Extremely dumb things people do

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#2597385 4-Nov-2020 09:05

neb:
Stu1: Most new cars have day time running lights now for this reason

When I looked at this a couple of years back, all of the studies showing they helped were carried out in places like Scandinavia and Canada where half the year "daytime" is a state of mind rather than a physical effect. The ones carried out in countries with normal daylight showed little to no effect.

The difference not accounted for is that they actually train their drivers to drive properly. Here, not so much.

MikeAqua

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#2597394 4-Nov-2020 09:26

richms:

They are annoying because when you are parked up somewhere on a call or meeting or something with the motor on so you have aircon, you have lights on and people think you are leaving the carpark and will stop and wait. Also if you're parked up at the side of the road waiting for someone, again, lights on drawing attention in an otherwise dark street. Would not recommend unless they can be turned off, which it seems is a feature that is lacking on cars with them.

In my 2020 Pajero, the DRLs will only turn on if the headlight control is set to auto and the main beams aren't on. Headlights set to off = no DRLs.

That system maybe peculiar to the Pajero though. It has a few oddball features - like headlight washers.

Mike

neb

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#2597594 4-Nov-2020 13:25

trig42:
Do not turn your fogs on.

Especially if you have a European car with a super bright rear fog lamp (or you don't know how to turn off the rear fog lamp).

That was another thing the RACV report on DRLs covered, there are completely different standards and types of headlights in Europe, the US, and presumably the UK, so using something as a DRL in Europe wouldn't work in Australia and vice versa. This may also explains @Sidestep's problems with the NZTA.

neb

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#2597601 4-Nov-2020 13:30

Followup: The RACV report. See in particular "Application of effectiveness studies" on p.27, which talks about the difference in effectiveness between Scandinavia/Canada and Australia due to various factors, not just the latitude but driving styles, light styles, etc.

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#2597749 4-Nov-2020 17:09

MikeAqua:

richms:

They are annoying because when you are parked up somewhere on a call or meeting or something with the motor on so you have aircon, you have lights on and people think you are leaving the carpark and will stop and wait. Also if you're parked up at the side of the road waiting for someone, again, lights on drawing attention in an otherwise dark street. Would not recommend unless they can be turned off, which it seems is a feature that is lacking on cars with them.

In my 2020 Pajero, the DRLs will only turn on if the headlight control is set to auto and the main beams aren't on. Headlights set to off = no DRLs.

That system maybe peculiar to the Pajero though. It has a few oddball features - like headlight washers.

Same as on the outlander i think you can switch them off in the car app as well

hsvhel

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#2597879 4-Nov-2020 21:47

richms:

They are annoying because when you are parked up somewhere on a call or meeting or something with the motor on so you have aircon, you have lights on and people think you are leaving the carpark and will stop and wait. Also if you're parked up at the side of the road waiting for someone, again, lights on drawing attention in an otherwise dark street. Would not recommend unless they can be turned off, which it seems is a feature that is lacking on cars with them.

Interesting point you raise, although, in the last 5 years i have had a vehicle capable of doing this, no ones ever given me the finger or a casual F*&k You toot.

Looking forward to one soon though now

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pdh

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#2597964 5-Nov-2020 01:37

neb: Followup: The RACV report. See in particular "Application of effectiveness studies" on p.27

Well, I've just read the 33 page RACV report (2003).
Speaking as an engineer, it could have been better done.

However, please read again what he concludes - "the voluntary (manual) use of headlights during the day should continue to be encouraged in Australia."

He draws this conclusion twice - firstly on page 5 and finally on the last page (33).
Just to confuse the issue - he contradicts this on p4, at some length. I challenge his p4 reasons below.
But he does say yes twice & no only once...

After discussion of how overseas experience does & might differ from Australia - discussion of proper DRLs vs existing or modified headlights, he concludes just what I said - we in NZ should have been encouraging daylight headlights for decades.

Let's apply his figures & conclusion to NZ. After all - we're more high-latitude than Australia, we have more 50 km urban roads than Australia - two good reasons that low-beam use would work better for us than them (according to the RACV conclusions). So, from 2003 to 2020 - we would have saved about 750 lives, just by mandating daytime low-beam use.

At an annual cost of $15 extra fuel per car.
We'd have saved twice that on our insurance bills.
Plus a fair bit of heart-ache.

Yes, he does talk about difference in effectiveness between Scandinavia/Canada and Australia - but this is where he makes a key error:

He tries to make the point based on an academic paper (Koornstra, 1997) modelling 'latitude affects' that Australia is 'mid-latitude' and will thus not see anywhere the improvement of 'high latitude' countries. Then he shoots himself in the foot and points out that the reduction rate was 'similar' between Sweden & Canada (p28, top). I've always felt that real data beats models. And whoops - the latitude difference between Sweden & Canada is just that between Canada & Australia. So, I'd like to see some real evidence to support his latitude hypothesis.

