Have you thought of doing a test riding towards her to replicate the experience of another driver or doing so in a vehicle?OK tonight's ride I took a pic of Mrs Ferret running on low beam
compare that to running on high beam
Moving on from Hi Vis stuff, I have another question which I think you might be able to help me with since I see you have a Goldwing as well as an NC (lucky man). I have always aspired to a Goldwing since the bagger came out (the Tour is just 'too much' for my single no passenger riding). I guess it is a given that the Goldwing is a much smoother and more comfortable ride than the NC (unless you can advise to the contrary). I'm 6'1" and 215lbs in the hot tub and get a pretty consistent 60-63 mpg (US) on my NC. If this is similar to your NC consumption, perhaps we have similar riding styles and you can let me know your consumption on the Goldwing for comparison purposes. I see that the oil change and filter is the same for both bikes after the initial change, so self servicing should be similar costs. I expect the insurance is quite a bit more, but how much I wonder? Finally, if you could have the one bike and one only as a single rider (no passenger) would you keep the NC or the Goldwing bagger?
I realize you directed the question to dduelin, but as I also have a Goldwing . . . Mine is the first generation GL1800 with trunk (1832cc). I average 75 mpg on the NC, and 42 mpg on the Goldwing. Outside of the overall insurance policy coverages, and costs, the NC costs me $52 annually to put on the policy, and the Goldwing costs $74. For a single rider with one bike, it’s really, really close but I think I would keep the Goldwing. Better weather protection, ultra smooth engine, and less frequent maintenance requirements tips the scales in favor of the ‘Wing.
No, but I could do that
Im just coming off a 2018 DCT Tour. Owned it 5 years, a beautiful motorcycle, sad to let it go. It was just getting too heavy to manage. Im 74 years old. I could ride it just fine, the 850 lbs was hard to manage, pushing it around the garage etc. Didnt want to have it fall on me. Maintenance was a nightmare, air filter, valve adjust. Just changing the oil was a chore, 3 drain plugs, very little room underneath it. I would easily get 50-55 MPG. The Gen 1 wings were better as far a maintenance goes.
Black is "cool" in some motorcyclists circles. Cool will get you dead. YMMV.
Thanks for the great report.
if only. I think this report shows the amount of written articles that support the hypothesis that being conspicuous reduces your chance of an accident. But it's short on data, because I think crash data is (a) hard to come by, and (b) is almost impossible to parse to identify causes (beyond speed, alcohol/drugs, weather, etc.).
Good points. A lot of the material I read on this did consider cases where the offending driver was someone other than the motorcyclist and reported they did not see the other vehicle. To your point, that does not include data like "i was eating a ham sandwich as I turned left in front of the motorcyclist." But there are some studies that consider field observations, controlled or uncontrolled, where differing levels of conspicuity were introduced into the environment. For instance, headlight only, headlight and high visibility, human triangle light configuration without hi visibility clothing and with high visibility clothing, etc. There was a study out of Australia, if remember correctly, that suggested hi vis clothing was more effective than the human triangle lighting configuration if one were to be chosen over the other. It's all pretty interesting because a lot of what we do actually triggers, triggers an improperly measured, or fails to trigger a response in the brain of the person we want to observe us.
can't believe it legal to behave like this in Canada!
Same thing in Greece, it's very dangerous to run the high beams when it's not needed. It does not make you more visible. The other drivers just try to look somewhere else so they do not get bothered, and you become invisible.
That's like saying we should paint all school buses and emergency vehicles black or grey and remove their e-lighting because there are idiots that still run into them. Sure there are idiots but there is a mass of science behind how increasing conspicuity reduces the risk of right of way violations. That is the reason behind the colors, the lighting, and the audio equipment on your apparatus. It's reductions we are after not elimination of risk.
