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My bugbear is bright DRLs & then have comparitively low powered Indicators included in the inside of the headlamp cluster - indicators used to be on the bodywork edges.
Well spec'd cars auto dim the DRLs when the indicators flash - cheaper brands often do not.
Vx Antara just rewired the parking lights instead of fitting extra DRLs.
My CRV has lights in the instrument cluster all the time - hence many drivers may think they have some lights on at say dusk when they have none in actual fact.
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It's another area where the designers have gone overboard.
My DRLs are a low wattage bulb in the foglamp housing. No use at all when it is dark.
Modern cars have arrays of high powered LEDs which illuminate the road ahead. Replacement cost if my DRL fails - pennies. Replacement cost when a Jag XF LED DRL unit fails - 4 figures!
Just last week I was following a 66 reg Peugeot with no rear lights - it was the third car I'd seen with this issue in a few miles. We happened to stop at the same shop so I spoke to the driver.
She had no idea her rear lights weren't on - and it must have taken her a couple of minutes to actually work out how to turn them on as she thought they were automatic so didn't know where the light switch was.
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Absolutely agree, why not rear DRL's as well. Plenty of Muppets drive on the Motorway in heavy rain and spray without lights on. Rear DRL's would not increase their intelligence but at least you would be able to see them.
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The way to combat this is to have your headlight control on auto, so you dont forget to turn them on. Though not all cars have this function.
Or as has been said have DRLs on the rear as well. But that means people will run around in the dark purely on those.
I suggest that the dash lights dont light up with DRLs so in the dark, the driver should realise their headlights are not on and will only illumiate the dash dials and controls when they physically turn the headlights on. A prompt.
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My car has auto headlights and drl. I always have the auto headlight setting on.
However, on return from servicing at the garage, it is turned off. Given the number of such things on a modern car, it is one more thing to check and so can be easily missed/forgotten.
Given there is a light sensor already, surely it would be easy to have a warning light on the dash if the sensor shows it is dark and if the headlights are not on.
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In the good old days, you turned sidelights on when it got dark and when out of areas lit by streetlights, turned headlamps on. Sidelights also lit the dash dials.
Everyone seemed clever enough to manage this.
There was then a campaign (started in Birmingham by J Lucas Ltd, who 'coincidentally' made bulbs and batteries) to always use dipped headlamps even in towns, so it then became usual to do this.
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In the good old days, you turned sidelights on when it got dark and when out of areas lit by streetlights, turned headlamps on. Sidelights also lit the dash dials.
Everyone seemed clever enough to manage this
I remember those times well, when driving in London especially almost everyone would be on sidelight alone, bliss, safer too for everyone not illuminated by 4000watts of blinding light such as cylists and pedestrians because they didn't fade into the background, and everyone kept a reasonable amount of night vision.
I call it the light wars now, first noticed it in the early 80's when front and rear fog lights started to get fitted to repmobiles, course they had to be on at the slightest hint of damp to show them off to the lessers who didn't yet have them, been going down hill ever since, and don't get me started on these too camp by far DRL's.
My favourites are the 400 watts of LEDs now in use on Mercedes (and others but these are teh worse) stop lights, brilliant they arn't, so bright in fact that the person behind can't possibly determine the rate of deceleration...crunch, why is all that light needed unless its a panic stop situation, they sit at the traffic lights bathing 100 yards of road behind in a fetching shade of hell red, rather appropriate i think.
Somehow we also managed not to run each other over on building sites or transport yards despite there being not a hivis jacket nor reversing camera to be found, and lads managed to fix the roads and build houses in T shirts and jeans (no top in the summer, give passing ladies summat to drool over) without a safety helmet between them, oh and coppers still had a sense of humour.
edit, on the subject of too bright lights, there's a pedestrian crossing i go by every morning in the wee small hours, appear to be LED's, obviously at 3.45am or so they are usually on green, but if anyone was on the crossing there isn't a hope of seeing them because your vision is assaulted by the brightest green blinding lights i've ever seen, whats all that about, going to end up wearing me 70's pilot shades driving at night at this rate..:-)
rant over
Edited by gordonbennet on 21/09/2016 at 19:58
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GB, you and I willl be branded black-hearted reactionaries by the trendy designers and petty bureaucrats responsible for these horrible gadgets.
There ought to be a theme park for us dinosaurs which recreates the 60s and 70s, with proper pubs, proper cinemas instead of the too-loud multiscreen jobs there are now, you can fill in the other good things that have gone.
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I'll be the first to buy a season ticket.
We arn't dinosaurs as such, we maybe just don't believe in fixing what wasn't broken in the first place.
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Tonight's loon running on DRLs only was driving a Renault. Front DRLs as bright as Beachy Head lighthouse. Rear lights non existent. To compound the problem it was absolutely throwing it down so the rear of the car was totally obscured.
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Tonight's loon running on DRLs only was driving a Renault. Front DRLs as bright as Beachy Head lighthouse. Rear lights non existent. To compound the problem it was absolutely throwing it down so the rear of the car was totally obscured.
