EV chat

Something else about this new car. I have noticed that if using the built in sat-nav that shows one speed limit but the dash also has a speed limit display that can be different. Am I right in thinking the sat-nav speed limit is what it in its map data and the dash speed limit is from "reading" the road signs?
 
Owen Smith said:
they should be so dim that no-one can possibly drive at night on just the DRLs, but I have seen several people doing that.
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Likewise. If the opportunity arises, I usually flash them several time from behind and then again with the rear fogs, having overtaken them. I doubt the message goes anywhere.
 
Wildebeest said:
DRLs are what they say on the tin... at night the driver should turn their lights on! If the car has automatic lights they don't even need to do that! Not difficult.
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Daylight running lights are allegedly so other drivers can see you. I don't understand why they only need to see the front of your vehicle. I'll grant you the rear is less important but it isn't unimportant. If lights aren't needed to see the rear of a vehicle then they are not needed to see the front of it either.

And then there's the muppet failure of people driving at night just on the daylight running lights. That alone is a good reason to either not have daylight running lights at all or have them at the rear as well. People make stupid mistakes, and in this case it's quite likely they won't even notice. Something this error prone should not exist.
 
I can't tell whether I've seen rear DLRs or someone has put their lights on. Whatever, the rear lights are so bright you could confuse them with fog lights or even brake lights (if you forget the usual single light high up) and also be dazzled by them.
 
EEPhil said:
I can't tell whether I've seen rear DLRs or someone has put their lights on. Whatever, the rear lights are so bright you could confuse them with fog lights or even brake lights (if you forget the usual single light high up) and also be dazzled by them.
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Oh indeed, all car lights are now so bright they dazzle you. At night I drive most of the time with the rear view mirror dipped now (I didn't need to when the car was new 24 years ago), and I wish my door mirrors had a dip function.
 
I frequently get dazzled when walking on the pavement. It doesn't matter whether I'm walking facing the traffic (as I would where there is no pavement) or with my back to the traffic. Day or night, some bar steward's headlights get me. Whether it's badly set lights, main beam, road bumps or positioning to avoid potholes I don't know. Does nothing to help my migraines.
 
There's a department of transport study that's been running for several years which is due to report this year on brightness of car lights and people being dazzled. It is a widely known problem. Colour balance is also part of the issue, modern lights have a higher colour temperature and that causes more dazzle for older drivers due to how blue scatters in aging eyeballs. SUVs have lights mounted higher which are directly in the eyeline of drivers of normal cars. The limits on how bright lights can be are antiquated and based on wattage of incandescent or Xenon HID lamps. I don't know if any limit applies to LEDs. Any legal change will take a decade or two to have an effect though given the fleet of cars on the road, plus UK only legislation is not going to be popular with car manufacturers.

I also find myself increasingly being dazzled by bicycle lights, the riders seeming to think the thing to do with a very bright light is shine it straight out to blind everyone so they can see neither the cyclist nor anything else.
 
Black Hole said:
Then they would not be DRLs.

I cannot think of any purpose for them; if the idea is in case the driver is too stupid to put the lights on when conditions are poor, then we now have a squadron of drivers too stupid to realise DRLs are not sufficient at night. I followed a car quite late at night, and when he pulled in to park I rolled up alongside and said he wasn't showing lights at the rear because he was only on DRLs. Apparently that was a complete surprise to him.


I refer you to my previous comment:
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Owen Smith said:
Oh indeed, all car lights are now so bright they dazzle you. At night I drive most of the time with the rear view mirror dipped now (I didn't need to when the car was new 24 years ago), and I wish my door mirrors had a dip function.
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Yes there should be a careful balance of the lights being bright enough to see and be seen but NOT cause undue dazzle or annoyance to other road users. One of the useful technical add-on frills of newer cars is that they often come with automatically dimming/dipping interior and door mirrors which are very effective. One of our vehicles also includes a reversing function on the door mirrors which alters the angle of the mirror, when you select reverse gear, so you can see the kerb and rear wheel BUT instead of altering both mirrors it only does the one you last selected to adjust? So, a very useful auto function but the implementation could have been better thought out.

DRL ought to be fitted with auto dimming so that they cannot be used as lighting during darkness as most are non focused arrays so the light scatter from them is huge. One of our cars has this, the other does not have very bright DRL anyway - both actually switch off the DRL when the vehicle is stationary with handbrake activated, hence no need for the Daytime Running Lights!

The very worst dazzle I have experienced was from a bicycle rear red light! Last winter we had just gone out one evening in light drizzle and misty conditions. Just outside of the village going up the hill on a bend I came across a cyclist with a ridiculously bright single point flashing rear light - my whole windscreen and what little I could see outside was just a flashing bright red mist - I had to drop way back to try and reduce the blindness to make sure I was following the road! Luckily he/she/it turned a different way to me at the end of the road. I did think of trying to have a polite word but I thought that it would not be very safe to do so and would probably only bring forth a string of expletives.
 
One of my previous cars, an Escort but I can't remember which revision (Mk4 perhaps) had dim-dip. If the ignition was on, then engaging sidelights not only turned on the parking lights but ran the dipped beam lamps in series (instead of parallel as usual), so each bulb had 6V across it.

woodbar said:
The very worst dazzle I have experienced was from a bicycle rear red light!
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Be grateful – most of the cycles I see are unlit with riders completely clothed in black.
 
Black Hole said:
One of my previous cars, an Escort but I can't remember which revision (Mk4 perhaps) had dim-dip. If the ignition was on, then engaging sidelights not only turned on the parking lights but ran the dipped beam lamps in series (instead of parallel as usual), so each bulb had 6V across it.


Be grateful – most of the cycles I see are unlit with riders completely clothed in black.
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With your example I think we have covered both extremes of some cyclists extreme stupidity and any lack of logical thought processes.

I blame Volvo - I think thet started the DRL
 
woodbar said:
I blame Volvo - I think thet started the DRL
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Actually it was the Swedish government. Sweden used to drive on the left like the UK, but had a big changeover in the 1950s (?), the entire country in one day. As part of that the law required sidelights on all the time to reduce issues with people driving on the previous side of the road. Then because sidelights were legally required, Swedish car manufacturers started removing the ability to turn sidelights off.

What Sweden should have done is had a 5 or 10 year sunset clause in the mandatory sidelights law. Then car manufacturers would not have removed the option on the switches.
 
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