I was discussing the use of hazzard lights when driving a car with my friend and we had a disagreement. I use them when I have to very quickly slow down on a highway or some other road where traffic is fast.
My rationale is that, while I can control how close I come to the car in front, I don’t have that kind of control of the car behind me. If I’m going to be braking quickly, I want to give the guy behind me the greatest possible notice that something aint right and he better slow down immediately.
My friend didn’t think that was necessarily appropriate. He was of the view (the old school, I call it) that hazzard lights are for double-parking or for stalling on the highway. To me, that seems like a great waste for these very useful safety features on cars.
Another problem could be that many American cars still put hazzard lights in ridiculously idiotic places. My friend’s Neon has them on top of the streeing column making it somewhat akward to get to. All Japanese cars, I think, put the hazzard light button near the rear defrost button - that is, somewhere near the radio/AC area, thus making it very easy to press in an emergency.
QUESTIONS
1/ When do you use your hazzard lights?
2/ What kind of car do you drive and where is the button on your car?
I only use them when I’m stalled on the road. Actually, I don’t even know where mine are located, but I intend to find out if I get stalled on the road.
[ul]
[li]When I’m stopped at the side of the road for some reason (flat tire, for example), and it is unusual for a car to be stopped there. That is, on the side of the freeway or other highway where parked cars are an unusual sight, not a city street where you can expect to find parked cars.[/li]
[li]When I’m travelling at less than the speed of traffic for some reason. You’ll see big rigs doing this on the freeway if they drop speed because they’re loaded, faced with a big hill, and gravity forces them to slow down. But I’ll do it in the car if I’m driving at a lower speed than the rest of the traffic too–an example being when I’m following a friend’s farm tractor down the road. He just cannot go at regular road speeds in the tractor, and he wants to be as visible as possible. So he asks me to follow him with my four-ways going.[/li][/ul]
As for the position of the switch, in our Chevy, it’s on the top of the steering column. In our Jeep, it’s on the side of the steering column, near the ignition.
Hazard lights are just that, they are for warning other drivers about potential hazards, usually this would be because you have had no choice (i.e. puncture) but to stop in a place where other road users might have trouble seeing you, or if you are towiing, but I think using them to warn drivers behind you that the traffic conditions up ahead are tricky (like unexpected stopped traffic on a motorway) would also be a legitimate use, better that than have the vehicle behind you hit you at speed (even if it is his dumb fault if he doesn’t spot the hold up, it’s still me that gets smashed up - anything I can do to minimise that risk is good by me)
They definitely aren’t there just so that you can park where you shouldn’t just so that you can nip into the bank, people that do this should be publicly flogged.
I use them when standing still on the shoulder (which is almost never, of course), and also to warn traffic behind me I’m slowing down rapidly in case of a traffic jam, e.g.: it’s a pretty common practise in Europe to do so.
I have a Peugeot 306, and the hazard light switch is just above the radio. Quickly found, but I’ve seen better. The newer models, like the Peugeot 206, have a gameshow-type button on top of the dash, ready to be hit in an emergency.
And the new Peugeot 307 even has hazard lights that automatically engage when you brake violently after lifting off the accelerator quickly. Don’t ask me how it works, but it DOES, and it allows you to concentrate on the road ahead while automatically warning the cars behind you. Very cool.
I use them the same as you do- when slowing down rapidly on the highway during Orange Cone season or when a potential hazard presents itself (a gaggle of deer crossing the road, a fallen tree that traffic has to go around, etc). My main reason for this is that I don’t want someone plowing me from behind in the event that I have to slow quickly and they don’t notice.
2/ What kind of car do you drive and where is the button on your car?
My hazard button is located right on the dash near the radio (I think- I’ll have to look). I have a 1997 Ford Tauras.
I only use them when my car is stalled or disabled. Or, as has been mentioned before, when I can’t drive as fast as I ordinarily should. I remember one time where my car’s battery was circling the drain, and I was going up this really steep part of the 5 Freeway in S. Calif. called “The Grapevine”. (S. CA Dopers will know what I am talking about!) For some reason my car just barely was able to crawl up the steep hills. So, I put on the hazard lights and stayed in the slow lane with all the big rigs.
I am in complete agreement with this. I starting noticing this trend several years ago. I think it is deplorable. People just park anywhere (like halfway up on a curb, or in the middle of the road, while they chat with people in another car) and think that if they put on their hazard lights, it’s suddenly OK! NO, it is NOT OK. It is still a pissant thing to do - hazard lights or not.
Well, the last time I used Hazzard lights was when I out with Bo and Luke. They were just two good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm. Beats all you ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born. Straightening the curves, flattening the hills - someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will. Making their way the only way they knew how, but that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow.
Yep, just two good 'ol boys, wouldn’t change if they could. Fighting the system like two modern-day Robin Hoods!