I'll see your loon and raise you one. A few weeks ago on a dark afternoon in torrential rain I overtook a tunnel-visioned, half asleep driver with only sidelights/tail lights on. Like a lot of drivers I've noticed since DRLs came into being, he'd most likely switched his sidelights on in preference to DRLs (probably at the start ofhis journey) to show some light at the rear (in some cars, including his, sidelights cancel the DRLs) but failed to "upgrade" to dipped beam when visibility was down to almost zero.
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Loving and agreeing with most of the sentiments here.
DRLs really are rather daft, especially the fact that newer cars' with them appear to be brighter than ever.
My latest encounter with someone who had forgotten or didn't understand how it all works, was this evening. Dusk, and a Land Rover/Range Rover Fashion Special. The driver could see forward because of the bright light but of course, those of us behind saw just a grey outline of the vehicle.
A few judicious headlight flashes from various others seemed to get the message through though as driver found the switch.
Bring back the old days as others have said - sidelights then dipped lights operated by, wait for it, the driver!
Also, could I be one of the few who thought, and still does think, that the UK dim/dip system introduced in the late 1980s, were actually quite good?
In those days, people had the sense to turn on the sidelights but the system also turned on the dipped beam at a lower power when the engine was on, so when driving along, even with sidelights on, you had a reasonably amount of light that could be seen by others, and the driver might work out to switch on the dipped beam themselves.
Oh well - progress goes on.
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Also, could I be one of the few who thought, and still does think, that the UK dim/dip system introduced in the late 1980s, were actually quite good?
No you are not alone, back then I had an 'M reg' Peugeot 106 diesel that had them, I always thought it was a great idea.
Edited by Rick O'Shea on 22/09/2016 at 14:09
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Yep, dim dip on the Renault 21 estate, Savanna? i had, as said simple and effective, normal headlamp bulbs cheap as chips and, unlike these days, took seconds to fit.
I'm sure we had a thread not so long ago where some part of the headlight assembly, either the DRL or LED indicator had failed on a Jag XF, circa £1000, obviously a complete headlamp as you would expect, no ta.
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I leave the car sidelights on permanently, the only exception is when I have the car serviced and the garage switches them off. Being 'on' all the time leads to relatively short life of the bulbs, although if you buy bulbs from the dealer they are grenerally better quality and last longer. But, changing the bulbs is a major job now.
I had thought, several years ago, of changing from tungsten bulbs to LEDs. When I asked the bulb maker, Ring, what the rules were they said that the bulbs were only suitable for 'off road' use, being that the law said that LED bulbs were illegal. Now that DRLs are so bright the situation has changed and I might do that next time I replace the bulbs.
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EU forced UK to ditch the "dim/dip" system - a botch fudge whereas any car with manual headlight adjustment switch could be excused the dim/dip system .. guess what - all EU cars come with manual headlight adjustment
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The Volkswagen up! / Skoda Citigo / SEAT Mii triplets have a sort of 'DRL reminder'.
The speedo is always illuminated when the ignition is on, but there is a light sensor in the instrument panel, such that when it gets dark, or you drive through a tunnel, etc, it fades the speedo illumination down so that you can't see the markings (although the needle is still lit, to maintain some semblance of safety, I guess). To keep being able to read the speedo, you have to turn the lights on.
Don't know if this is replicated anywhere else in the VAG group, or by other manufacturers.
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Having took the dog for a quick evening walk I noticed about 6 or so cars driving without their lights on. One chap reversed out his drive then sped off up the road with nothing but, his VW DRL's at the front showing.
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In the good old days, you turned sidelights on when it got dark and when out of areas lit by streetlights, turned headlamps on. Sidelights also lit the dash dials.
Everyone seemed clever enough to manage this.
There was then a campaign (started in Birmingham by J Lucas Ltd, who 'coincidentally' made bulbs and batteries) to always use dipped headlamps even in towns, so it then became usual to do this.
As I remember, in the 'good old days' some drivers waited until it was nearly dark before switching sidelights on and relied on them alone until it was completely dark, to "save the battery" (!!!)
Edited by Sofa Spud on 06/10/2016 at 22:53
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In the good old days, you turned sidelights on when it got dark and when out of areas lit by streetlights, turned headlamps on. Sidelights also lit the dash dials.
Everyone seemed clever enough to manage this.
There was then a campaign (started in Birmingham by J Lucas Ltd, who 'coincidentally' made bulbs and batteries) to always use dipped headlamps even in towns, so it then became usual to do this.
As I remember, in the 'good old days' some drivers waited until it was nearly dark before switching sidelights on and relied on them alone until it was completely dark, to "save the battery" (!!!)
Perhaps they were ex-night fighter pilots :-)
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Ssangyong appear to have 'seen the light' (!) and realised there is a problem with just having front DRLs when it gets dark - on the Tivoli at least the rears are also lit at all times.
This week's sighting for me was a Nissan Qashqai - 9pm and no rear lights whilst on a country road with no lighting. Driver oblivious.
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and as I have just recently found out from a friend who is an MOT tester, these DRL's are not part of the MOT test, where as all other bulbs that blow are (apart from reversing lights apparently), so I question their use still further...
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From www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j...w
"Glare does not occur with lamps that have been specially developed for DRL purposes."
And that is just one example of why I never trust a "scientist".
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