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The arrival of compulsory daylight running lights will solve the problem of idiots driving on parking lights in poor visibility.
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The arrival of compulsory daylight running lights will solve the problem of idiots driving on parking lights in poor visibility.
I am very much against this idea. I'd rather see all vehicles fitted with flashing beacons.
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>>I'd rather see all vehicles fitted with flashingbeacons.
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What colour? I should have said "parking or no lights".
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What colour beacons? Not sure, what do you think? Possibly something that emits a range of colours in sequence?
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What colour beacons? Not sure what do you think? Possibly something that emits a range of colours in sequence?
I favour a big steel basket on the roof of the car, filled with wood and tar and piles of straw and ignited at appropriate moments by three or four bearded and unkempt peasants with flaming torches. That'll show 'em who's cool.
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The arrival of compulsory daylight running lights will solve the problem of idiots driving on parking lights in poor visibility.
Amen to that.
They never grasp the fact that lights are just as much to help you to be seen as to see by.
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I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for DRL's.
MAG and FEMA have managed to get a deferral from the European Commission who are cooling on the idea.
tinyurl.com/43q7q7
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I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for DRL's. MAG and FEMA have managed to get a deferral from the European Commission who are cooling on the idea.
Thank goodness for that, a stupid idea. Anyone who is too blind to see another car in broad daylight wouldn't get off his own drive without crashing.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 24/09/2008 at 01:29
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Anyone who is too blind to see anothercar in broad daylight >>
I suppose you drive on parking lights in broad daylight and fog or heavy rain and spray.
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I suppose you drive on parking lights in broad daylight and fog or heavy rain and spray.
And what part of my post makes you suppose that?
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You only specified "broad daylight", my auto lights dont work in daylight fog, rain or spray, so I override them on.
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They are actually used in very dense fog where your headlights give glare back. You use them in conjunction with the low level front foglights
In the one car I've owned with front foglights I did over 150,000 miles in all conditions and I found the foglights suited the conditions better than headlights... ONCE. For about 2 minutes. And I think I've been in similar conditions maybe 3 or 4 times in 17 years' driving and over 1 million miles. IMO front foglights are redundant/pointless on 99.9% of the cars they are fitted to.
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Using sidelights, on my first car, was the means of getting any car audio. The radio would only operate with sidelights on, so I spent my first few months after passing my test driving on at least sidelights, even in bright sunlight.
The on-off knob was broken and for some reason the ignition-switched feed had been switched with the illumination feed. I swapped it round because I had strange reactions from passengers and flashing from oncoming drivers.
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That's rather an old article. The current situation, as far as I can tell, is that new car designs approved after February 2011 for the EU will have to be fitted with DRLs.
This press release appears to be dated today:
ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail...0
Individual countries may require non-DRL cars to use dipped-beam instead. The UK was opposed to making this requirement EU-wide, apparently, so that shouldn't happen here.
Note that DRLs are dimmer than dipped beams - the basic brightness requirement for them fits pretty uniformly into the series: sidelights < DRLs < dipped beam < main beam. It won't be acceptable for a car manufacturer to just call its dipped beams DRLs.
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Note that DRLs are dimmer than dipped beams - the basic brightness requirement for them fits pretty uniformly into the series: sidelights < DRLs < dipped beam < main beam. It won't be acceptable for a car manufacturer to just call its dipped beams DRLs.
Volvo DRLs are the dipped beams.
You have a choice of all off, markers on or markers and dipped headlights with the P2 cars.
I had mine switched off as the dipped headlight bulbs required replacment three times in twenty-one months. I was charged twice by Volvo main dealers as dealer number one could only do half the job (switched off the dipped healights but couldn't manage to do the markers) but still required paying for connecting up to the central server.
Edited by gmac on 24/09/2008 at 18:18
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While there may well be a case for properly adjusted dipped beams in most circumstances, I do think having sidelights as backup is a good safety feature. I had an instance where on returning to Heathrow very late at night and faced with a long haul up country only to find that a dipped headlight bulb had blown. I felt a lot safer knowing there was at least a sidelight to mark the dimensions of my car to oncoming traffic until I could replace the bulb the following day..
Having said that, this is the one circumstance when I would be tempted to use the front fogs unconventionally despite any legal implications. In other words as short term emergency back up.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 24/09/2008 at 20:47
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I think dimmed dipped beams might be able to meet the DRL spec - not totally sure. But not at full brightness - if that's what Volvos do (and I haven't paid much attention), they wouldn't meet the new DRL requirement. Too bright.
Sidelights are indeed there as a backup - they're not allowed to fail just because a headlight has failed. But I am regularly amazed by seeing cars with both a failed headlight and sidelight on the same side. Idiots.
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surely a better emergency backup would be to buy and carry a spare bulb set?
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surely a better emergency backup would be to buy and carry a spare bulb set?
I recently had a rear indicator bulb fail late one evening far from home. A stop for a replacement bulb at the next petrol station and a 2 minute bulb change resolved the problem, not rocket science. It is so easy to check your brake and rear lights when you are stopped with something reflective behind you.
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>> surely a better emergency backup would be to buy and carry a spare bulb set? I recently had a rear indicator bulb fail late one evening far from home. A stop for a replacement bulb at the next petrol station and a 2 minute bulb change resolved the problem not rocket science. It is so easy to check your brake and rear lights when you are stopped with something reflective behind you.
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There has been many replies on how difficult /impossible it is to change bulbs on quite a few different makes of vehicle so it IS closer to rocket science.
