Our local Constabulary announced that they will be stepping up the roadside checking of all vehicles for the next 2 months.
This includes checking for defect lights and if they are defect the result is £60 fine and 3 penalty points!
This is how my wife heard it on the radio.
Surely as a vehicle is a mechanical item that means any light can become defect at any time without you knowing.
I can not believe that the plod can fine and issue 3 points,years ago it was just a friendly advise to "get it repaired"
I would for sure contest such.
What is the place coming too!
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This has always got me. What do you do if the bulb pops on the journey?
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I bet it makes you go and check yours are working now (or at least it should), and if you find one not working you replace it. In which case their campaign will have had the desired effect.
Carrying a spare would probably get you off the hook anyway.
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Carrying a spare would probably get you off the hook anyway.
On many cars now - even 'ordinary' cars like Ford Ka - it's not a practical proposition to change a headlamp bulb at the roadside.
And what do people with Xenon's do - the surely don't carry a spare?
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Good point - but Plod may not know that, or at least he may take a more sympathetic view if you appear to be the kind of person who actually cares about maintenance...
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Carrying a spare would probably get you off the hook anyway.
And do not bank on getting a spre bulb at the local filling station. A good example is the Yaris which has large wedge type bulbs rather than the common bayonet type.
I have a full set of bulbs in my car and my offsprings cars.
I checked each specific requirement cos I do not trust the bulb kits.
Even if they cannot or will not change the bulbs someone might.
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Now let me see, this will lead us up to xmas right? so its "Oh look sir, bad light, blow into this bag."
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Well Yes; faulty light is a moving traffic offence which entitles plod to stop you. Then he can ask questions, niff your breath and get you to blow into his alcometer or whatever it is called this year.
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Does faulty light entail also include misaligned headlights, i.e. the sort that make the approaching car look like its on high beams when its not?
I ask, since an MOT tester a few years ago told me to get the headlights checked every year or so even in the first 3 years before an MOT is due, since a huge number of headlights are out of alignment even from factory.
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One of the statutory defences for a defective light is that it occured in the course of the journey.
Cops don't stop cars with dodgy lights and they are wrong, they stop cars with dodgy lights and they are wrong. They can't win can they ? The reality behind the spin is that they will book a propoprtion, they will warn a proportion, hopefully the ones they book are those who whinge loudest (and I do mean unjustifiable whinging) about the way they do their job thus proving that there is some natural justice in the world after all.
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ooh and three points ? don't think so.
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It is useful to check lights for being straight ahead when on high beam on a level road. If you get used to what they should look like, and where the bright parts of the beam fall, you can usually see that they are OK. As another check you can, yourself, walk about in front of your car and check that light is not going where it should not.
In fact, when replacing bulbs, I have set the straight ahead part myself and the dip is then usually correct. If you are not putting light where it should not be, no one will complain.
Its the nerks who follows you at night, so close, as to light up your car, and the ones with dipped lights going well over the wrong side of the road, that seem to be clueless.
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A few years ago. It was getting very tedious getting stopped regularly on my road legal off road bike for having faulty lights. Well it didn't have any lights (ISTR it had a stoplight). What a pain explaining the situation. I even carried a "daytime MOT" to show them. Speedo was under the seat - got to have one, but no requirement to be able to see it. I kept quoting the phone extension of one of the cops in traffic who put them right.
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CLANG.............Martint123
Reg 36 (1) Motor Vehicles (Con and Use) Regs 1986 on the maintainance of a speedo clearly states -
"shall be kept free from any obstruction which might prevent its being easily read....."
That to me and Traffic Officers Companion means if it is under a seat the OFFENCE:
£1000 fine.
Points - 0
......unless (sit down P.U.) -
your buzzbox could not do more than 25mph and unlawful to do so,
first used before 1.4.84 and under 100cc, or
an ancient buzzbox first used before 1.10 37.
