uk.autoblog.com/2012/02/29/one-in-nine-cars-unroadworthy-reckons-tesco/
(Meaning a light has failed.)
The figures seem to match my observations when driving in my area.
With few to enforce complience it is the MoT that is the back stop.
Will cameras be brought in to identify some of the rear light failures ?
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The dispiriting thing (I was going to write 'shocking', but that implies surprise) is the number you see with no front light at all showing on one side. I can give some benefit of the doubt to someone who's lost a bulb just as they were leaving work in the dark and has decided to get home with the parking light to mark one side, but to let both bulbs fail and just carry on is as inexcusable as driving on a bald tyre.
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Not that surprised. I told a lady dropping off her son about a rear light failure. At the time, it was a car I saw every morning while I walked to the station. New light fitted months later, either coinciding with a service or MOT.
At the time I was convinced she was avoiding me rather than get the light mended!
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I posted my comment before reading the article in Henry's link, which turns out to be specifically about brake lights. Bit of a surprise there, since they seem (in my experience anyway) to fail far less often than dip, tail or parking bulbs, which are illuminated for hours at a time. I've never had a brake light fail - my current car is still on its originals after nearly ten years.
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>> the number you see with no front light at all showing on one side.
Some numpties just use the high beam instead of replacing the faulty bulb for low beam.
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I saw an Audi A6 doing that on the Autobahn a few nights ago. Some truck driver took offence and let him have the full benefit of the half-dozen or so extra lamps on the front on his vehicle.
The Audi driver dipped to reveal one (1) working sidelight.......
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When I started working regular hours at the start of the year I was shocked by the number of idiots with no lights at all in the very grey conditions that prevailed as dawn struggled to break. I've noticed a substantial increase in one lighters in various shapes or forms.
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I'm on my second car with auto headlights. Caught myself driving in foggy daylight without lights ( other than those slightly embarrasing front drls ) the other day because I'd forgotten to over-ride the headlights to a manual "on" position. The car thought it knew better and hadn't switched them on despite worsening visibility.
I hate auto lights and wipers.
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>> I'm on my second car with auto headlights. Caught myself driving in foggy daylight without
>> lights ( other than those slightly embarrasing front drls ) the other day because I'd
>> forgotten to over-ride the headlights to a manual "on" position.
>>
That is extraordinarily common on bright mornings with a low-lying, temperature inversion fog. Looking horizontally everything is opaque with thick clag, yet the sky is bright, forcing auto lamp systems off. I've seen visibility down enough to warrant using the rear fogs with the auto-is-best loons still happily waffling along unlit.
There are way too many people out there who will happily use these things as a substitute for common sense for them to be a good idea.
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I passed one coming the other way last night with no n/s front lights of any description. It could very easily have been a motor bike riding rather far out, for all I could see. My sight is all right but I am more easily dazzled than I used to be.
I agree this is dangerous, although I rather dislike the MoT faffing about foglights which are generally useless and don't count in my opinion. But people are generally stupid about lighting. Apart from the many cars with one or both headlamps set too high - anomalous focusing is widespread - people aren't always sensible about for example leaving them on when parked with the engine running. Waited five minutes at the station for herself yesterday with one of these carphounds shining his lights in my o/s mirror.
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The best thing that could happen is to give Vosa the go ahead to stop and examine all vehicles as they see fit.
They have the time and the knowledge to sort all such problems out, they'd soon sort those illegal HiD bodge jobs out too, and the bald tyre brigade i still see regularly...the old bill simply don't have the time for this any more.
When a few thousand have had £80 instant fines in a week you would see a marked decrease in badly lit vehicles.
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>> The best thing that could happen is to give Vosa the go ahead to stop
>> and examine all vehicles as they see fit.
>>
Correct me if I'm wrong GB but surely they already have that power; my guess is that they don't bother to use it whilst HGV's are an easy target.
Problem with pulling car drivers for faulty lights is that by definition you only notice them when the light's already poor, making the flagging down of offenders a more risky process.
I don't think it's a question of time for Messrs. Plod, simply that it might involve doing some work. They're quick enough to pick up on motorcycle number plates which happen to be a millimetre too small though.
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>> Correct me if I'm wrong GB but surely they already have that power; my guess
>> is that they don't bother to use it whilst HGV's are an easy target.
You may well be right in theory HarleyM, but in practice other than taking a look at a few caravans once in a while on a holiday bound MSAs i've never seen them stopping and sorting out any half lit or obviously unroadworthy car.
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Me neither GB.
There's also the question of whether a certain section of the motoring community would willingly stop for a VOSA Galaxy that's not displaying blue strobes or the word "Police". Unfortunately that's also the section most likely to have their fogs on, illegal tints/HIDs etc.
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I reckon that about 50% of cars show incorrect front lighting ~ headlights not working or adjusted too high or foglamps on in clear conditions. I think that some drivers deliberately set one headlight high to compensate for poor eyesight.
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Really? Presumably these same drivers who know enough to adjust their own headlamp beam settings but not enough to aim them correctly are not the same ones who can't even find the lamp housing to replace a failed bulb.
