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Do cars need to have their taillights on?
Nathaniel_Essex
Posts: 159 Forumite
in Motoring
Something that has been confusing me with modern cars. Plenty of times I've been flashing a car from behind as their taillights are not on and I'm assuming therfore the headlights are not on. Sometimes I get a glimpse of the front and can see their headlights are on but the taillights are not. I'm only really noticing this in newer cars. What's going on here?
On a separate note. What's the point of day time running lights? Whilst sitting in my car an elderly gentleman knocked my window (I had an older model of the same car) and asked if I knew how to turn off his lights as they are always on. Could not see the point of them.
On a separate note. What's the point of day time running lights? Whilst sitting in my car an elderly gentleman knocked my window (I had an older model of the same car) and asked if I knew how to turn off his lights as they are always on. Could not see the point of them.
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Comments
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Nathaniel_Essex wrote: »Something that has been confusing me with modern cars. Plenty of times I've been flashing a car from behind as their taillights are not on and I'm assuming therfore the headlights are not on. Sometimes I get a glimpse of the front and can see their headlights are on but the taillights are not. I'm only really noticing this in newer cars. What's going on here?
On a separate note. What's the point of day time running lights? Whilst sitting in my car an elderly gentleman knocked my window (I had an older model of the same car) and asked if I knew how to turn off his lights as they are always on. Could not see the point of them.
New cars have daylight running lights turn with startup key. Tail lights require turn on with lighting switch "headlamps/tail lights"
It is supposed to make cars more visible to see coming just like it only used to be motor bikes with headlights on.
Now everybody is used to it they pull out in front of motorbikes.:(The world is not ruined by the wickedness of the wicked, but by the weakness of the good. Napoleon0 -
The problem came when car designers established what must be a 'pretty DRL lighting unit' and decided DRLs had to become a fashion statement.
Before that (and as the case in both our cars) the DRLs are about as powerful as basic torch bulb. Drive without lights and you know it.
Then the "pretty DRL lighting unit" came into being and DRLs are as powerful as a lighthouse bulb. It is quite possible to drive around with just them on and dozy drivers do so not realising they have no rear illumination whatsoever.
It gets interesting on motorways when the mimser is doing 50mph with no rear lights and you approach at 70mph.
Of course the real reason for the 'pretty DRL lighting unit' is profit maximisation. A basic bulb is pennies. A new LED DRL unit is hundreds or thousands of pounds and they do fail, despite LEDs supposedly being longer lasting. The bulbs are fine, the controllers fail- kerching for the dealer.0 -
Ah, DRLs...
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/daytime-running-lights/daytime-running-lights
(And before anybody says "brexit"... We aren't leaving the UN...)
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:42010X0630(03)&from=EN0 -
So lemme get this straight... Manufacturers fit a pair of expensive units to every single new car, at a cost into the hundreds of pounds, on the offchance that they'll sell a small proportion of replacements with a margin in the tens of pounds per unit?Of course the real reason for the 'pretty DRL lighting unit' is profit maximisation. A basic bulb is pennies. A new LED DRL unit is hundreds or thousands of pounds and they do fail, despite LEDs supposedly being longer lasting. The bulbs are fine, the controllers fail- kerching for the dealer.
It's a good conspiracy theory, but I'm really not sure you've thought it through...0 -
The cost to put led lights on is in the low pounds not hundreds.So lemme get this straight... Manufacturers fit a pair of expensive units to every single new car, at a cost into the hundreds of pounds, on the offchance that they'll sell a small proportion of replacements with a margin in the tens of pounds per unit?
It's a good conspiracy theory, but I'm really not sure you've thought it through...
The law dictates you have to have drl fitted since 2011.
Evidence seems to show a drop in accident having all cars with them hence we all have to have them.0 -
The cost he was suggesting is to buy them from a dealer, not manufacture them.So lemme get this straight... Manufacturers fit a pair of expensive units to every single new car, at a cost into the hundreds of pounds, on the offchance that they'll sell a small proportion of replacements with a margin in the tens of pounds per unit?
It's a good conspiracy theory, but I'm really not sure you've thought it through...Changing the world, one sarcastic comment at a time.0 -
The problem for me is that DRL means the dash illumination is always on too, which in the past only used to happen when side/headlamps were on. I'm guilty of having driven for a short distance on occasion, in well-lit towns, with just my DRLs on0
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The problem for me is that DRL means the dash illumination is always on too, which in the past only used to happen when side/headlamps were on. I'm guilty of having driven for a short distance on occasion, in well-lit towns, with just my DRLs on
My car activates the DRL when main lights are not on but the display on the dash is not on at night unless you have the main lights as well. This is a good reminder if you don't have the main lights on e.g. if the auto setting has been turned off because you can't see the dash. Thus, a design issue with your car, not DRL
I see a fair few cars out with DRL only on and nothing at the back, accident waiting to happen reallySam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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"The law dictates you have to have drl fitted since 2011."
Do you have any links to that law?
My March 2014 car certainly doesn't have nor has any requirement for daytime fairy lights.
It's passed two MoT tests without them or any reference to them not being fitted or indeed a requirement.0 -
oldagetraveller wrote: »"The law dictates you have to have drl fitted since 2011."
Do you have any links to that law?
My March 2014 car certainly doesn't have nor has any requirement for daytime fairy lights.
It's passed two MoT tests without them or any reference to them not being fitted or indeed a requirement.
the law does require new cars to have them fitted but only if it is a new model, hence why some new cars dont have them if the model hasnt been changed since the introduction of the law.
my 2016 focus does not have them0
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