City Light Colors??

[rcannon409]

A question about the city lights, please.  Ebay has colored led lights that will fit these sockets.  Its also very easy to remove the socket and housing.  How legal is is to use some blue, red or green (non flashing) colored LED's in place of the stock white bulbs?  I'm thinking this might improve daytime visibility.

[JamminJere]

Red and blue, flashing or not, is not legal in the state of PA. Those colors are for fire and police vehicles only.... Check with your state inspection laws

JJ

[maxtog]

A question about the city lights, please.  Ebay has colored led lights that will fit these sockets.  Its also very easy to remove the socket and housing.  How legal is is to use some blue, red or green (non flashing) colored LED's in place of the stock white bulbs?  I'm thinking this might improve daytime visibility.

Has been discussed before.  It is, as far as I am aware, 100% illegal in every state in the USA to display any colors on the front of a personal motor vehicle, riding on public streets, other than white and yellow/amber.   (And also illegal to display any colors other than white, yellow/amber, and red on the rear).  And in many areas, it is enforced vigorously.

[jayke]

I put in amber city lights.  Looks a little different to me but nobody else has noticed. I had to replace my headlight assembly due to a buzzard strike.  Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. 

If you want to be more conspicuous, have considered motolights or something similar?

Link: http://www.motolight.com/

[Pokey]

Mine are amber.

[OCK913]

A question about the city lights, please.  Ebay has colored led lights that will fit these sockets.  Its also very easy to remove the socket and housing.  How legal is is to use some blue, red or green (non flashing) colored LED's in place of the stock white bulbs?  I'm thinking this might improve daytime visibility.

As the others have said, red or blue is going to be illegal. That being said, I have bought a few from ebay just as you described. I have tried amber, blue, and green. I attached a picture of the blue to let you see what it would look like. I currently have the green in but dont have a picture of it. If you would like to see it, I will take one and post it.

[rcannon409]

I would like to see some of the other colors.  Maybe someday we'll be able to put something in that is noticeable, but not in a law enforcement way?  I had a rider on a sportbike go by with blue in today and it looked good.  I'll order some amber lights as these might be ok....

[maxtog]

I would like to see some of the other colors.  Maybe someday we'll be able to put something in that is noticeable, but not in a law enforcement way?  I had a rider on a sportbike go by with blue in today and it looked good. 

Might look "good" (more like "different"), but probably isn't worth a ticket.

I'll order some amber lights as these might be ok....

I am also running amber.  But my conclusion what that I needed something much more noticeable, so I reversed my front turn signals into "solid on" by default...  bright running lights.  It was more difficult than I had hoped, but turned out to be very effective.   http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=2236.0

[rcannon409]

Seeing the sportbike today is what made me want to do the mod. TWo bikes were coming towards me on a semi-deserted road. It was one of our first, nice riding days in Utah and everyone was out.  The riders were side by side on what appeared to be sportbikes.  The bike running the blue front lights really stood out.  Not in an obnoxious way like super-bright lights do, but in a contrasting sort of way.  I do agree on the ticket though.  It would be a hard one to talk your way out of.

[OCK913]

Here are the pictures with green. One with headlights off and the other with tem on. The on picture is not a good representation of what it looks like if you were oncoming traffic. I had to take the picture at a downward angle in order to prevent the lights shining straight in to the camera.

[Rhino]

I never knew they were called "City Lights".

[maxtog]

I never knew they were called "City Lights".

Somewhere in the factory manual, they are called "city lights".  Nobody really knows why, or why they are even on the bike.  I think they are kinda neat but don't serve much purpose.  Just a design element.  At one time I thought maybe it was some strange requirement by another country that allows headlights to be turned on/off manually.  But never have seen anything to confirm that.

