[email protected] wrote:
>
[email protected] (Steve Firth) wrote:
>> At last, police are being more even handed in their treatment of road users. During a clampdown
>> on cyclists in Portsmouth, over 160 individuals were stopped and cautioned over cycling on
>> pavements and cycling without lights in a 10 hour period. Oh dear, 160 in 10 hours. Little bunch
>> of lawbreakers aren't they? The only shame is that they weren't fine £65 each.
> From the rac foundation. Puts it in persective, really. Seeing the Light
> Being in the dark is no excuse for being in the dark and drivers who fail to light up will be
> endangering themselves and other road users, as well as risking a fine.
I have *never* understoood the British reluctance to switch on vehicle lights at dusk.
Perhaps some feel it wears out the battery, or something.
> In 2001, 50,000 drivers ended up counting the cost of not seeing the light while ten per cent of
> motorcycles and over 16% of cars that failed the MoT test did so because of defective lights. *
Terrible. Easily- and cheaply-fixed though.
> The RAC Foundation is today (10) calling on motorists to check that vehicle lights are working
> correctly and to think about using them with consideration for other road users.
Eh?
The RAC Foundation needs to ask itself whether the lights should be on or off. It needs to make
its mind up.
> As summer fades into autumn and the days grow shorter and the nights longer, journeys to and from
> work and school are becoming darker. When British summertime officially ends on October 26 the
> country will be plunged into deeper morning and evening gloom.
So: lights on as soon as it starts to get dark.
> There is nothing unusual about this. It happens every year. Yet every year it seems to take
> motorists by surprise, with many taking to the roads in badly lit and even unlit cars and
> motorbikes - unseeing and unseen, a hazard and a nuisance.
> The most frequent complaints are:
> Unlit vehicles.
I once (thirty-plus years ago) supervised a friend who was a learner-driver after dark (in well-lit
London streets, I hasten to add). I glanced across and saw the panel lights were on, so I assumed
that meant the side-lights were on. We were stopped down the road by a police sergeant who said "No
lights!". And he was right - when I jumped out I saw there were no sidelights on. I got back in and
asked the learner driver to put the lights on (she knew the car better than I did) - and it was only
then that I realised that the "panel lights" had been the display for the car-radio, which was "on"
but turned down, IYSWIM. Since I had never had a car posh enough to be fitted with a radio (and this
was in the days before the whole dash lit up like a Christmas tree when you turned on the side-
lights), the possibility of that mistake had never even occurred to me.
> Vehicles with one or more bulbs not working - usually the offside.
Lamps do blow (eventually). Not all that common, mind you - I have not had to replace a lamp on any
of the three cars I have owned in the last twelve years. Not one. Lucky? I don't know. You sometimes
do see vehicles with a lamp out, but not that often.
I can't work out what is meant by "usually the offside". Is it someone having a pop at drivers for
being unfortunate enough to have a lamp blow by trying to suggest that it is worse than it is?
> Vehicles lit up like Christmas trees with front and rear fog lamps on, regardless of visibility,
> dazzling all those around them.
Well, it is annoying in the rain.... at other times, who cares? Let them play.
> Vehicles dazzling on-coming traffic with misaligned lights thanks to poor or infrequent
> maintenance
Or maladjustment. My car has a manual adjuster (for height). I never use it.
> Vehicles blinding others with unadjusted lights when the car is fully laden.
That's what the adjuster is for (only when "fully laden" means that the boot is heavily loaded).
> Kevin Delaney, Traffic and Road Safety Manager for the RAC Foundation said:
> "Each year motorists wait for the end of summertime to discover that one or more lights isn't
> working and each year badly lit vehicles are involved in crashes that could have been prevented by
> a simple two-minute check of lights and indicators.
That is *way OTT*.
> Vehicles with defective lights are not only a menace they are illegal and in 2001 police and the
> courts dealt with around 50,000 such offences. **
If the vehicle is so defective that no lights are working - and if the route is unlit - I can see
his point.
Otherwise, that is hyperbole.
Having a sidelight out (whilst using dipped headlights, which one should in any event) is not a
"menace" by any stretch of the most fevered imagination.
> "Lights are an important part of the car safety system and the revised driving test will require
> novice drivers to know how to check them.
Good.
> Don't wait for the clock-change to catch you out, take just two minutes to check your lights this
> weekend and once a month throughout the winter to ensure that you can see and be seen."
Clock-change?
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