Foglights on a bike??

[Smiler.]

Thought I'd seen it all, but.....

.....tonight just after dusk, heading to the M4, a bike came up behind me (a beemer) with the headlight on 'sidelight' & two spots on the low-down crash bars blaring out. Not good as I was in a car & thought it was a van with a dodgy light at first.

I thought this type of behavior was the reserve of Chav-Boy-racer.

The rider had all the dayglow gear though.

[Benni]

Yeah, big lights on BMW boxer crashbars,
used to be "cool" in germany way back when rockers rode /5 models
(with upswept 2 into 4 Hoske megas and "Z" chain welded handlebars.....)
Was eventually outlawed because...........














"the motorcycle´s light scheme resembles a locomotive,
one light up in the middle, 2 apart down low"
Oh yeah, I remember those massive crashes on the Autobahn,
because Mr. Opel driver panic-braked when he saw the Trans-Europa-Express behind him...
Cheers,
Benni

[fredd1e]

fogs on bikes ... dubious cosmetic value only imho, Having ridden in peasoup fog on a couple of occassions its not fog lights that you need but a gyroscope. The effect of thick fog on a bike can be very disorienting as it becomes difficult to work out if your upright or banked as your normal visual references cant be seen. I dont think fog lights help much in that regard

[ssray]

I stuck some on my 250 dream about 20yrs ago relays and everything, they were vgood when despatching on country lanes

[6x6]

Lots of Beemer riders I know have fitted these because the headlight is so utterly pants that they are 100% necessary to see where you're going at night.

Certainly on my R1100SS I get the feeling sometimes that I'd be better of strapping a maglight to the side of my helmet

[JWH]

I personally think they raise a major safety issue, in the car this morning on the way to work, early morning twilight period and looking to overtake a van on a reasonable size B-road.
Came to the start of a long straight and see a set of headlights a long way down the straight heading towards me, my initial decision was that it was a car/van/lorry some distance away and I was safe to go; pulled out from the following position to the other side of the road before starting to accelerate and ended up pulling swiftly back in behind the van. Why? Those headlights were in fact the twin lights on the front of a large BMW bike and, thanks to the effect on perspective and distance perception that was created by the lights being much closer together than those on a car/van/lorry, he was in fact much closer than I initially thought.

No harm done in this case, it wasn't that close, but food for thought.

Edited by JWH on Tuesday 27th February 21:04

[Oilyyyy]

yeah, good point, but i think that a lot of people pull out in front of single headlamp bikes as you can't judge the change in the spacing of the headlights. You use this when assessing how fast a vehicle is approaching you. The lamps get further apart as it approaches - with a single lamp you don't get this effect.

In your situation it sounds like the bike was further away so you couldn't actually see that it was a bike at all! Tricky - i can see "fors and aginsts" for each.

[JWH]

Oilyyyy said:

yeah, good point, but i think that a lot of people pull out in front of single headlamp bikes as you can't judge the change in the spacing of the headlights. You use this when assessing how fast a vehicle is approaching you. The lamps get further apart as it approaches - with a single lamp you don't get this effect.

In your situation it sounds like the bike was further away so you couldn't actually see that it was a bike at all! Tricky - i can see "fors and aginsts" for each.

Yeah, it wasn't helped by the fact that his main headlight was running only sidelights (or had a blown main bulb).

[6x6]

Oilyyyy said:

yeah, good point, but i think that a lot of people pull out in front of single headlamp bikes as you can't judge the change in the spacing of the headlights. You use this when assessing how fast a vehicle is approaching you. The lamps get further apart as it approaches - with a single lamp you don't get this effect.

In your situation it sounds like the bike was further away so you couldn't actually see that it was a bike at all! Tricky - i can see "fors and aginsts" for each.

Just about all bikes use to be wired as single lamp for dip, even if they had 2 - my CBR has 2 lamps, but one is dipped and one is main. I was told this was a regulation so that if you approached a junction at night your 2 lights close together didn't look like a car that was far away.

However I have recently seen new bikes returning to running 2 lamps together on dipped - perhaps the rules have changed?

Edited by 6x6 on Thursday 1st March 09:11