| Author | Message | ||
     Midnightrider |
FINALLY got all life's other priorities taken care of and finally got the Uly out of the garage today. It's an 06 and been sitting about a month. Get all suited up and sure enough it would crank but not enough juice to fire it up. Put it on the charger for a few minutes and finally got her going. A couple months ago I added the HID lights talked about so much here and to avoid them trying to fire up the ballasts when I turned the bike on I bypassed the stock wiring and put toggle switches inside either hand guard - low beam on the right, high beam on the left. My only fear about this set-up was that someday I would forget to turn the headlight on during daylight. Today was the day Not even a mile into the ride I passed a local unmarked LEO parked off the shoulder of the on-coming lane. I was in traffic and I was not exceeding the posted limit so I was a bit surprised to see him pull out and U-Turn behind me and hit the blue hidden behind the grill. While I was pulling off the road I looked down and noticed that neither toggle was lit - no headlights. I positioned the switches so it only takes a simple flick of the index finger and neither hand has to leave the grip. I flipped the low beams on and waited for him to get out of the car. I shifted into neutral, put the sidestand down and raised the dark visor on my helmet. I had in bright yellow earplugs and I think wearing plugs on a bike is illegal in Maryland so I didn't want to add this to the mix. The LEO was an older gentleman in plain clothes. He came up and directed me to turn off the engine (Drummer)which I did with the kill switch but never touched the key. He asked me if I knew why he stopped me ( I hate it when it starts like that) so of course I said "no" but then added that the last two times I was stopped it was by officers who just wanted to see the bike. No reaction from this guy. He then informed me that I had no headlight. He was still beside me and hadn't moved to the front of the bike yet. "No kidding?" I said, then added "You sure?" I got off the bike and moved up to where he was now - in front of the bike. He saw what I saw - the HID burning brightly. He just stood there and looked. And looked. And looked. I thought I would bust when he started scratching his head and then he finally said "I could have sworn there was no light when you passed me back there". He wasn't looking at me - he just kept staring at the light I said "Are you sure? Maybe the sun was in your eyes"? ( it was coming over my shoulders) He just kept looking. Usually my philosophy is "less is more" and I keep my mouth shut, but today I couldn't help myself and I went on "You are aware, aren't you sir, that motorcycle headlights come on automatically when the key is turned?". At that point I reached over and turned the key off. The light went out. Then I turned the key back on and of course the light came back on. He looked at the light a little while longer than said something so low I couldn't understand, got in his car and U-turned back the way he had come. Never asked for license or registration or insurance. Maybe it's one of those "you had to be there" things but it's made me laugh every time I've thought of it all day long. If it were that easy all the time. | ||
| Jimduncan69 |
that is priceless. thanks for sharing that. i love it when stuff like that happens. | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Poor cop, you probably just pushed him into early retirement.  | ||
| Firebolt32 |
Too funny...I bet he went to the range to make sure his eye sight was still good enough to use a weapon. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
LMAO | ||
| B00stzx3 |
hahaha. Typical MoCo cop, nothing better to do! | ||
| Ratbuell |
Don, Don, Don.....  Perhaps, paint the toggle switches Safety Yellow as a reminder? lol. | ||
| Xl1200r |
That is a pretty funny story. On a serious note, how about fitting a little red light on your dash that lights up when the headlight bypass switches are on the off position? That way you'll notice when it's not on. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Maybe his goal was simply to get you to turn your light on to keep you safe, not to give you a ticket. His job was done so he moved on. Arguing with you would only have ended up with him doing more paperwork. I've been in a few situations where I am pretty sure I would have gotten a ticket in the car, but the cop watched me go by on the bike. I think bikes (provided you are not a jerk) get a LOT of LEO slack. | ||
| Midnightrider |
X11200R Now that's a great idea. It would be great to use the blue high beam indicator lamp that's already in the dash. The wires that used to feed the OEM high beam are still intact beneath the flyscreen. It would be easy enough to connect the hot lead to a switched on power source - but what would I have to do to open the circuit ( make it go off) when I threw the switch to the lowbeams? Keep in mind I the HIDs run of a relay | ||
| Nevrenuf |
i'm sure a picture would have been worth a thousand words. just better hope he doesn't see this thread. it's a smaller world than you think. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Don't ask me anything regarding electric circuits - I was never very good with them. I only know that it's possible. I would think that you'd need a relay of some sort to sent a current to the light when it didn't have power, but you'll need to rely on someone else for the schematic. | ||
| Ulendo |
midnightrider - bit of a suggestion for you, since you're only worried about the fire up sequence, and seem to have the safe attitude about riding with the lights on: integrate the ballast power with with the sidestand switch via a relay( Add the SS switch form a suitable year if you don't have one..) thus, stand down at startup the lights stay off while you warm up the engine, but when you raise the stand to ride off, they'll always come on. I've suggested it to a few folks regarding heated grips, also, and I really don't know why the factory doesn't set lights, and grips up this way to begin with. if you 'don't do' wiring, maybe one of the badweb guys local to you can help out with this.... | ||
| Ratyson |
Ha.. I bet the next guy that got pulled over by this LEO got the book thrown at him.. | ||
| Citified |
or beat with a billy club  |
