DECEMBER 29, 2024 – Periodically I engage in a road rant over one traffic infraction or another. Not that my own driving habits are always beyond reproach[1]—except for two, which are the two that will be the subject of this rant. Note: this isn’t the first time I’ve published road rants on this blog site.
The first rant concerns winter driving. We haven’t had much winter in these parts—no yet, anyway—but in winters past, when winter was winter, I was often thrown into a conniption by how many motorists drove around with snow-covered back windows. Whenever I encountered an offender in this category, I’d growl, “Does that driver never use his rearview mirror?! God save us!”
Just as bad are the drivers who make no allowance for ice and snow-covered road surfaces and the corresponding effect on traction and braking distances. Some of the biggest offenders are people who think that the laws of physics don’t apply to them because they’re driving two-ton, extended cab F-150s. Moreover, many of the non-physicists driving over-sized vehicles—which slide on black ice[2] just as easily as a Honda Civic—don’t seem to notice that not everyone else is driving a tank.
Okay, so much for the winter driving. As I said, with the second consecutive non-winter winter well underway, I’ve had fewer occasions to gripe this time around. Thus, I’ll progress to the reason for my year-round road rant: lights.
In the first place, many low-beam headlights are way too . . . high. Some genius among vehicle engineers got the bright idea that a car or truck headlights could double as klieg lights—perhaps in the off chance that the owner of a motor vehicle might have occasion to go off road and start filming willy nilly a random short for the next obscure film festival. I have a better idea than blinding every motorist who happens to be driving in the opposite direction: use your high-beam, not the low-beam, as the klieg lights.
This brings me to my number one road rant: people who drive at dusk or in fog or precipitation without all lights—headlights, taillights—on full. Our drive back from the cabin last Friday took us through many sections of dense fog. Moreover, the cloud cover was so thick that even without the fog, the light at 2:00 in the afternoon was no brighter than it usually is a half hour after sundown. And yet . . . and yet . . . I couldn’t believe how many cars and trucks were driving around with no lights. It was enough to drive me crazy.
Most vehicle lights come with three setting options: 1. Off; 2. On – full; and 3. On – “automatic.” I take issue with choices 1 and 3. Absolutely no condition exists when your lights should be “off,” except, of course, when the vehicle engine isn’t running. Even then, however, “off” shouldn’t be up to the driver. “off” should be connected directly to the ignition. When the ignition is turned on, the lights—headlights and taillights—should turn on as well, and when the ignition is shut off, the lights should go off automatically.
My Hyundai Sonata is wired exactly this way, except I have the option of manually turning the lights on and off or selecting the “automatic” setting that connects wimpy “daytime running lights” to the ignition—on and off—and when dusk descends, a photo-sensor automatically turns on the full headlights and taillights. Fortunately, I can leave my lights set to the “on – full” position, and for my vehicle, at least, I’ve achieved what I advocate: lights—all of them—connected to the ignition. But why these three options? What not a single setting that the driver can’t override?
My wife’s Toyota Rav4 light system is a model of my frustration. Among her choices—the usual “off,” “on – full,” and “automatic,” but the “on – full” position has to be turned on and off manually. If I leave it at “on – full,” when the ignition is turned off, the lights stay on and an obnoxious beeper goes off, signaling most impolitely, nay, obnoxiously, that I must do what the Toyota engineers didn’t do: turn the damn lights off.
Worst, however, are the vehicles equipped with “automatic” headlights only. You can easily identify these after nightfall. A car’s headlights will be on but not its taillights. The driver, of course, is oblivious. Since the headlights are on, along with the dashboard lighting, the driver assumes all is well—until a speeding vehicle approaches from behind and not seeing the unlit rear of the car with “automatic” lights . . . SCREECH! (or worse . . . CRASH, BANG!) . . . OR, as I experienced one evening in Connecticut last summer, when a state trooper pulled us over because the taillights on our rental car weren’t on (I’d inadvertently turned the setting to “automatic” instead of “on – full.”
All of this takes me back to my first trip to Sweden almost a thousand years ago (1979). Two years before, daytime vehicle lights had become mandatory. This struck me as a matter of such eminent common sense, I decided to adopt the practice when I returned to the U.S. For years many on-coming drivers would assume that I’d turned my lights on by mistake; in a display of courtesy, they would flash their own lights to inform me—saving me the headache, they assumed, of drawing down my battery when I reached my destination by shutting the car down but not the lights.
Over time, of course, more Americans adopted the practice of driving with lights on even in daylight hours. Yet hear we are, a thousand years since Sweden adopted its commonsense law, and vehicle engineers (and traffic laws) around the world are still in the dark ages.
With all our technology and regulations, I don’t understand the “Swedish Rule” (all vehicle lights wired to the ignition) can’t be mandated and effectuated universally.
Okay. My idea is parked safely in the garage. My road rant is over.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Some years ago I came across a poll showing that 94% of the drivers questioned rated themselves as “excellent” drivers. Two miles on the road—any road, anywhere—will tell you that most drivers have abysmally low standards.
[2] Frozen vehicle exhaust on roadways, particularly at intersections, when the mercury is below zero Fahrenheit.
1 Comment
Agree on all counts. Now, let’s talk about the reckless, in-and-out extreme speeders!