Parking lights and their use

Voodoomelon

When I refer to parking lights, I mean the function that most cars have in that you park your car on the side of the road at night, turn off your lights and then turn either the left or right indicator on to activate either the left or right side parking light.

What baffles is me about their use is that people park their car on the side of the road, and turn on the inside parking light, that is, the light nearest the path, wall or hedge against which they park. Loads of people in my area seem to do this and I can't understand why.

Is it just me or is it not far more important to have your car's edge illuminated on the road side of the car?

Anyone else notice this?

emanresu

Not all cars have that feature whereby you can switch on the parking lights for one side. None of my cars have had it. I think VW's have it.

I think that a possible reason that you see cars with the inside parking lights swithced on is because they were previously using the indicators for that side, and they didn't cancel the indicators before stopping the engine.

Voodoomelon

I thought that myself, but any car i've seen that has this feature needs you to turn the indicator on after the ignition is turned off.

Fizman

Maybe it's a case of people indicating to pull into one side of the road / beside the curb and simply turning the ignition of once parked, before turning off the indicator?

daveharnett

Voodoomelon wrote: »

What baffles is me about their use is that people park their car on the side of the road, and turn on the inside parking light, that is, the light nearest the path, wall or hedge against which they park. Loads of people in my area seem to do this and I can't understand why.

I suspect you have given the matter more thought than most of the people who's actions you are describing.

As you say, the intention of the feature is to make the car more visible to other road users, so illuminating the side of the car nearest the road makes much more sense.

corktina

my guess is that most of these people dont even know they have parking lights!

ION08

They way youre describing it makes it sound like common occurance, I can't even remember the last car i saw with 'parking lights' on - knowing ireland though, people probably forgot to switch off their sidelights and one bulb just happened to be blown!

EPM

Mine work with my indicators depending on what way they're turned. Some people don't notice (and ignore the beeping when they open the door). I only use mine when I'd in a dimly lit or tight spot

colm_mcm

As above, it's people leaving their indicators on.

biko

I like to sit in reverse, so the white lights will keep everyone guessing


Only messing, hazards ftw

Hagar

AFAIK leaving the indicator on, say the left indicator, will leave the left parking light on and vice versa when the ignition key is removed. So if you indicate and pull in to the left it is necessary to change the indicator poition to the right to illuminate the outer, RHS, parking light. This extra step seems to be too much to master for most drivers who only have a vague idea what the indicator stalk is for anyway.