Badly misaligned headlights are quite a rare sight, round here anyway. Maybe Lincolnshire has more people who make you wonder which eye to look at when you're talking to them.
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>> Really? Presumably these same drivers who know enough to adjust their own headlamp beam settings
>> but not enough to aim them correctly are not the same ones who can't even
>> find the lamp housing to replace a failed bulb.
>>
>> Badly misaligned headlights are quite a rare sight, round here anyway. Maybe Lincolnshire has more
>> people who make you wonder which eye to look at when you're talking to them.
>>
>>
I can adjust the alignment of my headlights easily. All I need is the correct size Allen key ~ which I possess. I leave changing a bulb to my dealer because it's so difficult.
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I suspect your perception is more due to the failings of your own eyesight rather that the actual adjustment of the car light. As we get older our vision is less able to cope with glare.
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>> I suspect your perception is more due to the failings of your own eyesight rather
>> that the actual adjustment of the car light. As we get older our vision is
>> less able to cope with glare.
>>
I have no problem with glare. It's quite obvious when one headlight is aimed high.
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not using it as an excuse but I am surprised no one has mentioned the fact that some (not naming any French carp) cars are not easy to change a light bulb at all.
Memories of front wheels off just to change a light bulb is a stupid design idea I think.
How many other cars have silly designs like this ?
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>> not using it as an excuse but I am surprised no one has mentioned the
>> fact that some (not naming any French carp) cars are not easy to change a
>> light bulb at all.
You beat me to it. I think any car that can't have a light bulb changed in under 10 minutes with no tools and no dismantling except for a headlight cover should fail the Vehicle Type Approval. None of this bumper off / remove air filter holder nonsense to change a headlight bulb.
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If it's any consolation, the situation is little better for some HGV's.
On my current Volvo, the headlight assembly is released by unscrewing a large knurled knob behind the unit. Fine in theory but in practice it's an area which collects road muck, which jams the thread; and if you've got large hands it's difficult to get a decent grip on it as you have to be almost double-jointed at the wrist.
Style over substance, the curse of modern vehicles.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Tue 20 Mar 12 at 16:47
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>> Memories of front wheels off just to change a light bulb is a stupid design
>> idea I think.
>>
>> How many other cars have silly designs like this ?
>>
If everything was easy to do, you'd be moaning about wasted space under the bonnet and unnecessarily high and long bonnets!
:-)
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nah never. i had a mitsubishi carisma and i swear i could crawl in the engine bay there. lovely thing to work on.
shame it never missed a beat when i had it. ho hum
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I went to a meeting this evening and had to park in an unlit yard. I left the parking lights on as a precaution, and as I walked away I noticed that the nearside one wasn't working. Strange, because the computer usually warns me when a bulb has gone. So beware, thy smugness shall find thee out.
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It's an offence that everyone will be guilty of at some time, because lights only fail when you use them. The same way biros only run out when you want to write something.
Even if you check your lights before starting on every single trip, when one fails it will inevitably be during use. The VOSA man might catch YOU at that moment, instead of the habitual offender who doesn't bother until MOT time.
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Agreed, I checked my bulbs, drove about a mile to the MOT garage and one failed during the test. Still passed of course, 30 second job on my car.
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>>drove about a mile to the MOT garage and one failed during the test
I was returning from an MOT when the speeding-up of my indicators on one side indicated a bulb had gone. When I got home I found the whole damn indicator light assembly had gone!
I retraced my route, but couldn't see it. A tester from the MOT station had followed me after the test and commented he'd seen what looked like a plastic drinks bottle in the road kicked up by my passing.
Rover Maestro. The whole thing was held in by a spring!
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>> Even if you check your lights before starting on every single trip, when one fails
>> it will inevitably be during use.
Actually no, bulbs inevitably fail during power up. So you can check your bulbs before you depart, except of course your brake light bulbs, got no chance in hell checking those every time they are used.
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The bulb check display on my dash seems to work well and has indicated dip beam failure in the past. I do still do a MK1 eyeball check.
As I have a comprehensive, verified, self assembled full set of spare bulbs on board I would hope that a VOSA bod would look kindly on me if I was stopped.
I have a suitably large screwdriver and past experience to be able to change a headlamp bulb in 10 minutes ( in the dry) :-)
Front side indicators ...dont know.. a reminder to look it up :-(
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Maybe some jinksed roads causing simultaneous failures.
Travel the B4525 teween Silverstone and Banbury and see how motorcycles you can meet that turn out to be Transits or similar with not a single glimmer from the offside, they didn;t all fail at that moment.
I think we know the difference between a blown light which ahppens to all of us and persistant neglect....a pull for a blown light will soon reveal a well maintained or otherwise vehicle.
I still keep my cars in what was once 'police officer looking for a customer' condition.
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>>
bulbs inevitably fail during power up. So you can check your bulbs before
>> you depart, except of course your brake light bulbs, got no chance in hell checking
>> those every time they are used.