Wishful thinking esprcially when a regular requirement like refuelling fails.
I have changed dipped beam bulbs & indicators on my 98 Mondeo and it requires removing the grill etc and the whole headlamp unit.
I do carry a FULL set of individually selected bulbs that I know fit my vehicle.
On line guides for my car are wrong so what chance an off the shelf kit?
PS You will not get Yaris headlight bulbs of a filling station rack!
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Take a look at the cars on the roads today and they're lit up like Christmas trees compared to cars of 20 years ago. I remember the wonderment of finding my Dad's Cortina XL had an illuminated glovebox, and when I saw two (two!!) engine bay lights on a neighbour's Rover P5, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I was truly in lighting heaven with my Montego's illuminated column stalks, illuminated heater controls, illuminated minor switchgear...
Just a random sample - my contribution to the automotive version of Ambrose Bierce's " Devil's Dictionary":
* puddle lights: to light up the puddle you just stepped in.
* Ground-level front foglights: ditto.
* Orange side marker lights: for cars that think they're lorries. e.g. Volvos.
* "Ambient light" (orange downlighter fitted to Astra G interior mirror): so you can confidently engage fifth gear on a night drive. Not to be confused with...
* HGV cab ambient light. Usually blue, red or orange. Helpful for late night truckers who want to get that Sudoku finished before Newport Pagnell services
* Footwell lights: enable driver to find discarded undergarments of recent travelling companion before embarking on shopping trip with other half; enable front passenger to avoid stepping on sleeping cat, party trifle or forgotten roller skate (all of which are regularly found in car footwells the length and breadth of the country) It is estimated that lighting for rear footwells, 500 times more useful, will not be thought of for at least another 50 years.
* Washer jet lights, usually blue. Give a nanosecond's warning of washer jet about to hit the windscreen. Just in case, erm,... er...
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You left out Skoda's Adaptive Cornering Lights - The Roomster is thus equipped and consequently looks as if its winking at times I would imagine !
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>>Sidelights are still the best for that half light at dusk and dawn and in heavy overcast cloud, especially in urban areas.<<
Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Also wrong.
In half light with a car behind with you with dipped headlghts on you are half invisible to oncoming cars. Just put dipped lights on too and stay visible and safe. It won't cost you anything, just do it.
Edited by Pugugly on 26/09/2008 at 01:10
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Nsar is right, as back as 20 - 30 years ago the Police were training their drivers that if it's dark enough to warrant sidelights then that means there is reduced visibility, and if there is reduced visibility then you legally need... (drum roll please) .... dipped headlights!! :-)
Also something that I taught to my pupils as an ADI.
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I'd completely forgotten the ultimate car light of all time... the Wolseley radiator light.
Minute's silence.
It communicated two undeniable messages to the British public until 1976:
1. Slow down, I might be a police car.
2. While this light shines, Britain still has its own car industry.
(sigh)
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gordonbennet wrote: "Sidelights are still the best for that half light at dusk and dawn and in heavy overcast cloud especially in urban areas."
nsar replied: "Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Also wrong."
Yes, nsar and Blue are correct. Or at least, that is what I was always told.
But last week I began to think that maybe, just maybe, there was something in what gordonbennet says.
I found that in dull, cloudy conditions, driving on trunk roads, there was a variety of practice. Where oncoming vehicles had no lights at all, they were visible, but I felt that it would have been helpful if they were just a little more visible. Where vehicles were on dipped headlights (at least I am assuming that they were dipped headlights), I found the glare was often uncomfortable on my eyes. I felt that the few heretics who were driving with sidelights were the ones who had got it right - IMHO.
Perhaps the received orthodoxy on this one is not as correct as I had always believed.
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In half light with a car behind with you with dipped headlights on you are half invisible to oncoming cars. Just put dipped lights on too and stay visible and safe. It won't cost you anything just do it.
In my post you will find i was referring mainly to urban situations.
This is the trouble with today's motorists, only the motorist counts, but as responsible drivers we owe a duty of care to all road users, and not running them over comes high on that list of duties.
Many other people around in urban situations especially will not have the benefit of hundreds of unnecessary watts of light power, and with everyone trying to outdo each other in the 'look how powerful my lights are' stakes the poor old cyclist and pedestrian become invisible against this sea of glare.
Its not quite the same but its along similar lines, back in the early eighties i was driving my trusty old truck along the M6 southbound Birmingham elevated section early evening, dark, light rain but good visibility. Almost every car with the new fangled rear fog lights had them on, now being in the sole truck on that night, i could see hundreds of high intensity rear lights ahead, if anyone had braked i probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish the blessed brake lights, it was a truly dreadful drive home.
OK fast forward to the present day, as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud we have the knee jerk reaction 'i must be seen' and on go the lights, quite apart from the growing minority who need them on all the time, its ludicrous and causes constant glare, which diminishes a normal persons vision of things that arn't lit.
Think how difficult it can be sometimes on dark wet nights with a constant flow of traffic the other way on a 2 way road, trying to use oncoming car's lights some distance ahead to create a silhouette to navigate by.
Now modify that into the half light urban situation with pedestrians and other road users trying to shuffle their way home huddled into their invariably dark clothing, not always looking out as they nip across the road.
Its your opinion that i'm wrong and you're entitled, but there are other ways to look at it.
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They are actually used in very dense fog where your headlights give glare back. You use them in conjunction with the low level front foglights.
Wow! Thats a bit revolutionary, gmac!! Using the lights correctly, that will never do! ;-)
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