(There are Traffic cops and there are ex traffic cops..)
dvd
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Is is not simply because the police are becoming more self-funded from fines and the speed cameras just aren't bringing enough in, so 'offences' that previously warranted a friendly warning are now an automatic fine?
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Well spotted dvd.
Motor Vehicles (Con and Use) Regs 1986
"a few years ago"
(breathes a sigh of relief).
Martin
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So what happens if you get stopped at 11pm, given a ticket-no chance of getting a replacement bulb that time of night.
Driving to your local motoring spares shop the next morning in dim conditions, you get stopped again and given another ticket!
Can they do this-I can see people loosing their licences of a blown bulb ;-) Only joking but possible!
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"So what happens if you get stopped at 11pm, given a ticket-no
chance of getting a replacement bulb that time of night."
And even if you could, it is a workshop job replacing a lamp on some modern cars.
Around here a little attention to push bikes without lights would be more to the point.
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And I'll Have a word with your snout!!
Fullchat
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If this means that they stop some of the tedious chav-mobiles being driven with the fog lights on, I will applaud vigorously whilst they do it.
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Do you think the chavs could be stopped for having working and non-working fog lights? Hurrah.
--
Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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I think this is a great idea, in some countrys you have to carry a Spare bulb kit, and most standard kits are avaliable for under a fiver from the likes of wilkinsons. most petrol stations open late at night charge over a fiver for the headlight and £2.50 per other bulb, save money buy a kit.
in the HG it states lights should be checked once a week for defects and replaced.
the only lights on a car which tells you of a failed bulb are the indicators, where the frequencey of flashing changes from a the regular to either a static or fast flash, the idea is you go back to hand signals to indicate wher you intend to go.
I would like to see those who use headlights or foglights during the day pulled for bulb failures (since they will have the most some cars with DRLS can have up to 2 new bulbs per year).
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If I get stopped then I shall ask the nice Policeman to change the bulb for me in my Megane. That should keep him quiet.
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What happens when stopped will depend on the approach you take!
"I checked it this morning and it was working...." and "why arn't you out catching real crimials..." will get very different responses.
Carry spare bulbs and take the right approach and you have no fears. It will get those who use fog lamps incorrectly and potentially some untaxed / uninsured drivers since if they stp you they will do vehicle checks - all for it.
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I was stopped a couple of weeks back for defective lights. My Alfa was in the garage to have a new sump fitted (damn those speed bumps!) and, to my eternal shame, I didn't check the lights on the courtesy car I was given. Car had the name of the garage in question signwritten on the back.
NSR lamp out and OS brake light out. The only time both sides of the rear of the car were lit was when braking.
Oooops.
Police officer approached passenger side as Mrs $$ wound down window and started hurling abuse at us as "It was a company car from a garage I should know better". I tried to explain it was a courtesy car (also signwritten on the rear) but he had decided it was a company car and I worked for the garage and had turned his ears off. Second officer approaches my side of the car so I wound down my window. Completely different kettle of fish.
I explained it was a courtesy car and that my usual car was in the garage, and accepted that responsibility lay with me as the driver. I also offered to drive the 400 yards to the BP garage at the next roundabout to buy replacement bulbs. He started asking about my own car and lo, he's an Alfa nut. He points out from experience that changing the rear lamps on a punto and not for the fainthearted
He then agrees, to his colleague's obvious disgust, to follow us home (we live half a mile from the nick) so we can park the offending courtesy car for the night and go out in the L200 instead. Sure, not ideal for town centre parking but better than a ticket.
And he was a bloomin' awful driver........ I'd have been happier if he hadn't followed, he was that close, particularly as he knew I had defective brake lights!
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He points out from experience that changing the rear lamps on a punto and not for the fainthearted
He's not kidding, the nuts holding the rear clusters in place are right down a deep recess. fiddly is not the word, scuffed knuckles on the sharp edges of the fabric interior trim.
grumble grumble
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Whoops, random "and". Sorry. Perhaps Nsar would find it handy for changing his wheel?
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