Well it happened again. My brother-in-law got rear-ended while waiting at a stoplight on his Harley yesterday in broad daylight. Bike damaged, sprained ankle and some bumps & scrapes, but it could have been much much worse.
He's the third person I've known that this has happened to. The first one was my friend Robert who was hit and killed at night in Colorado Springs. The second was my friend Chuck who got a broken collarbone and his customized BMW airhead got totalled.
I drove out with truck & ramp to help him, and noticed my BIL did at least at least four things that contributed to this accident, but I know what it's like to be hurting after a wreck, so I kept my mouth shut:
~the tiniest little aftermarket turn-signals he could get for his highly-customized $30,000 harley
~tiniest little aftermarket rearview mirrors... etc.
~He had a SMOKED LENS on his rear brakelight. (WTF?!)
~He wasn't aware what was going on around him (When I asked him what happened, he said out of the blue, his bike suddenly shot forward and fell over onto his ankle. Judging from this narration and the ornate little slivers he had where real mirrors should have been, he was decidedly NOT paying attention to the traffic behind him.)

There are large steel boulders, some of them weighing more than a ton, rolling around us; since the only thing preventing your death is sometimes a little 10-watt bulb, wouldn't it be better to have one that was actually visible? Our bikes already come with perfectly functional signal lights; why replace them with smaller/dimmer ones and risk your life?

We can complain about how drivers are non-attentive idiots; I'll nod and smile sympathetically, but in the back of my mind I'll be thinking "...probably wouldn't have happened if he'd left the stock brakelight lens in place."
-CCinC

 

werd!!

 

or kept an eye on the mirrors and seen a cage barreling down on him.

 

sucks for your brother in law... was the cager on their phone?

the back of my car is more visible than any bike could dream of being, but i still got tagged by some lady chatting away. she was riding my *** the whole way down third street, talking up a storm. then she backed off about 4 car lengths, traffic in front of me came to a stop due to some genius trying to make a left turn from the right lane, and she tagged me... got me real good too. pity her airbags didnt go off

she got out and her first words were "i was totally paying attention"
[>:]

 

last time a car was tailgating me i turned around and waved them to move back - aperantly i scared the crap out of the woman because she stayed about 1/4 mile back after that.

 

No, but he was an all-around quality human being. He was driving on a suspended license due to previous DUIs, it was no wonder he was trying to flee the scene. Fortunately for my BIL, another Harley rider showed up and blocked his path.
The scumbag's car was impounded and he was cited, but the cops let him go. Ah well, he'll eventually end up in jail when he kills someone.

 

there need to be more severe penalties for driving without a liscense

 

One time my mom/step-dad followed me home on a bike that had the nearly non-existent flush LED turn signals. First thing they said to me was to ask why I wasn't signaling...they couldn't see my turn signals even once.

The stock ones are large and clunky, but I'm leaving them in place. Gotta give the cagers every reason to see you (even though they probably won't anyway).

 

i'm keeping my 'bug eye' rear tails, i like them and they're safe. my fronts i'm gonna keep flush mounts but they are bright and easy enough to see it shouldn't be a prob.


u know new bikes are coming with integrated or flush mount now. that's kinda scary

 

nothing wrong with the blinking lights onthe bikes - its the idiots that don't use their eyes that are the problem.

ever seen a person pull out infront of a tractor trailer? try to tell me they didn't see THAT coming.