[SafetyFirst]

I’m thinking from going from stock turn signals on the front to the after-market AsianCycle.com ones on my Ninja 250.

Are those flush-mount turn signals less noticable to cages?

Also, does anyone make custom rocker switches for bikes? I’d really like to replace my stock switch with a three position switch… hi-beam, low-beam and pass, for blasting high and low on the back 40 at night and when approaching an intersection I’m sketchy about at night in the city. Sorry eternal05 for stealing your GSX-R’s feature. I just find myself slowing down due to little hills in the road, because the highbeam passes over it, but I need to highbeam to be able to look farther down the road.

I might move to HID lights at 6000-8000K. I notice cars with those driving at night, and I figure I’d make it more conspicuous and also that blue light would look great beaming from my blue 250. Only thing that worries me is attracting police attention. Police around here in Ohio seem pretty loose with that sort of thing, unlike other places, so I’m going to probably do it.

I put two dual-filament sockets in the unused brakelight pods, fused each bulb filament (6 freeking fuses, why? Because I don’t want water shorting out a socket and taking out all of the tail lighting), and wired up the RearAlert to the center tail bulb brake filament. The wiring harness took quite a while to solder together and heatshrink, but at least I know it’s done right. Put in 2135LL bulbs, 28.5 watts brake/8.3W running. Very noticeable. Two on the sides are solid braking, center is on a RearAlert modulator. I’m debating switching the rear-alert to continuous blinking. Right now, it blinks 5 times then goes solid (ala California law.) But being as I’m probably never going to ride in California, and given the out-of-state plate if I did, I should be good. But is it worth the risk of maybe annoying a cage behind me worth it for not getting plowed into? I already know the answer.

[briderdt]

The aftermarket stuff may not be a safety concern, but they can be a legal concern. WHen I bought my SV650s, the person who had it before me had replaced the undertail (and turn signals) with a Hot Bodies kit. That made the rear turn signals into little 4-LED things underneath the fairing that were virtually invisible during daylight. I added some other, much larger LED strips which I glued to the outside of the rear fairing. MUCH better. I then added similar strips on the front (kind of like eyebrows over the headlights). The bike also had flushmount front signals…

Well, I had a contact by a state trooper on a ride… Funny thing was I wasn’t even moving at the time — I was stopped on the side of the road to take a Mt Dew slash before turning around and heading home. He was cool about it when I told him the history of the bike, saying that since I’d made an attempt to make the signals more visible he wasn’t going to write me up. But he also ran down the list of why all my signals were illegal.

Now this applies in Washington, and MAY apply in your state, as it’s a federal standard (states often just defer to the federal standard):

Turn signal lights must be 3.5 sqare inches in area (equals a 2″ diameter circle approximately).
Rear turn signals must be separated by 9″. Can be red or amber.
Front turn signals must be separated by 16″. Must be amber. Must be separated from headlights by at least 4″.

So I went to a lot of work to redo my fender eliminator, and installed stock signals in the rear (still have the LED strips active, but they’re strictly not legal and COULD get me written up, even though I have the stock signals working), and I installed stalk-type (though not original stock) signals in front.

So maybe that will help you out.

[SafetyFirst]

Luckily in Ohio, the lighting laws are very lax.

It’s not usual to see guys with blue underglow or blue lights on their wipers passing a cop running traffic without any attention, mainly because it’s not illegal under Ohio law.

[Author]

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