Penalty for driving without lights on

TooManyPoints

Got to to be covered by Driving without undue care and attention, maximum penalty 9 points ?

You probably mean with undue care and attention, or possibly without due care and attention. Easiest of all is "careless driving."

However, the chances of police making an allegation of any of those for simply driving without lights on (unless there are any aggravating circumstances) is as close to zero as can be imagined. The chances of receiving nine points for it is absolutely zero - or maybe even less.

[Deleted User]

scrappy_returns said:

DRL's are to blame for this. It winds me up, and the drivers getting flashed still don't cotton on, as evidenced above.

People are quick to blame technology for their mistakes, it's not DRL to blame, it's people not checking things. I admit I have my lighting on auto but when I turn the car on at night, I check before I set off e.g. by the car lights reflected in a car I am parked opposite or whatever

Ditzy_Mitzy

chrisw said:

It's happened to me a few times, always after a service,

I can't understand why garages always turn the auto lights off. They all seem to do it whether it's main dealer or smaller garage. They always ask whether the mirrors are set to fold or not, it would be helpful if they also turned the lights back on again afterwards.

God forbid a driver might actually have to take responsibility for checking what setting his or her own headlight switch is on!  To be honest, I'm glad I've not got any of that rubbish fitted.  I had a car with automatic wipers fitted, years ago, and rarely bothered with the setting as it never seemed to work properly.  

Ganga

I pulled away from a curry house last week jumped in the car ,put the carrier bag down safely ,started the engine and checked the road ,drove off ,30 seconds later noticed lights not on ,the dash lights up when the engine starts ( Vauxhall Astra 2004 ) and the street lights made driving ok BUT still my fault ,switched them on and told myself off .

Jenni_D

You pulled away from a curry house then jumped in a car? Wow!  

seatbeltnoob

unlikely to receive anything, people overuse the flash a bit too much. So when you get flashed you have no idea.

I tend to blink my dipped beams one and off twice and that always seems to send the message over.

Aretnap

caprikid1 said:

Got to to be covered by Driving without undue care and attention, maximum penalty 9 points ?

I suppose it would meet the definition of careless driving (driving that falls below the standard expected of a competent, careful driver), as would pretty much any other type of bad driving that you can think of (eg driving too fast, going through red lights, using a mobile phone etc etc). 

However generally speaking a catch-all offence like careless driving should not and will not be used when there's a more specific offence that covers the act. In this case breaching the Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations (maximum penalty £1000 fine, in practice a £50 fixed penalty).

There is no chance whatsoever of getting 9 points for this. 

sevenhills

GunJack said:

What I don't understand is why, with DRL, they don't switch on the rear lights as well, a la volvo/saab used to for the scandinavian market - far more sensible than the equivalent of sidelights minus the back end 

With 35 million cars in the UK, how much wasted energy would that be?

sevenhills

scrappy_returns said:

DRL's are to blame for this. It winds me up, and the drivers getting flashed still don't cotton on, as evidenced above.

I had that this morning, but I ended up behind the vehicle, so a few pips on the horn and they got the message.

Some drivers seem to do nothing when they see others without lights! It's an accident in the making.

scrappy_returns

sevenhills said:

GunJack said:

What I don't understand is why, with DRL, they don't switch on the rear lights as well, a la volvo/saab used to for the scandinavian market - far more sensible than the equivalent of sidelights minus the back end 

With 35 million cars in the UK, how much wasted energy would that be?

None