Head Lights - Tail Lights

sandyg

I noticed last night going home in the rain and on other occasions at how many cars have either only one tail light working or one head light. Its not as if it is expensive to replace a bulb. (Rant over)!

bazz26

I have found that alot of drivers don't check their lights on a regular basis, they just assume they are working.

Alun

It does seem to be something we're particularly bad at, certainly. You'll not see anywhere near as many broken lights in other European contries. I've even seen a number of cars where the only working brake lights are the high level third brake light.

Personally, I check mine once a month or so with the car in the driveway, but whenever I'm stuck in traffic, I'll also check the reflections in other cars to see if there's anything that needs looking at.

unkel

bazz26 wrote:

I have found that alot of drivers don't check their lights on a regular basis, they just assume they are working.

This is it. As soon as you switch on a light, the car should tell you if it is working or not. Should be a compulsory system on every car. Surely this is not new technology and I can't imagine it costing much. Standard feature of my 9 year old car

Once compulsory, it should also be compulsory to carry a complete set of spare bulbs. Combine above two and nobody has an excuse of a broken light ("I checked all my lights this morning officer, and they were all working")

Next step is a fixed 2 penalty points for having a non-working light

ciarsd

while were on the subject - there should be a law against inappropriate use of fog lights - especially in the winter months when there is no need for them. Summer months there is just no god dam excuse for it :mad:

ciarsd

Alun wrote:

I'll also check the reflections in other cars to see if there's anything that needs looking at.

i do this too

also when driving in or backing into the driveway in the evenings :v:

scargill

funny you should mention that....its one of my pet hates.

about two months ago while travelling from Cashel to Naas late one evening I counted all of the cars with faulty headlights. There were 70 !! and thats not counting cars with misalligned headlights - just the ones with dead bulbs.

Are the NCTs not catching these problems ? are the gardai not stopping people for these ?

i used to have a 01 Golf, was always blowing bulbs - the number of Mark IV Golfs with missing headlights/tailight bulbs is unbelievable - keep an eye out for them this evening.

Saruman

Actually my car has a headlight out. I think there is a smaller light that comes on so its not absolutly dark. I actually have replacement bulbs but for some reason its just not something i care to take care of. Only have time to do at weekends and i have not seen a rain free weekend in ages.

Its not a major issue to me as i only use the car at weekends. During the week i have a Work car.

The fog lights thing is a problem though. I was watching one of those british police shows and they were pulling people over for fog lights. One guy was driving a sports car, ferrari or something (during daylight). As soon as he saw the cops he turned them off.. they pulled him anyway

whippet

Saruman wrote:

Actually my car has a headlight out. I think there is a smaller light that comes on so its not absolutly dark. I actually have replacement bulbs but for some reason its just not something i care to take care of. Only have time to do at weekends and i have not seen a rain free weekend in ages.

that is not an excuse. Blubs take a few minutes to change.

Angels

I find that people who have one working light in front of there car will put on there full headlights so they can see where they are going. They will blind the oncoming traffic towards them & even though it might look like a motor bike or something to us,it can be a car or tractor so it infact is extremely dangerous & is a common thing done on our roads

Alun

whippet wrote:

that is not an excuse. Blubs take a few minutes to change.

Actually my headlight "blubs" are a PITA to replace and depends on me having the right sized Torx screwdriver at hand to release the front light cluster, release two well hidden clips that require you to have arms and fingers like Gollum, and then 15 minutes jiggling and juggling the fecking thing around to get it out. Only then can you actually get at the bulbs. It's a Ford Focus C-Max, BTW. I believe certain Peugeots are even worse in this regard.

Angels

Alun wrote:

Actually my headlight "blubs" are a PITA to replace and depends on me having the right sized Torx screwdriver at hand to release the front light cluster, release two well hidden clips that require you to have arms and fingers like Gollum, and then 15 minutes jiggling and juggling the fecking thing around to get it out. Only then can you actually get at the bulbs. It's a Ford Focus C-Max, BTW. I believe certain Peugeots are even worse in this regard.

Actually 02 Renault Clios are worse u need tiny, skinny arms & big hands to get at the lights in front !!

Alun

Scargill wrote:

are the gardai not stopping people for these ?

When they can't even be @rsed to prosecute unaccompanied provisional drivers, or check NCT's, what makes you think they'd bother with something like this?

I know a German girl who recently took her Irish car back to Germany with her when she moved back. Within an hour, literally, of her being on German soil she was pulled over for having one of her tail lights brighter than the other. Some tw@t at a garage (in Ireland, of course) had obviously replaced one of the bulbs with the wrong wattage, probably a brake light or fog light bulb.

