Triumphrat

saphena

Around 4pm this afternoon, beginnings of dusk, I drove my car into town and for the last two miles was followed by a Ducati with his headlight high beam on. It was very bright, dazzling me to the point of dipping my rear view mirror.

I tried flashing my rear fog lamp, I tried moving over to let him past but all to no avail, he just sat behind me.

Assuming that he knew what he was doing at all, I suspect he thought he was improving his safety by making himself highly visible. In fact he was reducing his safety in two ways:-

Firstly my ability to carry out proper rear observation was greatly reduced as all I could see was the glare from his headlight. The immediate effect was that I checked behind me less frequently.

Secondly I found it very annoying and I was having to work hard at remaining focussed on driving.

Driving a car is a process fraught with distractions; as bikers, let's not distract them even more than we have to.

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Bob - Ringer, Iron Butt, not dead yet
Switch to reserve ~120 miles, fuel panic ~150

"Just because you're offended doesn't make you right" Ricky Gervais

Tbirdnz

Yes I agree there. I find motorcyclists that have their headlight on full beam during the day are less visible, that is to say the shape of the bike and distance is not as easy to estimate and the opposing driver or rider tends to look away from a bright dazzling beam.

At dusk and night time it is much worse.

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Ride on !

HiDesert

If () you are riding a bit faster than the flow of traffic, they won't be annoyed for long. While they are, they will at least be aware of your existence.

You can take this idea too far; Tbird is absolutely right about dusk, and obviously at night. I once passed a truck in broad daylight on my old Honda, and the driver picked up a spotlight and shined it at me as I went by. I went home and discovered that my high beam was aimed too high, so I probably did annoy that guy too much.

But in general, I'd say riding with high beams during the day for those with stock lights is neither right nor wrong; it's personal preference on the rider's part.

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I won't stop riding because you tell me about someone who died in an accident, just as I won't stop eating because someone died of e.coli.

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johnny

+1!! I totally agree. ill ride with the highbeam on at times, but only if I feel I really need it. I'd rather keep it off if I can, so I can flash the "passing-lamps" at a suspected dumb cage driver.

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...just RIDE!