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Being seen by motorists
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March 10, 2010 at 7:47 pm #24886eonParticipant
Riding at night with your high beams on is a completely different story than during the day. Your eyes will have adjusted to the dark and are more susceptible to being ‘blinded’ by any bright light. That’s why you NEED to switch them off for oncoming traffic. Do you think the rules are different from riding a bike to driving your car?
March 10, 2010 at 10:59 pm #24885Gary856ParticipantThis 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…)
March 11, 2010 at 7:13 pm #24905Sean_DParticipantDue 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.
March 11, 2010 at 7:23 pm #24907Sean_DParticipant…adding to my previous post. I know a number of folks around here who prefer the Hyper Yellow bulbs. They claim they are more visible during peak daylight hours. The logic is that peak daylight hours are a very bright white/blue light and that the deeper yellow of the Hyper Yellow bulbs stand out in contrast. While that may or may not be true, I have been hesitant to try them. I am not sure what effect they would have on night time driving. Decreased visibility? Is the yellow light kind of odd? I understand there are some questions about their legality? Anyone have any feedback or experience with he hyper yellow bulbs?
March 11, 2010 at 9:35 pm #24909IBA270Participant+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.
March 11, 2010 at 10:19 pm #24910Sean_DParticipantI really appreciate the feedback on the yellow bulbs. I am glad to hear that seem to work as well as advertised in terms of visibility. I have been running that PIAA Super Plasma GT-X because of that purple hued low beam, but I kind of like the look of the yellow. So you don’t find them too funky for nighttime use? When you say “work very well for visibility” I wasn’t sure if you mean making you more visible, visibility of the road and surroundings, or both.
March 11, 2010 at 10:29 pm #24911IBA270ParticipantI 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!
March 12, 2010 at 12:27 am #24913eonParticipantI remember France used to have yellow headlights. In Googling that to make sure I wasn’t being senile I found the following useful webbikeworld page that I had not seen before. There is an especially useful user comment towards the bottom of the page
http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/motorcycle-light-bulbs/yellow-light-bulbs.htm.March 12, 2010 at 2:06 am #24915Sean_DParticipantThat one was definitely interesting. Sounds like, from what he is saying, that the Hyper Yellow would make an excellent daytime light. Maybe not so great a night riding light though. Maybe PIAA needs to make a Green Plasma for night to put a slight green cast around it
March 12, 2010 at 2:16 am #24914Sean_DParticipant… I do only have the single main headlight, so perhaps the PIAA plasma is the best bet for that. Gives the low beam a purple tint and a bright white high beam. I need to add some running lights, so that may be the better choice for a yellow bulb.
I had a Silverstar in there before. Still keep it as a spare, but I liked the effect of the Plasma and I am hoping it is more eye catching and attention getting. No way to know for sure I guess. This is a pretty good side by side for anyone who may be interested http://www.aeriostyle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4339
Though the PIAA bulb here is more blue, while the plasma has more a purple cast. Photos on the second page show the plasma side by side. Not the best photo though.
I am giving serious thought to doing one of the H4 to HID conversions though.
March 12, 2010 at 2:51 am #24916IBA270ParticipantSean, the HID conversion CAN BE really nice! There are a few drawbacks though, so do some research. Notably;
1) Not all reflectors are made the same; some housings seem to through the new HID light well, others not as much.
2) You won’t have the ability to dim the bulb; there is no hi/lo. There ARE kits with a small servo motor that “directs” the light onto different points of the reflector to help control how the light is thrown from the housing, but the effectiveness is questionable, as are the long term reliability of them.
3) While most kits are “plug and play”, I would recommend AT LEAST running a new, higher gauge ground wire. Ground is notoriously the weak link on most systems.
4) You’ll need to adjust the angle of your light much lower. If you have an easily adjustable headlight, then Bob’s your uncle. Otherwise, you’ll have to find the happy medium.
If you go that route, go with the lowest KV number available. The lower number= the most white light, which gives the greatest vision for you…and (from what I understand) draws the least number of unwanted questions by the cops.
Even with all of this, I haven’t heard the first person tell me it wasn’t one of the best upgrades they done for night riding/visibility.
HTH…
March 12, 2010 at 4:30 am #24917Sean_DParticipant.. That is great info. Thanks much for the reply on that. I will definitely do more research on it. I was planning on upgrading the stock light on my Bonnie to one of the Cibie models through Daniel Stern Lighting. From what everyone says he is some kind of automotive lighting guru. A lot of folks seem to recommend him. Not sure if anyone on this forum has any experience with him?
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/products/products.htmlFrom what I understand the Cibie reflectors are far better than the no-name stock reflectors that come with my bike and work far better HID conversion or not. Maybe I should chat with him about upgrading the reflector with an eye on the HID conversion?
My headlight is easy to adjust, so I should be OK in that regard. I have a question about the KV number. By that do you mean Kelvin Value? If so wouldn’t the opposite be true? Lower number is more yellow while higher numbers go from white to blue. Maybe I don’t understand how it applies to bulbs though.
March 12, 2010 at 12:50 pm #24921IBA270ParticipantStern’s site has some great info and has been used for used in the M/C community for reference. I’d also agree that that the Cibie kit would be the way to go as far as improving the reflector.
On color temperature…the whitest light is right around 4000/4300-4600. After that, it becomes noticeably blue. Many of the kits you see on cars out there are 7000 and up. They aren’t better, they’re just popular. FWIW, the difference between a 4300 and a 5000 is immediately noticeable. The 5000 is blue.
March 12, 2010 at 1:05 pm #24922IBA270ParticipantForgot to add that! Sorry.
March 12, 2010 at 4:22 pm #24923Sean_DParticipantThanks for clarifying that. It was exactly what I was wondering when you mentioned earlier about the lower the KV the whiter. It seemed to me that the 4000-5000 would be the whitest, with 5500 heading toward blue. I know what you mean about the higher values going bluer. 6000 seems to be somewhat blue, but I have seen kits advertised that are 8,000, 10,000 and 12,000. Those seem to go from blue to purple on the far end. But I had seen some kits advertised at 3,000 and 3,500 that seemed pretty yellow. Not as yellow as the Hyper Yellows at 2,500, but a definite yellow.
So yeah.. that clarification sounds like exactly what I was thinking the colors should be. Thanks for that!
– Sean
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