road since it blends into the grey background.

To me, a bright yellow helmet is the most visible during the day, while a white helmet is the most visible in low-light condition (dusk, night). Adding reflective band/tape brings it up to a whole new level for night visibility.

This has been a dilemma for me. I ride in the hills at night a lot. Without any street lighting to illuminate the distant surroundings, low beam doesn’t provide enough sight distance and reaction time. High beam really helps both in sight distance, and in orientation in total darkness. However, whenever there’s oncoming traffic, I’m faced with a dilemma. I would prefer to stay on high beam, and fine if the oncoming vehicle is also on high beam because I just look at the road and avoid staring into the light. However, being on high beam is often considered rude by other vehicles, gets them mad, and I’ve had them flashing their headlights which was blinding and much worse than a steady high beam. If I switched to low beam, I’d loose a significant amount of sight distance. Especially in the glare of the oncoming headlights, I would be riding half-blind until I’ve passed the oncoming car and switched back to high beam. (Yea, I know, slowing down more in the dark would help too…)

Due to the lack of atmospheric filtering the sunlight can be very intense at high altitude. Anyone who has spent time at altitude knows exactly what I am talking about. I used to live on the East Coast and it isn't anywhere near the same.

During peak hours of brightness, low beams are simply over powered. There are times that you can't tell if a vehicle even has any lights on until you are passing it. I definitely ride with my high beams on during those times. I am not even sure that high beams offer the necessary visibility, but they have to be an improvement over low beams. I will turn them off when stuck behind someone for any distance, at a stop sign or traffic light. But there are times when those high beams may be your best bet in being seen from any distance.

Of course I am only talking about what is maybe a two hour time frame of when I do this. My basic rule of thumb is if I can't tell if a vehicle has daytime running lights on until it is passing me, chances are they can't see my low beams until I am passing them. Very unscientific I know, but until someone flashes me to indicate annoyance I will keep doing it.

+1...yellow bulbs work very well for visibility. FWIW...technically, NONE of my lights on my road bikes are legal from a pure "book" definition. In well over 300K miles with these various configurations, I haven't gotten even a single question about it.

I can't give advice on how you should configure your lights, but I do feel like reasonable lattitude is given to motorcyclists trying to improve their visibility to other drivers as well as enhance their own ability to ride in less than optimal lighting conditions.

I should have clarified...yellow lights; fogs, drivers, running, etc. really seem to stand out well on motorcycles. Main lights do as well, but you normally lose both distance and illumination capability. For instance, you will have a difficult time with some shapes/colors, etc. if you're only running a single yellow light vs. a nice, bright PIAA or Silverstar main headlight.

Sorry for the confusion!