Look before you dazzle
Do you know how bright your car’s lights are? That sounds a stupid question, but most drivers never stand in front of their vehicle to experience the glare of its lights. If they did, they would get a shock.
Cars have lights so other road users can see them, and to illuminate the road at night. They are essential for safety – hence the lunacy of cyclists who insist on riding at night without them. But, like any other equipment, they must be used sensibly – particularly in daylight.
Many drivers don’t seem to know how bright their lights are, or which controls operate which lights; their choice is often downright dangerous. I was once stopped by the police because I had inadvertently switched on my hire car’s rear fog lamps, blinding drivers behind me.
Apart from owners of Volvos – whose makers are strangely able to manufacture right-hand drive models for the UK market but not disconnect the 24/7 sidelights compulsory in the Arctic – we at present can choose whether to drive with our lights on during the day. Until recently hardly anyone did, then bus drivers began to, and now the roads in broad daylight are plagued by over-bright headlights. For many, using them is a statement: “I am driving a bus, which is too small for you to notice”; “I am on my mobile, so watch out”, or “I drive a minicab/maintenance van/Grand Cayenne and my ego requires you to notice me.”
From early 2011, we shall have less choice. Then an EU directive kicks in requiring all new cars to have “day-lights” – dipped headlights that will not switch off – in the name of safety. They are already compulsory in 14 countries, and experts claim that extending them to the rest of the EU will save up to 2,000 lives a year.
Those of us driving older vehicles will not have to switch on, but the arrival on our roads of more cars where you can’t switch the damn things off will be a further incentive to egotistical or inconsiderate road users who drive around in daylight hell bent on incinerating the eyeballs of oncoming motorists.
Worse still, with the switch from conventional to halogen and now LED technology, car lights are getting brighter every year. Many headlights now dazzle oncomers even when dipped, particularly when the vehicle is driven over the crest of a hill, a bridge, or speed hump. German manufacturers are the prime culprits, though Range Rover are catching up fast. Mercedes’ new-generation sidelights – yes, sidelights – are so concentratedly bright that they must have bought up a job lot of Gestapo surplus interrogation lamps.
If the road safety lobby insists we drive around with our lights on no matter how bright the day, it should also demand that car makers show some sense of proportion over the lights they instal, and urge drivers to use them responsibly. Otherwise the end result will be not fewer accidents, but more.
