On 24/10/2019 17:16, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
news
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.
My current car has bulbholders and bulbs on both sides, but there isn't
even any wiring to the nearside one!
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.
Yes, there are a whole load of different, poor arrangements.
I had a mk2 Sierra. They all had the same rear lights, but different
bulbholders and wiring harnesses. Some had the tail lights/brake lights
next to the indicators and the fog lights as the furthest inboard.
Others (including mine) had the tail lights/fog lights next to the
indicator and the brake lights furthest inboard - far better, especially
when the fog lights are on, to have a new pair of lights come on when
you brake rather than an already illuminated pair brighten a bit.
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.
Some have the indicator inside the headlamp lens and the rear indicator
inside a circular brake light. Both useless.
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 ;-)
Another problem with DRLs is that around town, drivers see the road in
front lit up by them and as so many cars have permanently lit dashes,
they don't realise that they've got no lights on at the back.
I'd require that all dash illumination only comes on when the lights are
on - they'd notice a lot quicker when they tried to look at the speedo
and couldn't see it!
SteveW