"dennis@home" wrote in message
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Not legal though.
If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which
posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and
indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

Don't know but at least 1989

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1...lation/24/made

Hmm. So a lot of VWs with that feature might not actually have been legal in
the UK (well, that feature wasn't legal), and presumably other manufacturers
discontinued it or disabled it for the UK market.

I'm always surprised that the definition of "position lamp" doesn't include
rear fog lights, since they are the first thing you see, long before the
tail lights, as you come up behind a car in fog and need to estimate its
distance by the lateral spacing of the position lights. But most cars sold
today have only one fog light on the offside (and often one reversing light
on the nearside). All my older cars had bulb holders and wires for both
sides, with only the nearside fog light bulb missing (which I always
replaced), but my present car doesn't even have provision for a nearside fog
light.

The Construction and Use / Vehicles and Lighting regulations are most
noteworthy for what they *don't* prohibit. If I was making those regulations
I'd mandate that all lights (including rear fog and reversing) must be in
pairs, and that every front and back indicator must be placed as far as
possible from any other *bright* light (brake/fog/headlight - tail/side are
OK) so it can be seen even when the car is braking, or when it has its
headlights on. Sadly a lot of modern cars have indicators that are right
next to the brake lights (VW Golfs are bad for this) and integrated in the
headlight housing rather than separate from it.

The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be
seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations should
prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side and
indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from the
headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is
specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL on
the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen before
the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)