Anyone running just turn signal/brake lights?

I'm ordering the heartland bobber kit, and ditching the rear tail light. I was looking to get the side mount plate holder with the cateye LED on it, but the thing is just so damn expensive, I'm finding it tough to pull the trigger on it.

I was just thinking about running a cheap side mount plate and getting some of the LED bullet turn signal/brake lights, with no big tail light. So not having a tail light will obviously make me a little less visible, which is never good, but I found the Back Off MC break light modulator: Module causes 3 short flashes, stays on for 3.5 seconds, then repeats the cycle for as long as the brake is on. Figured that might help make the signal/brake lights more noticeable.

So yeah, just wonderin if anyone ditched their tail light or if you've seen the brake flasher thing.

Thanks

 

my buddy took his brake light off his dyna and put on a side mount plate that has a "brake light" inthe led strip its about 3 inchs long and as wide as my pinky, one night we were heading home and he almost gotrearended , that thing was worthless...barely visible and the viewing angle is restricted to about 30% .....make sure you get something people can see or be prepared to haul ***.

 

Why do you want to make yourself less visible. Way too much chanch of someone behind you not seeing you and getting rearended. The back of my bike is lit up like a Christmas tree and I wish I had more.

 

[align=left]I bobbed the fender on my wife's bike and took off the tail light. But I put a run/turn/brake module in it and very bright LED's in the bullets.

http://www.biketronics.com/led.html These things fill up the entire bullet and are very bright. Not all LED's are created equal. I had Kuryakyn LED's for a while; they are a joke...

Call Biketronics and ask for Mike; he is very knowledgable.
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My buddy has run/turn/brake bullets on his Iron Horse Custom. They're not as visible as a factory tail light, but they get the job done. If you go with the tail light on the side mount + run/turn/brake you should be OK.

 

Saw this yesterday and something bothered me about the idea, but aside from the obvious lowered visibility aspects, I just couldn't put my finger on why it bothered me.
Then after opening my mail and finding my registration renewal sticker it hit me.
Many states have a minimum square inch area requirement for a tail light. If you do away with the regular light your bike might not have the enough light left (square inch area) to allow it topass a state DMV inspection, assuming your state has one.
I know that in many states the bike inspectors, if they are private businesses, will oftenignore quite a bit of borderline stuff like that. But where its done by state officials you might be letting yourself in for a bunch of unnecessary trouble.

 

The Nightster uses the bullets as run/turn/brake without a dedicated taillight, so I would assume it meets the 50 state requirements. Of course, this is an assumption.

But out of curiousity I figured out the area of 2 bullets. With them being roughly 2.25", that is almost 8 sq in. But this means nothing without any requirements to compare it to.
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I was basically trying to talk myself into not paying the extra money for the heartland plate holder with the tail light on it, but I'm not one for making myself less visible. Bikes have it bad enough as it is, and I figured that I liked the heartland plate holder enough to suck it up and get it. Bought a few things already that were just cheaper versions of the things I really wanted, and I'm wanting to replace them already.

Ended up getting a great deal on it through Ronnie at Lewis Custom Cycle, awesome guy to deal with. Also got myself the 200 bobber kit for my train. Can't wait!

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

DaveJ


Your right,I had totaly forgotten about the Nightster.
So I guess it would be legal, but I don't think I would like or trust it very much.
I'm one of the'more (or brighter) is better' type'swhen it comes to that kind of thing.

 

The Rocker's come standard with 2 bullets that act as running lights/turn signals/brake lights. After having the bike for a month now, I'm not a fan of the setup and have seen people behind me have trouble noticing what I am doing. Hell, cagers can't pay attention to the 3 brake lights on the back of my Expedition much less 2 little lights on the back of the bike mounted low. I'm probably going to add some Hyper-Lites for the time being and hope that Kuryakyn comes out with an aftermarket piece that will replace the current license plate holder with a true brake light and hopefully one that blinks. I've already emailed Kuryakyn with the idea and hope they run with it. I want to get the license plate mounted down on the side anyways so this would eliminate any body work removing the holder on the fender.

I've been reading of too many accidents lately wherecager's are just running into the back of bikes and I don't think having this setup helps that any.