Ride slower at night, your visibility is limited to the area covered by your lights unless it is a full moon. I have read that those deer whistles do not work but have no experience with them.

I like riding at night in the summer because it is cooler but you do hit a lot of bugs.

 

Hell yea they work!!
I've got a set on my boat, and I ain't hit a deer with it yet!
(here's yer sign)

 

Read from many sources that claim the deer whistles don't work. However, years back Halliburton (when it was just an oil field service company) averaged 75 truck/deer accidents per year in the part of Texas I was living. After installing deer whistles on all their trucks, that average dropped to 2 per year.

 

I don't ride in the hill country at night, I don't even like driving my car there. It is thick with deer. Around town at night, no problem. Ido hate the bugs though.

 

I try not to ride at night, but often find myself still on the way home when it gets dark. First of all its harder to see at night as your get older, and then there are the deer, armadillos, possums, skunks, rabbits, and every other animal that like to scurry across a road at night. The deer are actually easier to see than the smaller ones and your in for an event if you run over an armadillo.

Then there is the Texas highway department. Usually pretty good, but they sometimes forget to notify you there are working on a road. Recently, while riding at night on a rural highway that we often travel, we came upon about a 100 yard stretch were they had stripped the top 3 - 4inches of asphalt off the road, just on the right 2/3's of my side of the road. They didn't out a construction sign at all up. Knowing they road, I knew there had always been an asphalt patch right there so the change of color did not give anything away, but my tires hit right on the lip from where they removed the asphalt and the original road. My wife was following me on her bike, running in the right 1/3 of the lane as usual, so she hit just the wavy grooves we all love.

Not sure if my front wheel was on the high part and the rear wheel on the low part, or visa-versa, put it threw my Ultra into quite a knee slapper at 55 mph. I really thought I was going down. Worst part was I was catching glimpses of my wife's headlights off to my side and could actually hear her screaming. That doesn't help! She later said my rear end was fishtailing all over the road and she was trying to not hit me herself while not wanting to brake hard on the grooves. Not sure what I did, except I know I didn't use any brakes (ABS if I had)and have no idea if I let the throttle off or not. I was too busy just holding the grips and the tank with my knees. After some unknown distance, which seemed like forever,the bike settled down and we made it home safely.

You just don't perceive road hazards as well at night.

 

Alot of night riding here because of 12 hrs work days.Early morning is the worst because of the deer.Have had lots of close calls,last year ran over a fawn in a turn.I stayed up,it ran away.I still enjoy it no matter what crosses my path.

 

I ride whenever I want. When it's your time, it's your time. Don't be fooled into thinking that you only hit deer at night. Sure, it is more likely, but daytime hits happen too. I hit one on my RKC a couple of years ago at about 5 pm in July.

 

We ride quite a bit at night, but try to avoid it during fall rut, as stated in earlier post. Deer run in front of me here on the ranch in my truck during rut, so doesn't hurt to be safe on the bike. All other times just ride careful and enjoy.

 

Agree!!!!!

 

I avoid the night riding for most of the reasons already mentioned - deer, reduced visibility, statistically more drunks on the road, more fatigued at night than day, etc. However, if you MUST ride at night for any reason, I think you're OK as long as you account for all of these hazards and adjust your riding accordingly. Hows that for a PC answer - dang, I should be a lawyer!