He also misses a major point. The annual crash/death rates don't reveal the visibility conditions at the time. Yet he never wonders if most of the life-saving occurs when visibility is less than ideal. He does conjecture (often) that in bright conditions - lights will be less visible. He never considers that - it may not matter. We don't wear seat belts for the times between accidents, we wear them because we're not good at predicting when we'll have an accident. Likewise, we're not good at recognising sun-strike, cloud shadow, mist, rain shower as factors that make us less visible. It's in these occasional & transitory conditions that any extra conspicuity will tip the balance. So, be conspicuous always - even if you might not need it in full sun conditions on the open road.

He spends a lot of time talking about (in daylight) glare from low-beams on wet roads. He says it's worse on a wet night - but unavoidable. I've got glare-sensitive eyes (lasik) and I believe wet-daylight-glare from low-beams is B.S.

He conjectures that low-beams are of little use, because they throw a lot of light down onto the road - instead of ahead. In the appendix, he actually gets out and takes some pictures - which, to my mind, disprove this hypothesis. The Van with the low-beams is way more visible than without any lights. What he really should have thought of - is that all low-beams (for the last 40 years) throw a much higher beam along the near side of the road. That's because they can do so safely. It's out of the eyes of on-coming drivers and the benefit is that it lights up pedestrians & cyclists on the road edge. In the daytime, that extra burst of light is just what is visible to a driver on a side-road - checking for on-coming traffic. He's looking right into that cone of extra light. If he fails to see that on-coming vehicle, he will collect it in the driver's door - a candidate fatality. If he sees the low-beams coming at him, he lives.

I've driven with low-beams on in daylight since 1967. About once a year I experience someone aborting a manoeuvre because they suddenly become aware of my vehicle - either overtaking oncoming traffic or pulling out in front of me. I'm one (happy) data point - but I think the stats back up my personal experience. As does the now universal adoption of DRLs.

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#2598030 5-Nov-2020 08:02

How does one assign a Lattitude to Australia? It spans a quite wide range.

Mike

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#2598487 5-Nov-2020 20:17

pdh:
However, please read again what he concludes - "the voluntary (manual) use of headlights during the day should continue to be encouraged in Australia."

It's classic analytical advocacy, "here's lots of data, some of which is relevant, some of which isn't, some of which says A, some of which says B, but we should do it anyway". I found the value more in the analysis than the conclusions.

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#2598656 5-Nov-2020 23:54

Rikkitic:

I have decided to start a new thread dedicated to human foolishness. Posts can be light, though they don't have to be, and Darwin Awards may be included, but I hope the net will be cast wider than that. It is non-political, just Homers doing Homer things.

I was out your way a few days ago and noticed a car had gone through the fence at the start of the road down by the hall on the corner. If the driver was a local resident i hope they are okay but i suspect they didnt know the road well and werent local.

About 3 months ago I left my good dirt rammer outside the hall near the roadside - came back 10 mins later and it was gone. I very much felt like a fool.

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#2598730 6-Nov-2020 08:58

This one is me dammit I cannot blame anyone. My wife recently purchased a Sodastream kit. I wasn't that interested but one bored day a couple of weeks back I decided to give it a try and in typical techie fashion I don't need no sodding manual. I grabbed the bottled filled with nice filtered water to to the indicated level and now my error begins, I proceeded to pour my flavour of choice into said water put it in the Soda machine. The resulting eruption of very fizzy, stick water would have put Rotorua's Pohutu Geyser to shame. I swear the amount of fluid had some quadrupled in the short time it was in the machine and the kitchen, machine and myself took quite some time to clean up.

I guess the lesson to be taken here is read the **&** manual. Yeah right.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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Rikkitic

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#2598734 6-Nov-2020 09:05

Welcome back, Mike. Good to see you here.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Dingbatt

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#2598742 6-Nov-2020 09:30

MikeB4:

This one is me dammit I cannot blame anyone. My wife recently purchased a Sodastream kit. I wasn't that interested but one bored day a couple of weeks back I decided to give it a try and in typical techie fashion I don't need no sodding manual. I grabbed the bottled filled with nice filtered water to to the indicated level and now my error begins, I proceeded to pour my flavour of choice into said water put it in the Soda machine. The resulting eruption of very fizzy, stick water would have put Rotorua's Pohutu Geyser to shame. I swear the amount of fluid had some quadrupled in the short time it was in the machine and the kitchen, machine and myself took quite some time to clean up.

I guess the lesson to be taken here is read the **&** manual. Yeah right.

Some things change, some stay the same. I remember doing the exact same thing 40+ years ago when Sodaflo first came out and my parents got one. The good thing is experience is a wonderful teacher and you won’t do that again. Dependant on family dynamics, you may or may not watch other family members do the same thing without trying to stop them.

Glad to see you back posting Mike.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996