I’m convinced that if we did nothing else but heavily incentivize this, plus proper usage of the left lane, we would solve a lot of our traffic problems.
Forget all the fancy automation - just fine the living crap out of people who fail to perform these most basic tasks inherent to driving a car. There’s really no excuse for not signaling. With that said, I’m all for fully automating cars and frankly I can’t wait for it, because humans are really, really bad at driving.
Back when I was in Boy Scouts, a fellow scout’s father worked for the state highway patrol. He used to say there were two kinds of drivers - those who used their turn signal, and those who caused accidents.
He also had a lot to say about seat belt non-users, some of it printable.
This. And DOT has failed in this – it would be trivial for the car to NOT illuminate the instruments if it’s dark and the headlights are off (or just to make automatic headlights standard).
The other night I was driving down a pretty main road around 930 pm. (Madison, west from Forest Park, IL.) I was essentially the only car on the road. Couldn’t believe the posted speed limit was 25! I repeatedly looked at my speedometer and saw I was in the low 40s. Took quite an effort to keep it under 35.
AFAICT, no speed cameras, but several of those flashing lights telling you your speed and to SLOW DOWN!
Mentioning headlights, I sure wish police monitored and enforced laws about over-bright and mis-aimed headlights. (If there are such laws.) Not sure how many such lights are factory vs after market.
My car is worse. It dims the instruments when the headlights are turned on, making it really hard to read if, say, it’s rainy out but bright. And there’s kinda of a subliminal disincentive to turn on the lights until it’s dark enough that I’ll still be able to see the speedometer and stuff.
A lot of that is factory, and i don’t believe there are any laws about overly bright headlights. In fact, bright headlights significantly improve the safety of the car with those lights. Now that very bright headlights are feasible, i think the industry is still working out how best to use them, and to avoid blinding others. It’s a known problem, but there’s not a known solution, as just “make them dimmer” is clearly not the best solution.
Also daytime running lights. The combination of the illuminated dash and seeing light on the road/vehicles ahead makes those inattentive drivers not realize what they’re doing. I suspect there’s some significant overlap between people driving around at night without their lights on and those driving around during the day with their high beams on.
Since all of this stuff is automated these days, there should be more forceful warnings (flashing/beeping, etc) along the lines of “hey shouldn’t you turn on your headlights since it’s dark out?” or “your high beams have been on for a while, and I’m detecting lots of other light sources, do you really want to keep them on?”
Exactly. Thirty years ago this stuff would have been tricky–in the 1970s, we bought a kit at Radio Shack to add variable timing to the wipers in our car and eventually gave up on it because it was too complicated (for us, anyway); nowadays it’s probably on every car and just enabled by software. Same for the rest of this.
Also, headlights are too bright, another DOT fail. There’s a subreddit, r/****yourheadlights, that’s quite interesting (you can fill in the asterisks!).
Yes. There’s an override, I’m sure–but you have to do it each time. It should say “Huh, headlights are on but it’s bright, don’t need to dim” (and, correspondingly, “Headlights are OFF and it’s DARK, turn cluster off”!) This is not tricky, just takes someone paying attention and pushing a reg. Of course with the death of the Chevron Doctrine it would probably get fought and lobbied to death.
Warnings my butt. Just push the “auto” button on the headlight control when you first take delivery of the car. Thereafter it runs the daytime running lights, the headlights, and high beams for you until you get rid of the car years later.
All off when the car shuts down, DRL or headlights whenever the car is running based on outside lighting level, and high beams on when it’s fully dark out and oncoming traffic isn’t detected.
Mine does that. And it’s now 4 model years old. The next step of course is to remove all modes except “auto” and remove the control panel too.
My lights are still fully manual, with no auto mode. And the car isn’t all that old.
But yes, i expect my next car to have auto headlights.
Speaking of dashboard lights, I have a problem seeing my gauges when I’m driving with sunglasses on, even with the light control turned all the way up.
I would like it to be able to go brighter.
The headlights in my 2000 Suburban have three settings: Auto, park, and on.
99.9% of the time this is all perfectly fine. Except last week I was replacing the bulbs (and sockets) for the daytime running lights. The DRLs only come on if the headlight switch is in “auto”, it’s light enough for auto to mean “off”, the engine is running, and the car is in gear.
So absolutely no way to check the DRLs in the evening unless you leave a lit flashlight resting on the light sensor on the dash.
First, most new cars have an option for controllable levels of dash/infotainment light/brightness, or a dark mode option. If the brightness is turned up to the highest level though, it normally won’t turn to auto “night” mode with reduced illumination. So do check.
For the reverse issue, not being bright enough, that’s often because sunglasses are polarized for better protection, which cuts the visibility on the screens. You can (normally more expensive) buy non-polarized sunglasses, which will help with the issue, or turn up the brightness as mentioned above.
YMMV, Your Car May Vary, Do at your own risk, etc.
My dash lights are turned all the way up, and my sunglasses are not polarized.
We had / have that same problem in big airplanes.
The only answer that ever worked for me was to buy sunglasses from an optician and have them tint them about half as dark as normal. And definitely not polarized.
Easy enough to do if you’re used to paying for prescription sunglasses anyhow. Can be a bit spendy if you’re used to buying your sunglasses off the Foster Grant display carousel at the drugstore. As I am now.
I don’t know whether one of the online optical shops like zenni will make less-tinted sunglasses. If so, their prices for plano lenses and basic frames are real low.
If you follow up on this path, do let us all know what you end up with.
Sunglasses are available in “drivers” style where the lower half of the lens is lighter. I had a pair of Serengeti Drivers when they first came out. For the past several years every pair I order online is this style. 50% tint on top and 25% on the lower half.
That’s kind of terrifying. If I have trouble seeing my gas gauge or trip odometer in my car, that’s unfortunate, but if an airline pilot has trouble seeing his gauges, that sounds VERY bad.
I’ve worn Maui Jim sunglasses for years and always bought a particular model for the shape - I can look below them and see gauges (in cars or airplanes). If you buy traditional “aviator” style sunglasses the lenses are too big to peer below them.
But of course, Maui Jim found out I like one of their products and immediately discontinued them. Seems to happen to me all the time.
I bought a 2020 Mazda6 just over 6 months ago. Huge quantum leap in technology from the 2009 Kia Rio barebones go-kart. The highest tech in the Rio, which I was extremely grateful for, was the ability to play music from USB memory sticks. The Mazda6 I am learning more and more about it and how to do it or find it. Took my first phone call through the car’s interface this weekend. I keep my headlights on at all times through the steering column switch.