Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

Peering out through the blizzard outside, I'm amazed at how many cars are driving with no lights on at all. Given how many cars are shades of silvery grey-ness, and blend in perfectly to the background on days like this, they're all but impossible to spot until they're quite close in.

Are people forgetting how to drive, now that the car itself takes care of so much (including turning on the lights when dark)?

RJ
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[IanAl]

I totally agree, I have just driven 21 miles to work only to be sent home again by the boss. Both ways there were loads of cars without lights or driving far too fast for the lethal conditions. Pedestrians are just as bad walking out in front of cars on extremely slippy roads, how to they ever expect drivers to stop. Glad to have made it home in one piece

[Roger-hatchy]

It's the same everywhere Rick

I often wonder if they think having the lights on will flatten the battery
Or is it a competition to see who can drive the furthest with no light in the dark.

Same goes when raining,
I drove HGV's for a living, even with spay suppressing mud flaps even in light rain the mirrors would get fouled up.
Number of timed I nearly took someone out because they only had sidelights on in the wet or fog.

OK nowadays mirrors can be heated, as most new ones are, but even then they still get fouled up in bad weather as they are in direct line of fire from front wheel spray.

And have you noticed the number of frozen post boxes being driven around.

[V8 Nutter]

I live on a very steep hill, I don't think some people ever learnt to drive I have just seen a Tank Commander ( that is some one who peers through a 6 inch square of clear windscreeen while the rest is covered in snow) Sliding down the hill with all four wheels locked. Some one else got half way up decided it was too difficult, turned round and went back down. I thought was going to have a new garden wall, but he missed by a couple of inches!

[ukdave2002]

We live in an age when so many decisions are taken away from the drivers...ask someone when its correct to go through traffic lights; 9/10 will respond "when the light is green" ask them when they can drive across a crossroads not fitted with traffic lights, and the response will be along the lines of; when no other traffic is crossing and its safe to do so, in the latter they take the responsibility.....

Dave

[buzzy bee]

Every one has Fog light on when it isn't foggy, that annoys me, I once told a neighbour and he reply was to get all snazzy with me, and say they come on when he goes round corners.... Divvy!

Then after driving 30 odd miles this morning, as Rick says probably 30% had no lights on.

Cheers

Dave

[Bitumen Boy]

On a similar line, I've recently been a passenger in various moderns owned by colleagues and it's amazing how they all seem to be going around with knackered wipers so that they can barely see anything. Put some new rubbers in! Oh, and one guy doesn't even know how to open the bonnet on his car and so hasn't checked the oil or anything else (unless his wife does it, but I doubt that) for at least the last 6 months to my certain knowledge.

These are all sane, reasonably intelligent people I'm talking about, and if they're a representative sample of wider society then it's no wonder that the roads are so dangerous these days.

[Rick]

Getting dark outside, another plonker just gone by minus lights (doh)

RJ
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[Peter_L]

Driving without lights here also. Because we have daylight running lights, some folk seem to think that will do.

Our vehicles are moderns, so have automatic lights, but they don't always come on in rain or snow, so I have to reach down, turn the little switch, such hardwork, then when I stop I have to reach down turn them off.

It's no wonder modern society drive around without lights.

[clan chieftain]

Its the same here Peter many modern cars have daylight running lights. Maufacturers should be made to have them fitted to new models for safety reasons. Volvo have had them for years.
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The Clan Chieftain

[Penman]

Hi

[colwyn500]

Up here in the North of Scotland we don't really turn lights off from the minute the clocks go back in Autumn. Drivers are really good about it.

In any case, I think we have had it better than most today, with brilliant sunshine and no snow. I even passed someone ploughing a field an hour ago!

The light was superb, which id good for me employed to take photographs.

[Peter_L]

Perhaps / Maybe

Manufacturers are adding more and more frivalous B.S to the modern computer controlled vehicles. Tire Pressure indicators, Oil Change Notification, Blind spot Monitors and yet neither of our units have a "light out warning". I had them on my Granada back in the 1980's.

Now with more and more LED technology and more efficient batteries and alternators, would having the front driving lights and the rear lights come on, whenever the vehicle is running, be a great problem ?

I don't know about UK models, but in North America we don't have "side repeater flashers", some units have them on the door mirrors but there is no standard.

. and while I am on the subject of North America, when are they ever going to lose their insistance for Red Direction Indicators on the rear, and allowing almost any type of tow truck, garbage collector, snow plow, ambulance or fire truck have an array of white-red-orange-blue, flashing beacons

..... and when will they start painting their traffic cars in high glow colors
(or should that be colours)

[buzzy bee]

Hi

Several more on the walk out to the shop me and mum had this pm.. Literally invisible in the conditions.

How do they get around that when they get pulled up for having fog lights on in clear conditions. Is it because only one comes on at a time? I have seen a few on these police camera action type programs. I hope the police pull more up.

Another seems to be cars following some way behind have full beam on, turning it off when a car comes towards them, and straight back on when they have passed, even though they are still behind me.

Simple things, but very annoying!

Cheers

Dave

[V8 Nutter]