1986 R80RT lighting question

[osbornk]

I have always considered it WAY safer to have my headlights on all the time.I can't imagine the need to have an off switch,but to each his own.IMHO It's part of the ATGATT thing.As stated,neither of my '78's have an off switch.BTW Ikchris,a NASA physicist once posited that TINSTAAFL(aunch)!

My 86 R80RT has an off switch and I do use it occasionally. I will use it when I'm fiddling around with the bike in my garage and I will sometimes turn the headlight off a mile or so from home so the battery will be as charged as possible. The last mile or two from my house is a hardtop road with no center line that gets more use from farm equipment than cars.

 

[jforgo]

With all the "daytime running lites" etc on all the cages, trucks, besides bikes, I think the inpact of lights on for bikes is relatively diminished. I do not dispute that a bike with lights on is easier to see than one with lights off, but I also feel that a bike with lights on today gets lost in sea of other vehicles with lights on. This especially for the modern rapping music, texting, cell yapping driver to notice.
It seems to me the support for the "third brakelight" for cars came from a dramatic reduction in rear end collisions in a locality where it was an experiment. There was a novelty effect. Today the third brakelight is another thing for the comatose drivers seat occupants to ignore. Or so I surmise from all the rear end collisions I see.
All of my bikes have light switches. The moment of turning them on gets cagers attention. There are traffic reading and lane positioning techniques, especially for urban riding, which are far more important than depending on someone noticing your headlight being on.
The increased death rate in recent years for motorcyclists, almost all of whom were riding "lights on" bikes, would seem to support my suspicion that lights on had a specific novelty impact, which ends with its own novelty.

 

[happy wanderer]

I would hazard a guess that the increased fatality in motorcycle crashes of late has more to do with the massive increase of motorcycles on the road and absolutely nothing to do the with the novelty of lights.

Turn signals were once considered a novelty item too.

"Why is that guy sticking his arm out? Oh CRAP!!"