Windscreen wipers enabling head/tail lights

kirving

There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't drive around with your headlights and tail lights on at all times.

Low sun behind you, low sun in front of you, driving in the shadow of a building, country road with trees overhead, fog, water spray in bright sunlight, overtaking a truck where the flash of a head light in a mirror is much more visible than a dark grey car passing by, plenty of reasons to have them on all the time.

And don't "well other road users should be looking out for you, and it's their fault if they don't see you". You might be right, but there's no point being right after an accident.

CiniO

OSI wrote: »

I'd say that's the opposite of true to be honest. There's a reason brake lights, stop lights and warning lights are red. Our eyes are very sensitive and perceptive to the colour, if anything I'd imagine the eye would be more perceptive and reactive to the red lights on the rear of a car than the white lights on the front.

While I know nothing about eye sensitiveness to red colour, and I truly believe you are right here, I still disagree with the need for tail lights at daytime in good visibility.

There's not a hope to even tell if car at distance away has tail lights on/off at daytime.
You can probably only tell when close enough and usually only during overcast/cloudy conditions. At bright sunlight, you might not be even able to tell if car right in front of you in traffic jam has rear tail lights on or off.

Never since I start driving, I found rear tail lights at day to make me see car better. I was never in a situation when I though - oh jeysus there's a car just right there - I would have seen earlier it if it had tail light on.
Never.
And that's why I consider them pointless at daytime in good weather.

Front lights are completely different kettle of fish.
The main reason why they are helpful at day, is because they can be seen from far distance, while car without lights might not be seen at all from that distance.
When travelling 100km/h on N road you are covering nearly 30 metres in each second.
Other car oncoming at 100km/h, and you are getting closer to each other by nearly 60 metres each second.
That means if oncoming car is half a kilometre away, you are going to meet it in 9 seconds.
And it's extremely hard to see oncoming car from half a kilometre without lights, but very easy with them.
That's the real reason you need front lights at day.

CiniO

I've seen a post on facebook today, showing how truck driver can see cars without lights in mirrors during rain.
While I don't drive trucks, I have the same experience with seeing unlit cars in bus mirrors during rain or fog.

grogi

CiniO wrote: »

I've seen a post on facebook today, showing how truck driver can see cars without lights in mirrors during rain.
While I don't drive trucks, I have the same experience with seeing unlit cars in bus mirrors during rain or fog.

Combine the above with the preference for colours that allow the car blend with the tarmac... The cars in Ireland basically sell in 50 shades of grey.

colm_mcm

CiniO wrote: »

I've seen a post on facebook today, showing how truck driver can see cars without lights in mirrors during rain.
While I don't drive trucks, I have the same experience with seeing unlit cars in bus mirrors during rain or fog.

Isn't this more about how they can't see them?

mikeecho

Anyone who has ever worked in the service industry will know that the general public are idiots.

Drl' s should be run in congention with rear lights, and if they don't, then turn your lights on.

But the general populas is stupid.

Henry Ford III

colm_mcm wrote:

Our vans even have them, just normal bulbs, nothing fancy.

colm_mcm wrote:

You mean LED DRLs maybe ?

All new Fords have DRLs. Some have LED DRLs.

zilog_jones

AlfaZen wrote: »

Why don’t we just make it mandatory here that when your engine is on your lights have to be on?
Is there any valid argument against this?

You're talking 160W (or more) for halogen dipped beams, tail lights and everything associated with these - that can be around 0.5 MPG depending on the car. To have these running all the time on every car would be a significant use of energy and increase of emissions, in a country that is already not going to meet CO2 targets and will probably be fined for exceeding them. LED DRLs are more in the region of 8-20W.

I'm all for automatic headlights linked to rain sensors or whatever. Even my '02 Peugeot 406 did this - it had auto lights, but maybe just got dark enough anyway when there was heavy rain.

Another problem is bad driver behaviour with cars fitted with DRLs and the driver thinking thy have their lights on because their dash is lit up.

I've seen guards driving around in the dark with only DRLs on! :rolleyes: