Heavy rain, poor visabilty - no lights

pookienoodle

oldagetraveller wrote: »

Something else I've noticed over the past few months, including dark winter days, are idiots driving around in fog, rain and/or poor visibility with their sunglasses on! The same people, more often than not, don't bother switching dipped beams on in the same conditions.

They could be polarized lenses,depending on the level of light these can improve your vision on a wet day.
Also people with photosensivity need to wear them when driving,of course they could just be idiots who think they look good.:cool:

Inactive

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

And I'll line this on up for Inactive, , my Renault has the most useless auto wiper system imaginable. Every time you swith of the engine you have to restart the auto wiper bit:rolleyes:

:rotfl: That is assuming that they are still functioning..

hewhoisnotintheknow

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Auto wipers are a bit different, yes they will switch on when it rains but in intermitant rain and roadsplash they do provide a means of avoiding constantly pratting about with the wiper speeds.

And I'll line this on up for Inactive, , my Renault has the most useless auto wiper system imaginable. Every time you swith of the engine you have to restart the auto wiper bit:rolleyes:

most cars do that by design, incase you have a load of snow or ice that has frozen your wipers, saves wrecking the blades and wipers

hewhoisnotintheknow

Inactive wrote: »

I can see them without lights on, perhaps a trip to Specsavers may be in order..

you old troll!

cyclonebri1

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

most cars do that by design, incase you have a load of snow or ice that has frozen your wipers, saves wrecking the blades and wipers

Ha, but my wife has the same car but 18 months newer. They changed it so it remembers it was left on auto on her year model

Inactive

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

you old troll!

Less of the " old " ..

Rallydriver

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

you old troll!

I read somewhere that a 60 year old needs 8 times the light intensity to see effectively that a 20 year old does.

Psychobabble

oldagetraveller wrote: »

Something else I've noticed over the past few months, including dark winter days, are idiots driving around in fog, rain and/or poor visibility with their sunglasses on! The same people, more often than not, don't bother switching dipped beams on in the same conditions.

Might some of them be wearing driving glasses that have special lenses designed to increase visibility and help prevent glare, Serengeti do a good range, look like normal sunglasses but are far from it, so maybe not all idiots after all.
http://www.serengeti-europe.co.uk/

AdrianHi

Naturally the driver has to take responsibility for deciding when to override decisions made by the auto lights system. I find my automatic lights to be brilliant:
1. conveniant
2. puts the lights on earlier than I might decide to do it myself
3. do seem to come on in poor visibility / rain (mostly, see below)
4. come on when you go through brief periods of darkness like under tree canopies when no other driver puts their lights on

In 3.5 years and 44000 miles I have only felt the need to put the lights on manually twice - bright sun just after some rain with a lot of spary coming off the road from vehicles in front.

Are they neccessary?
No.
But they are nice to have and probably make a small contribution to better safety margins.

Similarily auto wipers are very good to have. Going back to driving a car without them you suddenly realise how much of your attention is taken by turning wipers on and off manually in intermittent rain conditions.

rev_henry

I was driving down the M6 yesterday in what can only be described as a monsoon. Everyone including me was doing 45-50 in lane 1, and lorries were overtaking (I guess because they're big they're not affected by the weather so much) and throwing up spray as they did so making it worse. Anyway, there was one lorry in lane 2 overtaking everyone with only sidelights on. I barely noticed him and thought how dangerous it was, especially when I looked at the lorries near that one with their dipped beams on, which I could see very very clearly.