I admire the creativity and courage of people who get visible tattoos. Not for the faint of heart! But my experience of things often going wrong in life has always lead me to believe that tattoos are very treacherous. I've seen many that just didn't turn out to be what the bearer had hoped, and many that caused way more headache and heartache than any amount of pride or enjoyment they added to life.
My favorite was on a man's shoulder; a silhouette of a howling wolf in front of a rising moon (My favorite art photography). It was well done, and had to do with his tribal name. Too bad they don't all work out so well for everyone! I can't think of anything that's that me to warrant a permanent place on my hide - I'm just into too many different things, so I stick to clothing, accessories, and gear that I can switch, or just leave at home, whenever the need arises. I do like the tattoo art and photography, but having it on my body is a totally different decision.
If you get in trouble with the law and you need to face the court, a visible tattoo is not going to help you. If you're a woman, I think you have an advantage since female tattoos are often rather innocuous things like hearts, roses, angels, etc. If you're a man, your visible tattoo had better be a Navy tattoo, an angel with your daughters' name(s) on it, or you'd better just hope it's covered at all the right times or you are blessed with a sympathetic jury. Swords, skulls, and other dark things probably aren't going to make you look like someone who took great precautions to prevent an accident from happening. And I'm not going to even go into what could happen if you get accused of an actual crime by somebody.