Sadly for you, in my area you would me probaly getting a ticket for that lamp setup if you were on the street with it and the LEO wouldn't be a P****Y for citing you. You can't go running down the a public highway looking like a Christmas tree. While some may like to think they can install any number and type of lamps on a vehicle it is illegal to do so in many states. As is usually the case, a few ruin it for everyone else and all suffer for it. The question was posed regarding roof mounted off-road lamps. Some say as long as they are off they should be allowed, some states agree and others don't and require the lamps be covered so they can't be immediately put into use. Once you have someone burn your retinas with 200,000 candlepower off road lamps you will get the hint.
Some may think more lamps on the front of a motorcycle is a good thing and that's true to a point. You want to be noticed, but not stared at nor do you want to blind an on-coming driver causing them to look away from the road. Should either happen your "great idea" to be noticed just brought you directly into the path of an oncoming car because the driver locked onto your mind blowing vehicle with all the gaudy lights or the glare of your multiple lamps forced them to look away from you and they turned into you.
And to Drew, don't you think calling the deputy an idiot is just a tad extreme? Let's change the scenario up a little and say the deputy that stopped the vehicle for having too many lamps lit, discovered a 5 year old child that had just been abducted in the back seat of a stolen car. Would you still consider him an "idiot" as you called him? I ask because that was exactly what happened to me when I was working as a trooper. I was working a late shift running radar when I observered a car go by me on the Interstate with high and low beams engaged and auxilary driving lamps. Six lamps were lit and the law stated no more than four (4) lamps were to be lit at any time on a motor vehicle in operation on a public roadway. I pursued and stopped the vehicle and disovered the driver of the car wasn't the owner. The driver had stolen the car and he was revoked and wanted on warrants. The car had not yet been entered as stolen as the locals were still taking the intitial report from the owners. I cuffed up the driver and put him in my cruiser and returned to the car to take charge of the little boy who I thought belonged to the guy I had in custody. The child was in the backseat had obviously been crying a lot and when I asked him what was wrong and that I wasn't going to hurt his dad, he said the driver wasn't his dad and that he hit him. It then dawned on me that there was more here than a car being driven by a revocated and wanted driver. Was I an "idiot" as you put it for stopping the car for having 6 lamps lit? Was I a P***Y as someone else said? If that's someone's definition of an "idiot" or a "P****Y" I can live with it, especially when the parents came to pickup their child and the mother hugged the air out of me with tears of joy pouring out her eyes. If something like that ever happens to someone you love or cherish I hope some sharp eyed cop that has a little bit of integrity and professionalism makes that stop.
As most cops do I would reflect on some of the cases or incidents I was involved in throughout my career and I sometimes wondered what would have happened to that little boy had I looked the other way or decided a multiple lamp violation was somehow beneath my threshold for stopping a vehicle. I didn't have to imagine much because the warrants that the driver was wanted on were for 3 counts of Criminal Sexual Assault of a Minor. I did my job that night and I was happy I did. I never meant a cop that was an idiot and I knew and know a lot of cops. You might not like what they do, but they all are my heroes same as anyone that served in the military.
Rick H.