Car headlights.

mrskinner

Is there a shortage of headlight bulbs in the country at the moment?
If you drive at night there is a high percentage of cars coming against you with one or two defective headlights. It seems obvious that there are no police checks carried out on traffic after dark as this is a very obvious breach of the law and very dangerous. People do take a chance that they will not get caught.
I write this as recently I was dazzled by an oncoming motorbike which turned out to be a car with no inside headlight. I just managed to avoid a collision. It is very easy to replace a light bulb.

wildefalcon

But, but, but, the car HAS a NCT!

I'll change it before the next NCT.

mrskinner

Yes if the car makes it to the next NCT!

Greenmachine

Bad as that is I have been driving plenty of time at night, in fog or heavy rain and spotted driver with zero light. What is wrong with some people.

mrskinner

Was he/she on the phone? I wouldn't be surprised!

djimi

Zero enforcement means zero compliance. If you knew that you were going to get caught and fined for having a busted light then nobody would ever drive with a light missing. In this country so long as youre not drunk or speeding you can get away with pretty much anything.

mrskinner

You would wonder, if something as obvious as one or both headlights missing gets unchecked, does drunk driving/speeding ever get policed at nighttime.

Del2005

mrskinner wrote: »

You would wonder, that, if something as obvious as one or both headlights missing gets unchecked, if drunk driving and speeding are ever policed at nighttime.

A few years ago I was driving through a small rural town on an N road at night. Couple of Gardaí where doing a speed check as a car coming the opposite direction had no lights on. Both Garda noticed the lack of lights but didn't do anything about it, apart from laughing and pointing, and I couldn't risk flashing my lights incase I got done for interfering with a Garda in the course of their duty.

Atlantic Dawn

djimi wrote: »

Zero enforcement means zero compliance. If you knew that you were going to get caught and fined for having a busted light then nobody would ever drive with a light missing. In this country so long as youre not drunk or speeding you can get away with pretty much anything.

Exactly, from my experience atleast 1 in every 10 cars I see on any journey I make has defective lighting.

mrskinner

My estimate is that 10 - 15% of cars have defective lights. It must be the easiest offense for a Garda to notice at night-time!

Alun

mrskinner wrote: »

My estimate is that 10 - 15% of cars have defective lights. It must be the easiest offense for a Garda to notice at night-time!

I've seen queues of cars waiting to go through Garda tax checkpoints with all manner of lighting infringements (lights out, no lights, parking lights, fog lights, you name it) and getting waived straight through. Sure, as long as they have tax, insurance and NCT, then it's all OK :rolleyes:.

Surely that's an ideal place to be catching these idiots.

CiniO

mrskinner wrote: »

You would wonder, if something as obvious as one or both headlights missing gets unchecked, does drunk driving/speeding ever get policed at nighttime.

No it doesn't.
There is no policing on the roads in Ireland.
Complete freedom to do whatever you want.

No Pants

mrskinner wrote: »

I was dazzled by an oncoming motorbike which turned out to be a car with no inside headlight. I just managed to avoid a collision.

Why would you have collided?

dgt

I don't know what's worse

No lights
Blinded by incorrectly fitted lights

dickwod1

Its also tail lights, I see so many cars at night with just one bulb working ... defo no enforcement, that's the problem.

Mint Sauce

No Pants wrote: »

Why would you have collided?

If he was going down a narrow unlit rural road, he may have thought it was a motorbike coming towards him, and gave space accordingly, especially if it was the drivers side bulb that was gone.

Noccy_Mondy

Thread after thread of car light complaining. I think we should make a sticky and be done with it :pac:

visual

Spec savers 2 for 1 cleaning the inside of windshield also cuts down on glare

slimjimmc

visual wrote: »

Spec savers 2 for 1 cleaning the inside of windshield also cuts down on glare

I think the dazzling the OP suffered has more to do with improperly aimed headlamps and drivers compensating for a failed dip beam by always driving on main beam.

dr.fuzzenstein

djimi wrote: »

Zero enforcement means zero compliance. If you knew that you were going to get caught and fined for having a busted light then nobody would ever drive with a light missing. In this country so long as youre not drunk or speeding you can get away with pretty much anything.

