This came up on a non-car related forum today -- someone quoted HC rule 113, and on reading it, it flagged up something interesting:
113
You MUST
* ensure all sidelights and rear registration plate lights are lit between sunset and sunrise
* use headlights at night, except on a road which has lit street lighting. These roads are generally restricted to a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h) unless otherwise specified
* use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226)
Night (the hours of darkness) is defined as the period between half an hour after sunset and half an hour before sunrise).
It's the second bullet-point that interests me. They appear to be saying that using headlights at night is either optional or forbidden (the wording is poor so hard to tell which) if you are driving in a street-lit area.
Surely this can't be right? On the one or two occasions that I've forgotten to switch headlights back on after stopping in a car park etc to drop someone off, and been driving around with sidelights, I've been flashed by other road users. This I've always taken to be justified, and I've been grateful to the other road user.
Now it appears that they may be wrong.
Can anyone clear this one up?
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You may educate someone - but you cannot give them common sense.
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Headlights are indeed optional in street-lit areas.
But in practice, if everyone has their headlights on, you need yours on to avoid being missed. And also, given the glare from oncoming headlights interfering with my own vision, I'd be nervous about not having the extra illumination from my headlights.
In the past, in large cities like London, sidelights-only used to be the norm.
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In the past in large cities like London sidelights-only used to be the norm.
And it was all the better for it. More is not always better.
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Agreed. More glare equals poorer vision. Some of us tried in vain to point this out years ago.
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It's badly worded, but you can drive around with your headlights on permanently if you want to (indeed buses seem to have started doing this in many areas).
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Agreed. More glare equals poorer vision. Some of us tried in vain to point this out years ago.
Point it out to he person who walks into the road in front of you because he didnt see your sidelights. Tell the biker in hospital minus his legs who didnt see you and pulled out - I am sure he will endorse your dangerously out of date view.
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There is no problem in seeing a vehicle that is only using sidelights in a built up area, in fact it's closing distance and approach speed is easier to judge because there is no glare. As already pointed out however, sidelights are useless nowdays because they would be lost in the sea of headlights that are the norm.
Someone help us when some well meaning idiot forces us to use headlights during the daytime.
Edited by Webmaster on 10/09/2008 at 01:00
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Of course I may not have spotted the person who walks out in front of me because of the glare from headlights coming the other way, especially in rain.
Not every situation is 'black and white', is it? Just as confrontation is not the answer to every opinion.
Can I just point out that it's only my view that may be 'dangerously out of date'. I do, of course, use headlights in built-up, lit areas just like everyone else.
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The HC extract is exremely clearly worded. No possibility for misunderstanding
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I have to agree with mh. Not all that long ago I nearly took out a pizza deliverer whose headlight was very dim when I was pulling out of a parker. There was a car with bright headlights approaching from some way behind, and the glare from that rendered the pizza kamikaze, who was quite close, completely invisible in my o/s door mirror, anyway during the brisk glance that usually seems to be all that is necessary.
Memo to self: must remember to twist my stiff septuagenarian neck around in future!
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Many contributors seem to argue for headlights so that THEY are seen, without allowing for other things which these lights make less visible. It has also been pointed out that older eyes are cloudier and more subject to flare. And on top of that, there has been a steady intensification of headlights over the years, so that driving at night can be quite unpleasant, especially in the wet. We can see the lights of other vehicles, but we can't see where we are going ...
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the biker in hospital minus his legs who didnt see you and pulled out
The "biker", who pulled out without looking properly?? Surely not!!
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For heavens sake can we have something interesting to talk about today please?!
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Well I for one wouldn't want to go back to the lights we used in the mid 70s when I started driving, they were bloomin awful - the only reason there weren't more accidents due to people not seeing other cars was because there weren't many cars around in the first place! - it would be carnage now with them!
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I do wish drivers would switch their headlights off in traffic queues, and when parked facing the "wrong way"
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I do wish drivers would switch their headlights off in traffic queues and when parked facing the "wrong way"
I do always do this. If I'm in a position where the car is stopped in the dark (with sufficient lighting around), whether parked or simply stuck for a while in queues, I usually switch to sidelights to avoid blinding people.
Similarly I make sure I'm on the handbrake rather than sitting on the footbrake.
I don't like it when inconvenienced by others in this way so I try not to put myself in the position of annoying others. Common courtesy.
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I make sure I'm on the handbrake rather than sitting on the footbrake.
(to avoid dazzling people)
Oh, well done. AOL. It's not good to wait behind someone, in a queue, who has their brake lamps on.
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AOL?
I know I'm being patronised here, and I want to know in what way!
