Err, I lied.
I did get pulled though for riding with no headlight when it was rather, erm, dark and I'm on the motorway (Freeway?).
Riding along happily and then heard a horn 'beep beep'. I pulled over to find no rear light. Damn. No spare bulb. Never mind. Set the brake light to be on permanently until I get to the next garage and change it. Vibration I guess.
Set the switch to 'on' via the tension spring into a different hole on the rear brake quadrant and it appears to work OK. Start engine. Front lights on; brake light goes off. Switch off front lights. Rear brake light comes on. Weird. Cut a long story short I'm twenty five miles from home on a motorway so what to do. I decided to have the rear light on for safety and tailgate a lorry for light!!! Went OK, then he went on where I had to turn off. Damn. Scary dark ride with only overtaking cars for illumination. Got to garage. Tried another bulb. Nope. Still the same. Getting very dark now. set-off anyway.
Got within two miles of home when a Police car overtook me and immediately on went the blue/red flashing lights.
Long story short; they escorted me a to the local petrol station as I said it had only just blown the front lamp. They had a bit of a talk about prosecutions for no light. etc etc. Waited until I had undone the headlight to check wiring (yes, I know it worked but!). I started the engine, turned on the switch and Voila. The headlight worked except they can't/didn't now see the rear light that has gone off!!! They then checked my bike registration and said it didn't tie up with my bike. I changed it last week and explained the procedure so they accepted that it was right and that the database couldn't have been upgraded yet. I then had the "We don't want to deal with you dead" talk which I agreed with and then off they went.
I eventually got home by toggling the switch between front and a rear light on expecting them to turn around and catch me out as I'm in paranoid mode now.
Once home first thing was a quick check and I found all this was the result of just too much paint (yeah really) around the rear light earth point in the mudguard (fender?). Cleaned it back to bare metal around the hole and added a sharp edged 'star' washer and all is fine again.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!