Saruman

I had a 02 renault clio and i could change the bulb in them quickly enough.

Saying however that changing a bulb in a car only takes a few mins is a little silly, i mean some cars you need to change the whole headlight unit and some even you can not even open the bonnet on. You have to bring it to dealer.. i kid you not

Lets put it this way... if i almost never drive the car when its dark, why should i make i a priority in my busy life to change it? I will get around to it especially now its dark earlier than it was.

Oh and penalty points for this should never be allowed! If a bulb went as you got in your car to go home from work and you did not notice, or even if you did.. regardless... how can you possibly imagine its ok to get points for that?

No it should be enforced in the sense that if you are caught without a working light that you get a fine thats waved if you show it repaired within a week or two.

I have actually seen a lot of cars with NO working rear lights incl brake lights.. now thats dangerous!!

thatkindofgirl

Saruman wrote:

Lets put it this way... if i almost never drive the car when its dark, why should i make i a priority in my busy life to change it? I will get around to it especially now its dark earlier than it was.

Alun

Yeah, I "almost never" drive my car when it's wet, does that mean I can get away with bald tyres? You couldn't make some of these comments up if you tried.

t5pwr

I saw a guy in a Corolla last night and I thought he had no lights on. He must have realised and then turned on his fog light as his back light. His lights were working on the front and not on the back at all :mad:

Just shows that he knew the back lights don't work as he turned to fog light on instead

It is a pet hate of mine and as soon as a bulb goes in my car it comes up on the dash and I replace it when I see a safe spot to pull in...

BME

wtf??? penalty points for not replacing bulb?? get the boat will ye :mad: :mad:

most people DO get their bulbs sorted within reasonable time however there are a small minority of drivers who don't five a damn if none of their lights work they just do what they want.

Please don't try to say there is any similarity in the 2 cases:rolleyes:

seamus

scargill wrote:

Are the NCTs not catching these problems ?

NCTs are a bit of a joke. A lot of people will get a pre-NCT which sort these problems for the six months or so the headlights stay aligned/lit.

The Gardai couldn't give a ****e. I ws driving over to Halfords to pick up a new headlight bulb (with one blown, obviously) during the darker side of dusk, and was stopped at a checkpoint. Garda looked at my tax and insurance and waved me on.
Faulty lights don't fill their quotas.

Rovi

I'm led to believe that in many Continental countries, you won't get ticketed/points for a failed bulb, but you will be penalised for not having a spare in the vehicle to effect an immediate repair.
Anyone know if this is true?

Seems eminently sensible to me, as a bulb (or indeed any other component) is most likely to fail when it's actually in use, and thus might not be immediately obvious to the driver.

.

peasant

I'm led to believe that in many Continental countries, you won't get ticketed/points for a failed bulb, but you will be penalised for not having a spare in the vehicle to effect an immediate repair.
Anyone know if this is true

This would be one of the reasons why Lidl occasionally sells complete sets of spare bulbs ...they sell like hotcakes in those other countries.

...but then ...in many continental countries you also have to carry one of those warning triangles, a first aid kit and a reflective safety vest ...you would also have proper working lights and lit number plates on a trailer (my pet hate) all punishable by fines and or penalty points...

AMurphy

I think bulbs fail more often in winter... cause I have started to notice the same things here, but only in Winter.

I have determined the legal number of headlight+foglight bulbs is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6, based on observation.

bazz26

Most people would find it hard to tell when the bulb blew during the short summer nights. We tend to spend less time driving at night so we don't use our lights as often as during the long winter nights.

The same issue with trailers, it amazes me the amount of trailers on the road that simpley do not have a single light working along with the fact that the number plate more than likely doesn't match that of the car and bald tyres.

blastman

The number (or a number, whatever) written in chalk on the back of the trailer is a personal favourite of mine.

Stephen

Are farmers exempt from road traffic laws or something? Living in the sticks myself, the amount of them I see hauling trailers with 1 or more (usually more) of the following is ridiculous - and I see the same ones again and again on my route to work:

bald-ass tyres
the aforementioned reg number scrawled in chalk/tipp-ex on a piece of cardboard hanging onto the trailer with a bit of twine
the aforementioned reg number not matching that of the car/tractor/4x4 hauling it
either no functioning lights or full-blazing floodlights above the tractor windscreen
****ty little cars (usually Nissan Sunnies) pulling huge loads, such as a double horsebox... mm, safe
dangerous, unsecured loads on trailers (Anyone else see the load of hay bales shed all over the M7 northbound on saturday?)

I'm sure there's plenty of farmers with perfectly roadworthy vehicles, but in my experience its a pretty damn large proportion of them that don't fall into that category.

rant over.