I'm coming to this thread from a different angle, and that's daytime riding. In France, as with a lot of other countries , it is a legal requirement on modern machines to ride with dipped headlight, indeed they are wired in to the ignition nowadays. This is supposedly a safety feature, which does work to a certain extent in dull conditions, but as soon as the sun comes out pretty useless on it's own. Think about the SMIDSY situation of an emerging vehicle not seeing a motorcycle because it's not moving against the background. The emerging vehicle driver may not even see a single headlight, or even attach much importance to it as it doesn't give the appearance of anything significant in size, but put some width into the light display and it's a different matter, you appear much bigger and more threatening, and other road users tend to notice and be more careful.

I completely agree with Walter Colebatch on beam pattern for those days when a bit of night riding is unavoidable, but equally I am a fan of some bright day time running lights placed at a good width on the front and not on the same level as the headlight. ( lower).

At the same time good reflectors placed wide or pannier lights as discussed are good at giving you width at the rear, which makes overtakers give you more room as they pass.

It works for me - been doing it for years!

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-''It is better to walk alone than with a crowd going in the wrong direction''. ( Herman Siu)
-'' Live life then give life '' (www.lltgl.org.uk)

Agree that good DRLs (which are increasigly available these days) are not a bad idea.

I tend to ride on high beam during sunny days, because as you say, low beam in sunshine is pretty much invisible to cars.

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It is not a supposedly safety mesure : it IS a safety mesure ! It is not because it is less effective in bright sun that it is not effective in general. Quite a lot of the accidents en Europe are due to drivers in cars not seeing you. Having your light on helps a lot to be seen.
Also concerning the adage "do not drive at night "(in remote areas of course like SE Asia) almost every body understand that but many still put aditional lights to their bike and then finish by driving at night. It is not less dangerous because you have good lights and can see what's in front of you, but it is dangerous because if a car or a truck comes facing you you cannot see what's in the road anymore for a rather long moment. In Europe for instance it is ok because you can drive with this moment of blindness as there is normaly nothing in the road (although not all the time !!!) but in SE Asia for instance there are so many bufalos, kids, scooters without light, dogs etc you name it, at night on the roads that you are at great risks!
My advice would be : keep your bike light without any aditional light hehe so that you will not be tempted to drive at night (once again i am not speaking for areas like Norway !)

Into head on overtaking traffic in Kazakhstan I was more than happy that I had the LED spots to switch on!

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Mark
http://chasingdreams2014.blogspot.co.uk/