The only thing a signal light flashing tells me is that the bulb works. Adding more lighting will not help. Keep your head on a swivel and be aware of whats happening around you...at least you will know what options are open.

 

You mentioned that you had been hit from the rear. A little trick I use when at stops is to stay to the outside of the lane with room from the car in front of you to shoot beside it. I stay in 1st with the clutch pulled in until I see in the mirrors two cars at full stop behind me before I relax at a light. I learned this by accident one night and happened to have to do it when I saw a pickup coming in too fast to stop . I snatched beside the car in front of me as it got rear ended. The guy in the pickup, just yelled "sorry buddy" at me as he got out to view the damage he caused to the car. It's a pain holding the clutch sometimes, but I never forgot a really cheap lesson. I also went through major brain damage resisting the urge to beat the chit out of him. "Sorry buddy !!??"

 

grendl, i agree with ya there, i also do the same thing, i stay in gear at redlights, exchanging glances to the light and my mirrors, i had some punk kid in one of those "tuners" think it was a civic.....was racing someone, flew up on the stop sign he jammed his brakes, i pulled out hard and just barely missed getting clobbered, all i could see in my mirror were two huge eyes bugging out, was just getting stopped, foot going for the stand, then the cop that saw them racing caught up, the other racer took off, one that almost nailed me got caught, then got driving to endanger added to his long ticket, the cop told him to wait, and asked me if he had almost hit me =)

 

Whenever I decide to take a comfortable slow cruise, it's like the idiot brigade hits the streets and my bike dons some kinda car magnet.

There are weeks or sometimes just moments when I think, maybe I'll just slow down and ride with the flow of traffic as if I were in a car. Yesterday was one of those moments. I had one guy on the lane to the right of me start to lull listlessly over into my lane. Luckily he didn't make a quick change, but having a car just a bit in front of me and expecting him to actually look over to the left when making a lane change I thought, I'll just go along on my merry way because he's going to realize I'm right next to him, staring him down. From the looks of the way he was carefully and slowly shifting over, he probably did see me, but didn't really care that much and expected me to move out of the way.

I think having a loud bike make somewhat of a difference. I've noticed when bigger and louder bikes pass by cars or split lanes (which is pretty common here in Korea), cars just get out of the way. When I go by, it's like I've got some kinda car magnet that makes cars just HAVE to pull out in front of me.