>>
Or when you go over a bump perhaps. Only the other day I started a trip with 2 working headlights (parked up against a wall, so obvious both were working) and when I put it in the garage 20 minutes later, one had gone.
Brake lights are for me the easiest to test - the side lamps reflect off the hedges as I reverse down the sloping drive, and the centre light glows through the plastic cover inside the car.
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>> Even if you check your lights before starting on every single trip, when one fails
>> it will inevitably be during use. The VOSA man might catch YOU at that moment,
>> instead of the habitual offender who doesn't bother until MOT time.
>>
I quite agree, law of Sod dictates thus; but it would be nice if some drivers just made the effort to replace blown bulbs occasionally.
And don't get me started on side lights, or as our American cousins correctly call them "parking lamps"; I'm sure some drivers are still convinced that they save electricity by not using headlamps. The law regarding the use of side lights in a 30 limit is an anachronism going back to the days when cars only had dynamos, and should be scrapped.
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>>I'm sure some drivers are still convinced that they save electricity by not using headlamps.
At 55w per bulb that's 110w the alternator doesn't need to churn out.
To create 0.11kW to keep those lamps shining, you'd use an extra 50mls or so of petrol each hour = about 0.5p per minute to have your headlamps on.
Every penny counts....
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>> noticed that the nearside one wasn't working. Strange, because the computer usually warns me when
>> a bulb has gone. So beware, thy smugness shall find thee out.
>>
I saw one of the execs sitting in his "E" class in the car park the other day with only one headlamp on. I dropped him a line asking if he knew.
The answer I got was that he didn't and that meant he had two faults. The lamp and the system that's supposed to tell him it's not working....
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I take the point about about cars with lights not working, but the main problem is those who do not even switch them on. I usually set off at 5 - 6 am and many mornings recently have been very foggy as well as dark. The number of cars without any lights in fog and semi darkness is amazing. Trying to spot certain coloured cars in the mirrors in those conditions is difficult to say the least.
With regard to "not naming any French carp", as far as I can remember, my 12 year old Zantia has yet to have have a bulb fail!! And yes, I do check each day! (Guess what will happen tomorrow at 6am!!)
P
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It seems to be a fashion amongst neds and barryboys to drive around urban streets at night with just sidelights on.
Totally cool, man.
(I know it's legal on lit 30mph roads, but why draw attention from the Plod?)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Thu 22 Mar 12 at 21:50
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See now i don't agree with the move to ever increasing use of headlamps in the current light wars, particularly in well lit urban areas, it leads to unlit people and objects disappearing.
I'm sure many here remember as soon as you entered London that you'd switch to side lights only, universal at the time....i bet AC misses those days, i do, London night driving was enjoyable, the same cannot be said now.
It was so easy to drive like that, your eyes became used to semi light as given by street lights, unlit pedestrians and poorly lit cyclists apart from anything else unlit didn't disappear as they now do, vehicles were easily seen and approaching speeds or otherwise gauged, mind you side lights were usually separate lamp units instead of the modern version of a green or blue camp community bulb hidden inside the head/side/driving/fog/indicator lamps currently favoured.
Volvo (Saab too?) had it right in the 80's when they started the simple non blinding use of a 21w filament inside the side lights for use as daytime running lights, when you truned your side lights on the 21W went out leaving the normal 5w light showing, mind you they were good separate lamps....dim dip again was a brilliant idea.
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>>leaving the normal 5w light showing, mind you they were good separate lamps....dim dip again was a brilliant idea.
>>
IMO, as I have mentioned before, another brilliant idea is to uprate your sidelights.
I have W5W blue bulbs and they are far far brighter than the original bulbs.
They give a very white light like LEDs and are a good back up for a failed dip beam.
Not that I care much but they look better than those dim yellow standard bulbs.
They came free with my uprated dip /main beam bulbs I bought some years ago.
I thought I would try these "chav" bulbs and now would not have any others.
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Don't they show a blue colour though Henry, i thought only the Queen could have blue running lights...;)
The front sidelights on the Hilux were poor offerings, a section of the headlight was 'coned off' for the sidelight which was all but invisible unless from directly ahead, i put white LEDs in their place which improved things no end...not an option for all though as many cars will throw a wobbly with the low wattage.
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>>Don't they show a blue colour though Henry, i thought only the Queen could have blue running lights...;)
>>
To my great surprise you would have no idea they were blue unless you are a few inches away from the headlamp unit and even then it is difficult to see any blue.
I have "Philips W5W Blue Vision Ultra blue 3400 degree Kelvin" fitted.
Re other brands/versions :- I have not tried any so have no idea if they perform the same.
These are the first ones I fitted and have not had one fail yet.
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>> See now i don't agree with the move to ever increasing use of headlamps in
>> the current light wars, particularly in well lit urban areas, it leads to unlit people
>> and objects disappearing.
>>
In my younger days, in any town, it was customary to switch off headlights. Even when it became customary to use headlights in town when moving, it was considered to be courteous to switch off headlamps when you were stationary at traffic lights, especially at crossroads.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 09:31
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Cars with lights not working - some % figures - WillDeBeest
