I can see clearly now my lights are on...

[RealUnimportant]

... I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the honking horns that had been loud.
Instead of black (black, black!) everything's grey.

I know the clocks changing throws out people's schedules a bit & causes confusion no matter how many decades you've lived through it happening, but really... How hard is it to remember to turn on your headlights before you pull out into traffic? When you have drivers flashing you whether they're approaching from in front or behind, does this not give you pause to wonder why?

And cyclists! You lose all right to complain about me cutting you off if you're riding a dark coloured bike without lights or reflectors on an unlight street while wearing matt black clothing. It's a miracle I saw you in the first place, & I don't know about you but I'm beginning to wish I'd packed a change of underwear.

[PepperElf]

I like the icon you put with the thread. clever.


and yeah people who don't use headlights in dim light are dumb. "Parking lights" do not make you more visible. that's like putting a single christmas light on your wrist and expecting everyone to be able to see you from 100 feet in the dusk. it just doesn't work.

hell i just do what my parents do... the fact my car has daytime running lights? the fact that my regular headlights turn on automatically when it's dark enough?... just stuff to lower my insurance. whenever i start my car i turn the headlights on. period.

that way i never have to worry.



as for the cyclists... they should do what my bf does....
i forgot what brand name it is but he has some special lights on his tires that light up in patterns when he rides.

on the back of mine he put a fucking-annoying tail light ... specially designed to "encourage" drivers to not be directly behind me. ... directly behind the biker it will annoy your eyes if you're too close. it "encourages" the drivers to go to the left and stay away from me.

[Shalom]

I have to confess, I've forgotten to turn my lights on. My previous car had lights that went on automatically when it got dark (or when you went into a tunnel, or when you put a pizza box on the dash and it covers the sensor), and I got used to not having to deal with that. Now if you don't turn them on , they don't turn on. I generally figure it out pretty quickly, though, as soon as I get onto the part of the road where there aren't any lights.

(If you don't turn them off before shutting off the car, they will go off, but they come back on as soon as you insert the key in the ignition, and stay on even while you're cranking. This makes no sense to me: when starting an engine, you want as little other power drain as possible.)

[BlaqueKatt]

as for the cyclists... they should do what my bf does....
i forgot what brand name it is but he has some special lights on his tires that light up in patterns when he rides.

on the back of mine he put a fucking-annoying tail light ... specially designed to "encourage" drivers to not be directly behind me. ... directly behind the biker it will annoy your eyes if you're too close. it "encourages" the drivers to go to the left and stay away from me.

also EL wire is inexpensive, and wraps nicely around bike frames, as do battery operated LEDs designed for outdoor holiday wreaths.....(string of 50 is like $4)

[RealUnimportant]

If it's a well lit street (and there's a proper definition that escapes me temporarily), it's legal in the UK to only use your sidelights (parking lights) but due to legislation changes over the years there's very few cars that still use the roads at those times & only have those lights available - all the cars I own fit this bracket however. I like doing it to freak people out, but as soon as the ambient lighting gets even slightly dodgy I'll whack on the dipped beams.

[Food Lady]

Now that I think about it, I drive with my lights on during the day half the time. I don't know why.

[Andara Bledin]

I used to be really good about turning my lights on as necessary. In 20 years of driving, I'd only forgotten maybe a half dozen times. About the same as for turning my lights off, come to think of it.

But now I have a car with the auto light setup and an alarm for when the lights are on and the door is open, so unless it's raining and bright out, I never have to think about it. If I ever go back to a car without the automatic setting, I'm going to have to retrain myself.

^-.-^

[Kristev]

And people wonder why I keep a flashlight in my backpack.

When it gets dark and I can't see, odds are you can't see me, either. A flashlight really counteracts that problem rather well.

[RealUnimportant]

I saw a little kid, can't have been more than 3, using a flashlight in a supermarket carpark yesterday; I certainly had no trouble spotting him running away from his parental unit, avoiding any form of unpleasantnes that may have arisen otherwise!

[Jetfire]

One thing I've noticed a lot lately and really appreciate is dog walkers. Specifically people walking their dogs with LEDs on the animal's collars. Considering it's pitch black at 5PM or so now, it makes sense and does make them noticeable at least.

Last night I turned onto a path, and saw 2 red lights coming my way and I could just make out a figure behind them. At first I thought it was a pair of bikes or something else, until I realized they were coming towards me. Then I realized it was someone walking their dogs; really well trained dogs too for that matter, with 2 red LEDs on their collars. (I've seen other people with pets with blue LEDs on too).

[Chromatix]

I have an unfortunate abit of wearing fairly dark clothing myself. However:

1) I keep reflective elastic bracelets on my gloves. So in the darkest and coldest parts of winter, I can be seen easily by those.

2) I keep an eye out for approaching cars, so I am rarely in their way in the first place.

[Difdi]

I know the clocks changing throws out people's schedules a bit & causes confusion no matter how many decades you've lived through it happening, but really... How hard is it to remember to turn on your headlights before you pull out into traffic? When you have drivers flashing you whether they're approaching from in front or behind, does this not give you pause to wonder why?

Some of them might not be aware of it.

My mother recently bought a hybrid sedan and it has this annoying "feature" to the headlights. They have two intensity settings, what I call Dim and Almost Off. They're more running lights than anything else, you can't really see a difference between completely off and either of the brightness settings since they get washed out by street lights.

Switching on the headlights puts them in Almost Off mode; They do project light, and people can see the on-coming headlights, but they don't illuminate much of anything. To get them to Dim, which is about half the output of almost any other car on the road, you have to switch on the high beams, using a separate control from the headlight switch, the separate control does not do anything if you don't have the "headlights" control on already.

My mother is accustomed to driving cars with usable headlights, and likewise unused to having to hit two different switches to get her headlights to switch on. So she forgets all the time.