What do the warning lights on a motorbike dashboard mean?
Find the light by its shape. 1. Pick what the lamp shows. 2. Match the drawing. These are the lights that are special to motorbikes, or that behave differently on one — like the ABS light that stays on until you ride off. Each is backed by the owner’s manuals of at least two different makers (Yamaha, Royal Enfield, BMW Motorrad, Triumph and Bajaj), and everything a page says to do is quoted with the name of the maker that printed it.
Check your bike's manual — makers differ.
Tap a shape — the symbols that use it appear here.
Letters or a number — 6 symbols
Neutral indicator (N)A capital N on its own lamp in the row of indicator lights; bikes…Gear position indicatorA single large digit, 1 to 6, in its own box on the display,…ABS light that stays on until you ride offThe letters ABS, usually in a circle between two curved brackets,…ABS off indicator (ABS switched off or off-road ABS)On the Triumph Tiger 1200 the ABS lamp itself, lit steadily or…Traction control light (flashing or on)Each maker draws its own symbol; our drawing is a wheel with skid…Riding mode indicatorA word or a number on the display naming the selected mode: RAIN,…
A bike or its stand — 1 symbol
A wheel — 2 symbols
A dial or an arrow — 2 symbols
Wavy heat lines — 1 symbol
Before you trust any chart, including this one
UN Regulation No. 60 (the controls, tell-tales and indicators of two-wheeled motorcycles and mopeds) and ISO 2575 (symbols for road-vehicle controls, indicators and tell-tales) cover these lamps, but we could not read either: UNECE’s server refused our requests (HTTP 403) on 2026-09-29 and ISO sells ISO 2575. So nothing on these pages is sourced to a standard. Every meaning, colour and action is taken from makers’ own owner’s manuals, named on each page.
- An ABS light that is on when you switch on is normal on a motorbike. On every manual read it stays on, or flashes, until the bike is moving: past 5 km/h (3 mph) on the Royal Enfield, Yamaha, Bajaj and BMW manuals, past 10 km/h (6 mph) on the Triumph Tiger 1200. On a car the same lamp goes out a few seconds after the engine starts.
- Flashing and steady mean different things. A traction control light that flashes while you accelerate is the system working (Triumph, Yamaha, BMW); lit steadily it is switched off or faulty.
- Not every bike has a side stand lamp. Of the five makers read, only Royal Enfield (Himalayan 450) and Bajaj (Dominar 250) show one; Yamaha, Triumph and BMW cut the engine through a side stand switch without a lamp.
- The manuals rarely name colours. Bajaj’s Dominar 250 is the exception: its specification table lists the neutral lamp as green, the side stand lamp as red, the ABS lamp as yellow and the rev limit lamp as orange. Where a page gives a colour, it names the manual that states it.
- Two different lamps are both called shift lights. One says the engine has reached a rev point (Yamaha, Triumph, Bajaj); the other says a higher gear would save fuel (BMW, Royal Enfield). The shift light page separates them.
Maker by maker
- Yamaha. The MT-09 (MTN890) owner’s manual, European edition of 2021, read. It has a neutral lamp, a gear display, an ABS lamp that goes out at 5 km/h, one stability control lamp for traction, slide and lift control, D-MODE engine maps, a settable shift indicator and optional grip warmers with 10 levels.
- Royal Enfield. Two manuals read: the Hunter 350 (dual-channel ABS, March 2022), a simple lamp row with a gear display that shows 0 in neutral, and the Himalayan 450 (UK English, November 2025), which adds a side stand indicator, ride modes with rear ABS off, and a gear upshift indicator for fuel economy.
- BMW Motorrad. The R 1250 GS Adventure rider’s manual (US model, 2nd edition, March 2021) read. BMW puts most warnings on the TFT screen as a symbol, a text message and the general warning light together, and prints a table of every message with its meaning and what to do.
- Triumph. The owner’s handbook for the Tiger 1200 XR, XC, Alpine and Desert models (November 2019) read. It describes each lamp with what it means and when to contact a Triumph dealer, including a separate TC disabled lamp, cruise control, heated grips and hill hold.
- Bajaj. The Dominar 250 BS VI owner’s manual (Rev. 03, March 2021) read. It is the only manual here whose specification table gives the colour of every lamp, and it has a side stand indicator and an orange rev limit lamp.
- Honda, Harley-Davidson and KTM. Honda’s US manual server and Harley-Davidson’s service information server refused our requests (HTTP 403) on 2026-09-29, and the KTM 390 Adventure R manual we downloaded from KTM’s own print server is an encrypted PDF our tools could not open, so nothing here is sourced to these makers. If you ride one, read the manual that came with it.
- Kawasaki and Suzuki. We found their owner’s manuals only on third-party manual sites, not on the makers’ own, so nothing here is sourced to Kawasaki or Suzuki.
Related pages
What these pages cannot do
- They do not identify a specific motorcycle model. They say what a symbol means on the makes cited (BMW Motorrad, Bajaj, Royal Enfield, Triumph, Yamaha); your model’s manual gives the exact speeds, levels and button presses.
- They cannot read your bike’s fault memory. A lamp that stays on means different things on different models; only the manual and a dealer’s diagnostic tool can say which fault it is.
- They do not cover scooters’ and mopeds’ own lamps (such as a smart-key or stop-start lamp) or electric motorcycles’ charging and power lamps, which need their own manuals.
- Left out: Quickshifter indicator (QS). Only Yamaha’s MT-09 manual shows a quickshifter lamp (QS turns green when a clutchless shift is possible, white when not); the BMW and Triumph manuals read describe their shift assistants without a lamp of their own, so no second maker confirms it.
- Left out: Cornering ABS. The manuals read show it in different ways that are not one lamp: Yamaha’s MT-09 shows a BC icon for its brake control setting, BMW shows an “ABS Pro failure!” message, and Triumph’s Tiger 1200 describes optimized cornering ABS with no lamp of its own.
- Left out: Low battery on the display (Royal Enfield, Bajaj). It is listed under the lights shared with cars: the Royal Enfield and Bajaj lamps report the battery or charging state, which the car battery page already explains.
Sources
Every document below is a maker’s own manual or support page, fetched and read on the date shown. Each symbol page quotes what its sources show.
- Royal Enfield: Hunter 350 Owner’s Manual, dual-channel ABS (India, March 2022, PDF) Checked 2026-09-29.
- Yamaha: MTN890 (MT-09) Owner’s Manual, B7N-28199-E0 (Europe, 2021, PDF) Checked 2026-09-29.
- Triumph: Owner’s Handbook: Tiger 1200 XR, Tiger XC, Tiger 1200 Alpine and Tiger 1200 Desert (November 2019, PDF) Checked 2026-09-29.
- Bajaj: Dominar 250 BS VI Owner’s Manual (Doc. No. 71120143, Rev. 03, March 2021, PDF) Checked 2026-09-29.
- BMW Motorrad: R 1250 GS Adventure Rider’s Manual (US model, 2nd edition, March 2021, PDF) Checked 2026-09-29.
- Royal Enfield: Himalayan (450) Owner’s Manual, UK English (Part No. RAM00819/B, November 2025, PDF) Checked 2026-09-29.