[MAN OF BLUES]

Somewhere in the factory manual, they are called "city lights".  Nobody really knows why, or why they are even on the bike.  I think they are kinda neat but don't serve much purpose.  Just a design element.  At one time I thought maybe it was some strange requirement by another country that allows headlights to be turned on/off manually.  But never have seen anything to confirm that.

well, they are actually placed there as a means of offering the low current draw lighting, allowing a motorcycle to be parked on a roadside, and still be within the laws for vehicals stating they must have a visible white light on front, and red light on rear during this time period, in the event a mechanical failure renders the rider to the roadside.
It's called a marker light, in a sense, and done simply to make the bike safely (somewhat) visible.

[B.D.F.]

There are a coupla' reasons-

The first is also where they get their name, city lights. There used to be a requirement for headlight illumination at a much lower intensity than actual headlights with the thought that they could be used for vehicle visibility while driving in some densely populated European cities. The idea was that the city was illuminated well enough to drive without headlights but the vehicle should have marker lights where the headlights normally are placed. We (the US) get them because they are simply included in the model; it is probably cheaper to produce one C-14 for world consumption than to make different versions for different countries when considering something as inexpensive as lighting, or more accurately, the removal of such lighting.

The second reason is vehicle signature. Some statues (again, in Europe) either used to or still require an auto to maintain its 'signature' even if a headlight burns out. We in the US know very well that a car coming at you at night with only one headlight sometimes looks like a motorcycle, and in any event, it is impossible to estimate distance from a vehicle without at least two sources of light.

There you go- what city lights exist and why they are called city lights. 

Brian

Somewhere in the factory manual, they are called "city lights".  Nobody really knows why, or why they are even on the bike.  I think they are kinda neat but don't serve much purpose.  Just a design element.  At one time I thought maybe it was some strange requirement by another country that allows headlights to be turned on/off manually.  But never have seen anything to confirm that.

[maxtog]

well, they are actually placed there as a means of offering the low current draw lighting, allowing a motorcycle to be parked on a roadside, and still be within the laws for vehicals stating they must have a visible white light on front, and red light on rear during this time period, in the event a mechanical failure renders the rider to the roadside.
It's called a marker light, in a sense, and done simply to make the bike safely (somewhat) visible.

I should point out that none of my other motorcycles ever had any front facing, white, non-headlight lights.  So I would still speculate that it is a requirement of some non-USA country...

[maxtog]

There you go- what city lights exist and why they are called city lights. 

  Kewl

[rcannon409]

I checked with a guy today who does a lot of motorcycle state inspections.  I asked about reflectors and he said "In theory, you need all the bike came equipped with."  By saying that he let me know my missing reflectors are no problem.  Which shows the problem of why these inspections are garbage....but thats nto the point. I asked about colored, front facing lights.  He said the test for this was to hold a white piece of paper in front of the light. If the light shining from the light showed up as colored on the paper, it would not pass.  He said a lot of the newer cars had lights that looked blue when viewing them, but threw white light.

[MAN OF BLUES]

I should point out that none of my other motorcycles ever had any front facing, white, non-headlight lights.  So I would still speculate that it is a requirement of some non-USA country...

correct.
notice my statement about "low current draw" lighting.
They didn't need to offer them, but in lieu of having 2 x 55w lights, burning when on the side of the road, as markers, they tossed out a couple low wattage lights to make you safer....simple solution, and much easier to keep those glowing for 2 hours....in the middle of the night.

oh, have you noticed that almost every vehicle on the road has "lights" on during the daytime, of some sort, I should clarify by saying "every currently produced" model.....1986 C10's don't apply, niether does my '78 KZ1000Ltd....

[maxtog]

oh, have you noticed that almost every vehicle on the road has "lights" on during the daytime, of some sort, I should clarify by saying "every currently produced" model.....1986 C10's don't apply, niether does my '78 KZ1000Ltd....  

My relatively new G37S doesn't have any lights on in the daytime.  In fact, no USA Infiniti does.

[banditrider]

Replaced mine with el-cheapo leds.  Look really good at night as they are a different colour to the +100's in my headlights.  First pic shows difference between standard and led.