Total Motorcycle Community Forums

My girlfriend and I were riding home the other day when we were joined by another bike. Or rather, he merged onto the highway just ahead of us. No shoulder check, no glance in the mirror, no signal lights, just a casual point to the lane he was moving in to. He was on a 99 Royal Star (I recognised the taillight style... and it said 99RS on his plate ) that was nicely done up but after following him for awhile it was apparent that certain safety features had been altered. I noticed he had removed all the signal lights, then I saw that he had replaced the rear ones with a licence plate bracket that contained two small yellow LED lights on either side. The mirrors were those Arlen Ness "Whiskers" that have a yellow LED imbedded in the stalk. The mirrors themselves were so small they reminded me of the tiny, broken piece of truck mirror I used to shave with while out on Army manouevers.

We followed him for about 15km into our town and it was apparent he was a new rider; he looked to be about my age but he could barely keep the bike in his own lane, never mind on the road. At one point on a corner he went wide and crossed the center lane... damn good thing there was no oncoming traffic, otherwise he would have been toast. Anyway, we rolled into town and suddenly he veered left into the parking lot of the local Tim Horton's - no signal, no shoulder check, no glance in the mirrors. Actually, I noticed as we rode past that his signals were on - but those LED's were so small that they were all but invisible. I figured that if I could hardly see them even though I knew they were there, the average cager wouldn't have a clue.

Never sacrifice a safety feature just so you can look "cool"!

I totally agree. It is kinda strange, most cagers don't even see you, so it doesn't matter how cool you look. They will just cut you off at a moments notice then look at you like it was somehow your fault.

If you're going to replace your stock lights, of any sort, do it with a Mag-Lite. Or any kinda of 3,000,000 candlepower Deer-shiner/spot light.

Heck, just carry one of those things around with you anyways, and spot-shine any suspicious cagers.

I've had to change the indicators on my own bike, the previous owner for some unknown reason had sprayed the orange lens black. Although they looked kinda nice, they were absolutely useless during the day!

Put some much brighter billet ones on now...

Driving like that lets hope we don't read about him in the newspapers.

Stock rear tail lights and signals are already hard to see at times!

I never completely rely on my turn signals anyway . I almost always use hand signals as well . Comes from all those years without electronic turn signals I reckon.
Regards, Wizzard