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AOL? >> I know I'm being patronised here
You are not being patronised. A long time ago, there was a thing called Usenet. This was, and *is*, this, if you like - a netwrk of swervers, each containing, and contributing to, by way of users, lists of articles, "posts", that people could read, and depending on various configurations, reply to - sort of, a bit, like HJ's "Back Room" forum, but a bit more global. These things were called "newsgroups", and are still active now, and still compelling. "Google groups" subsumes Usenet, for instance. Do a Google search, for - for instance - "uk.rec.cars.maintenance". So, in the old days, the cognoscenti would just post their articles and considered responses. Then came the explosion of I-net use, including a monolithic zombie-like creation called America On Line. Suddennly, the hoi-polloi could post to Usenet. Many of their posts were of the form "I agree", or "Me too", or (simply) "Yes!" - variations on a theme. So it was that a post of "AOL" came to be accepted as having similar, rather shallow, meaning. When I relpy to someone with "AOL" I sort of mean "Mee too! I agree! You're right!" All that sort of thing. Shorthand. No disrespect. Normal service will be resumed ASAP, 'cos it's *well* past my bed-time.
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I see.
I'm actually a Usenet veteran of around 17 years' standing (I got into t'interweb at Uni, long before www became popular) but I've never seen this one before.
Seems logical though!
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You must use headlights at night except on etc........ where headlights are optional. A prohibition would be marked by you must NOT
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>>On the one or two occasions that I've forgotten toswitch headlights back on after stopping in a car park>>
At last, someone who agrees that side lights are for parking. There is some common sense out there.
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Years ago when everyone except a stranger would be driving around London on side lights only, it was so much easier and safer, less eye strain, much clearer vision, and as said above so much easier to judge speed.
Think about it, all vehicles on sidelight only, your eyes become accustomed and as there's no surrounding glare, you are able to pick so much more out, someone jaywalking across the street in dark clothing, no problem see them easy, as you still have night vision, same situation when every man and his dog has dipped beams on, night vision destroyed, you will not see the chap crossing, he only becomes a silhouette and lost in the glare, and as for high level brake lights at night...
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Trouble is that there is no hard and fast rule - I can think of roads here the street lights are so pathetic they might as well not be there or where trees obsure them.
The section
"use headlights at night, except on a road which has lit street lighting. These roads are generally restricted to a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h) unless otherwise specified"
IS very vague - it could apply to urban motorways or even any lit motorway because of the words "generally" and "unless otherwise specified".
The dangerous aspect is that there are some vehicles with "side lights only" (and of course some cars have one or even two not working!!) and some with headlights so there is no consistently. The ideal situation would be to
a) Educate people that "sidelights" are better referred to as "parking lights" (IMHO!)
b) Go back to the old "dim/dip" system that my BX had - sidelights when parked and when you started the engine they came onto dim/dip - not bright enough to dazzle but brighter than parking lights.
Then every car would be lit in the same way.
(As an aside there were plenty of (idiot IMHO) people on the M6 at daybreak today in appalling spray who either had no lights on or only sidelights - often v difficult to see them coming up behind in one's mirrors)
Regards
Phil
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b) Go back to the old "dim/dip" system that my BX had - sidelights when parked and when you started the engine they came onto dim/dip - not bright enough to dazzle but brighter than parking lights. <<
On a similar note, my humble Hyundai Accent had a feature whereby when you switched the engine off, if you'd left the headlights on they'd automatically reduce to sidelights. This aided with temporary parking, and I always thought it was a good feature. Start the car, and the headlights came back.
It's probably not unique, and certainly not as clever as the Citroen method mentioned, but I've not seen it on other cars I've driven which I think is a pity.
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C'mon back roomers! Show some imagination with your posts, search the internet, look at your local press, radio and news rooms websites etc - bring something new to the forum! Stimulate a worthy motoring related topic and conversation!
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I want to think that the Volvo system has brighter than normal sidelights which are permanently on ?
Maybe that's rubbish, but it would strike me as the best compromise arrangement for city dwellers. Bright enough to supplement street lighting but dimmer than a dipped beam.
I agree about the high level brake light too. I have often thought it should only come on when the ABS is triggered. A sort of emergency early warning light.
I was on the M6 early this AM too PW. Just unpleasant all round wasn't it ?
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It was horrible Humph; though no worse than last Thursday, Friday and yesterday!!!- after a couple of minutes I decided that the best tactic was to settle about 100yds behind a truck on inside lane and avoid the ducking and diving in the outer lanes.
Hope tomorrow is better.
Phil
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Europe has reinvented dim dip as daylight running lights. Hopefully in the fullness of time side, or no, lights in the dark or poor visibility will become impossible. I believe the Americans made high level stop lights compulsory because of their red rear turn signals and stop lights being confused at night.
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"use headlights at night except on a road which has lit street lighting. These roads are generally restricted to a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h) unless otherwise specified" IS very vague
No, it isn't. It's precise.
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This topic has been aired in the forum previously - IIRC you are allowed to use sidelights in urban areas providing the street lamps are a maximum of 185ft apart.
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Going back to the parking comment - I understood that it was illegal to park on the "wrong" side of the road with your headlights on? Appart from anything else the beam direction would be right into the line of vision of oncoming cars on that side of the road.
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I understood that it was illegal to park on the "wrong" side of the road with your headlights on?
I don't know what you understood(referring to the statement being made a question by addition of ?) but the HC says-
248
You MUST NOT park on a road at night facing against the direction of the traffic flow unless in a recognised parking space.
[Laws CUR reg 101 & RVLR reg 24]
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