And then they set the fine at €1k, still won't enforce it and howl "why does no-one follow the law!"

visual

slimjimmc wrote: »

I think the dazzling the OP suffered has more to do with improperly aimed headlamps and drivers compensating for a failed dip beam by always driving on main beam.

If someone won't change a bulb they are hardly going to adjust light alignment.

Nearly every car I've seen also has park lights and its rare to see a car with dip and park bulb also gone.

If your driving a country road and one or two headlights are coming towards you you ensure your on your side of the road so it shouldn't matter if its a single headlight car or a motorbike.

Sam Kade

Mint Sauce wrote: »

If he was going down a narrow unlit rural road, he may have thought it was a motorbike coming towards him, and gave space accordingly, especially if it was the drivers side bulb that was gone.

I always make allowances in those situations because there are so many motorists driving on one light.

CiniO

visual wrote: »

If your driving a country road and one or two headlights are coming towards you you ensure your on your side of the road so it shouldn't matter if its a single headlight car or a motorbike.

Have you ever been to the country side in Ireland?
Sides of roads in many places are narrower than vehicles, so how can you be fully on your side of the road?

5uspect

I play the defective light counting game on the way home from work. I only live about 5km away and I'm usually well over a dozen by the time I get home, even more when I cycle, obviously.

Today on the way to the shops a guy in front of me had a completely screwed up rear cluster with his brake light flashing faintly when he indicated and no actual working brake light. He pulled into the same shopping centre and I pulled up beside him and let him know. He said he was wondering why he could hear it clicking and asked, "but you can still see it, right?"

No, fix your ****ing lights. If you start to hear a new clicking noise, something is wrong.

Sam Kade

CiniO wrote: »

Have you ever been to the country side in Ireland?
Sides of roads in many places are narrower than vehicles, so how can you be fully on your side of the road?

Plenty boreens around Mayo

slimjimmc

visual wrote: »

If someone won't change a bulb they are hardly going to adjust light alignment.

Exactly, hence one source of dazzle.

visual wrote: »

Nearly every car I've seen also has park lights and its rare to see a car with dip and park bulb also gone.

I've seen plenty with not working front park lights at all, and enough with both dip and main beam blown in the same headlamp. Those are the type of driver who sometimes don't dip because their visibility of the nearside verge is too poor with just one offside lamp and no nearside lamp.

visual wrote: »

If your driving a country road and one or two headlights are coming towards you you ensure your on your side of the road so it shouldn't matter if its a single headlight car or a motorbike.

I theory it shouldn't , but in practice on narrow roads it's so easy to misinterpret a nearside single lamp especially on a rainy night, especially when both park lights are out as well and simply think it was a motorbike keeping close to his side on a narrow road. People have been caught out before.

Stoolbend

What drives me crazy is modern cars that have indicators in the car to tell you there's a bulb gone with bulbs gone.

They don't even have to get out to check their lights.

131spanner

Some days you'd rather see no lights than the poorly aligned after-market HID's blinding you coming from the daysul Toledo that's up your arse :mad:

But yeah it's surprising how many people are happy to drive without working lights. Blown bulbs and worn wiper blades are my pet hates I think

tempnam

Stoolbend wrote: »

What drives me crazy is modern cars that have indicators in the car to tell you there's a bulb gone with bulbs gone.

They don't even have to get out to check their lights.

Got a new (new to me) car recently. It warned me that a head light was gone - which I never had in previous cars. Bought a bulb on the way home and went to change it.... took me about an hour to change it though as there was no space to get my hand in at the back of the light fitting!

Stoolbend

I check all my tail lights when I'm filling up. That's every 8 to 10 days. There's a big window in the resteraunt behind where I get my diesel. When I pull up I go through all my lights before I get out of the car and it takes about 5 seconds.

My headlights get checked every morning against the garage door before I reverse out of the driveway.

That's just when I purposely check them. I have follow me home lights so I'd notice them gone pretty much straight away.

visual

CiniO wrote: »

Have you ever been to the country side in Ireland?
Sides of roads in many places are narrower than vehicles, so how can you be fully on your side of the road?

Regularly drive roads with grass growing up the middle and if I meet another vehicle having to reverse back and put two wheels in the ditch to allow them pass. Doing that in the dark isn't easy. The only advantage I have is 4 wheel drive to get me back out of ditch.