It really is a highly debatable argument (or series thereof). There are no absolutes - just different people with different methods they've evolved over time... and different opinions.
The lights ... they're just feckin' annoying! And ... they are!! Why do people move over when you come up behind them with yer unobtainium fuelled nitrous bulbed flood lights??? Cos there in their car saying 'Feck me, I've got some bloody idiot in my mirrors that's being incredibly annoying, I'll pull over and let the twat past and hope he buggers off .... '
In this context, I would say that that's rather the point.
Again, I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in SA we have legislation which dictates that people in the right-hand lane of a regional or national freeway pull over to the lane immediately to the left when approached from the rear by a faster-moving vehicle.
A couple of problems are immediately apparent. Corruption is so blatant in our system that according to some governmental stats, up to 40% of drivers in SA are not actually 'drivers' by strict letter of law - they have purchased their licences from officials with the means to bang them out and sell them for a couple of hundred Rand each. Then there are those who simply take to the roads without. These people are ignorant of the law because the system hasn't been able to make them reasonably aware of it.
And we have no system of compulsory vehicle insurance here. Prior to our so-called democracy, we had a system of compulsory third-party insurance, but that was quietly scrapped in order to facilitate the poorest of the poor getting mobile.
According to other stats, we are currently the most illiterate nation in Africa - despite spending up to 6% of our substantial GDP on 'education'. So you can forget about the average rural shack-dweller in his 40-year-old Datsun being able to read the road signs - or even knowing what they signify. Read? Hell, he never even took a learners' licence test!
So what we have is a road-transport system in which a hell of a lot of drivers take to the roads with nothing to lose. The fact that their ignorance might cost lives, and destroy vehicles costing more than many of them will earn in ten years' wages, is totally alien. So is the concept of 'Defensive driving'. Spatial co-ordination and situational awareness are far beyond them.
The only way to communicate effectively with such people as a fellow road user is on a primal, visceral level.
Very bright headlights in your rearviews are an unsettling sight. (And hopefully, the blue tinge from high-Kelvin LED or HID light might get you momentarily mistaken for a cop - which will assure even quicker co-operation.
)
The sound of a race pipe can be heard from some distance away. Again, this works on 'caveman' level - the average uneduque who hears such a sound is more likely to look for it, see the lights, and NOT blunder into the gap between two lines of stationary traffic.
And the noisy can argument?? (my Remus still has the baffle in and is bloody noisy!) Pedestrians and all that, yep - I get that - they'll hear you coming, but think about your bog standard bike v car crash. Yer trying to tell me that it wouldn't have happened if he had a noisy pipe? Remember the video somebody posted on the training threads
The logic here is a bit convoluted.
You can't provide proof against every single danger on the roads. There are simply too many variables in the total equation. Road safety is not a straight Win/lose situation. It's a game of odds.
Bright lights, loud pipes and loud horns are not magic talismans which insure against every instance of un-situationally-aware drivers and pedestrians. But they do have audible and visual effect which can raise the odds in the rider's favour by reaching and influencing more of the fellow human beings we encounter.
My own experience over the last fifteen years has proven this to me more times than I can mention.
All else being equal, every time I'm on a bike with an EU exhaust, pedestrians step into the gaps between traffic in front of me. (I usually spot them, because I've been accustomed to watching for them for a very long time.)
Every time I'm on a bike with a race pipe, the number of pedestrians stepping out without looking plummets.
Noisy pipes won't stop this sort of (classic car pulling out) thing, windows up, radio on? talking to passenger in car? The majority of the bikes sound actually being behind the bike and not infront of it .. ?
I mentioned in another post that there is also a large element of luck involved.
Sometimes, no matter how conscientious you are, the universe will still screw with you for it's own amusement. You could be wearing day-glo pink Cordura and a reflective white helmet, sporting an exhaust that plays 'Making Love Out Of Nothing At All' at 110 dB, and some people STILL wouldn't know you're there.
Then, there are those on ground-hugging sports bikes in matt black, with black leathers and helmet, standard pipe, and because the bike is an American grey import, they've forgotten to switch on the headlights. Filtering between gaps, they can (and mostly do) stay in one piece.
In a way, it's like tornadoes. They touch down here - but not there. They can wipe out three houses in a row, then suddenly veer away and miss the fourth house.
The guy whose house has been wiped out says: "...No, no, NO!!! Why me?!"
The guy whose house has been spared says "Thank God".
Nah .... fly under the radar, and use yer head to avoid accidents...
One out of two ain't bad.
Peace, my man.
