It is a fair few years since I was involved in a traffic accident as a driver, probably around fifteen years ago I had finished work and was driving to an IET Local Group visit to RAF Shawbury near Shrewsbury to see a replica Second World War Horsa glider https://www.assaultglidertrust.co.uk/ and as it turned out to go into a Chinook helicopter that was being prepared for duty.

The M54 motorway becomes the A5 dual carriageway and there was a queue of traffic because of an earlier shunt, in front of me was a soft top VW I realised it was braking although the brake lights were not visible, I stood on the brake and just stopped, but was hit up the rear and hit by another car from behind that then pushed me forward into the VW.

There was some to’ing and fro’ing on the day between me and the other drivers and the insurance afterwards, but I had realised that it had been witnessed by two Highways England officers who were sat on a crash barrier at the side of the road and although they would not confirm to me what had happened, they did to the insurance companies and I came out of it blame free.

However,  I could not understand why I could not see the brake lights, I told my insurance they didn’t work, then I pulled up behind a similar VW car and realised that these cars had LED brake lights that did not show as red when a strong light shown on them, I experimented by parking behind one and turning my headlights on, they just went white.

I believe as I was driving to Shrewsbury the sun was behind us and the red LED lights were simply white and didn’t show up, I did brake and stop, but too quickly for the guy behind to respond, these days whilst driving a couple of tonnes of van and general tack around I’m very wary of braking distances and other vehicles lights, particularly LEDs.

Lisa Miles said:

I don't understand why daytime running lights aren't also applied to the rear lights of cars too?

Probably the same idiots who turn on their fog lights in heavy rain!

I think that my car's rear lights are on during normal running, but it is too dark to check right now. Everything else save for the rear fog light is automated, but can be overridden. There is no off position on the light switch.

Sparkingchip said:

festooned with controls that should be on the dashboard

There is nothing new about controls on the steering wheel or at least in the centre. One of my old cars has controls for the mixture, ignition advance, idling speed, and of course the horn.

The ones on the spokes of my modern car do many wonderful things. The cruise control, which is in frequent use, can be operated by feel, but others really should not be available whilst driving.

What I really don't like is touch screen controls.

And don't get me started...

Not mine, Mrs, they adjust themselves. So back to the OP, automation is a good thing.

A horn is permissible!

I have controls for the radio and phone on the steering wheel on my current van, I don’t use them. But I did use the same controls when they were on a steering column stalk in the previous van.

Something about them always being in the same place makes intuitive use easier?

Sparkingchip said:

Something about them always being in the same place makes intuitive use easier?

It can be awkward when the steering wheel is upside down, for example, after parking.

However, try going from automatic to manual with the accelerator on the right to manual with accelerator in the middle; or gearstick in the middle to gearstick on the right!

@Chris Pearson 

I have just driven around twenty miles in my wife’s car, there four full turns of the steering wheel, so the buttons on the steering wheel were rarely in the same place for more than a few seconds, except the horn with it being a big button in the middle.

My hands were generally in the same position throughout the journey as I generally maintain a quarter to three driving position because that’s also the position of the steering column stalks, the buttons on the steering wheel were all over the place.

Buttons on the steering wheel may be okay on long motorway journeys, but are pretty useless on other roads as you have to drop your head to find them.

Meanwhile, people now want  voice activated controls in their cars, my Sat Nav is voice controlled which amuses my wife on long car journeys when I try to have conversations with it. 

Sparkingchip said:

Meanwhile, people now want  voice activated controls in their cars, my Sat Nav is voice controlled which amuses my wife on long car journeys when I try to have conversations with it. 

That is something that I have never tried, but I shall give it a go later on.

The buttons on my steering wheel can be felt easily. Most commonly used is cruise control. Main button up for select up or down for down in 1 mph increments, but long press gives 5 mph increments. Second button for engage and re-engage, but long push selects the speed limit whatever it might be.

The spokes on my steering wheel are shaped to fit my thumbs. That's where they stay most of the time except, for example when turning on or off a road, but that is not an appropriate time for using the buttons.

I went back out last night in my wife’s car to pick her up again and was driving up the A449 dual carriageway with the headlights on full beam both sides of the road are lined with reflective signs, I immediately counted sixteen visible signs, but realised it was actually over twenty as there’s additional smaller signs on some of the posts.

It is a dual carriageway with junctions including vehicle crossings in the central reservation, it now has chicanes and other traffic management to slow the speed of traffic and to try and make it safer to pull out of junctions, plus average speed traffic cameras.

There is far to much involved in driving on that road to be able to be fiddling about with controls, that are not utterly and completely intuitive.

Sparkingchip said:

It is a dual carriageway with junctions including vehicle crossings in the central reservation, it now has chicanes and other traffic management to slow the speed of traffic and to try and make it safer to pull out of junctions, plus average speed traffic cameras.

That's where automation is a good thing. With automatic headlights, illumination is optimized, but oncoming traffic is not dazzled. With adaptive cruise control, you won't get done for speeding and you won't run into the back of anybody.