I guess I didn't catch what bike you're referring to, but on the earlier '550s it sits in this square hole, facing the rider:
For an idea as to how it sounds, picture the most annoying short-duration noise you can think of, then imagine it repeating itself over and over again as you sit in the middle of a sweltering traffic jam. Imagine drivers in neighboring cars starting to stare at you as you sit there with the sweat pouring down your back; and kids start crying and one little girl starts screaming "Momma, Momma! What's that awful noise!?!?... and her mother, already driven half berserk by the din and the heat, turns around to smack the little freak and her foot slips off the brake onto the accelerator, sending her Hummer careening into a utility pole that collapses onto a gasoline truck refilling the tanks at a neighborhood Piggly-Wiggly; with the resulting fireball traveling three city blocks up the sewer system where it ignites and explodes a hidden pocket of natural gas that decimates an entire strip mall and sends a thirteen-story insurance building rocketing 1,473 feet into the sky before crashing back down to earth in the middle of a poodle farm.
Do you really want to risk the carnage just because you can't remember to turn off a simple switch?
I'm not saying this particular thing will happen to you, but you never know...
This is the main reason most folks just disconnect and toss it. No kidding.