As an old fogy who's first car had no automation apart from the points and coil providing a spark. Since then I have owned and maintained, mainly my three daughter's, cars with increasing levels of electronics and complexity.  In every case there have been problems caused by damp, connection problems and hardware errors in the clever electronic bits. Given the hostile environment of a car, especially as it gets older, I do not see any attempt being made to ruggedise components by design or manufacture. Many car designs appear to be made to fail with all the connections and computers located where they will get wet when the sunroof drains block or a seal gets damaged or mislaid during maintenance with no attempt being made to damp proof the components. I worked on one car where there had been recalls to stick bits of polythene sheets to stop condensation entering  multiple computers

The result is that I am concerned  that all these "aids" stand a chance of failing to danger when the car is older irrespective of maintenance. Even if they fail will the driver be expecting them to work and have an incident as a result. I read the odd aircraft accident report and if aircraft systems can fail with all the redundancy,  regulations, testing and strict maintenance schedules and procedures what chance does a car built the lowest price stand when it is few years old.

My sister in law recently got rid of her new car as she could not work out how to work all the aids that made her feel she had no control over the car and kept sounding warning sounds that she did not know what they were for  and distracted her from driving. 

I read that people are now questioning the safety of the touch screens for basic controls when compared to simple switches or rotary controls. I must admit I have to look away from the road to alter my heating in my car which I never had to do with the old rotary controls with set positions. 

I feel that progress is often being made for the sake of progress rather than safety.

Simon i think you are right here and it's typical MSM repeating press releases without engaging their brain.  How about disabling a passenger airbag because there is a child seat in the front - yep that would count as disabling a safety feature. Switching off auto-wipe probably does too even though you only do so because it is totally incapable of working properly (unless on a VW see above). 

I quite like the gentle rumble effect, so that is a good driver aid.  But in a free world I surely retain the right to turn it off without the nanny state tut-tut-ing.  Rather like the MoT test that has mission creep and everything now is safety.  My old car failed because the fog light tell tale light had stopped working.  The fog lights were fine but this "safety feature" meant it failed - it didn't need a light but because  it had one that didn't work it was a "fail".  Give me strength.

Last year my car failed the MOT as the screen wash jets were not working..... Given that it was minus 10 that day and the screen wash tank was frozen solid (as well as many other drivers screen wash tanks had too) then I'm not surprised  

Gave it some time to thaw out again then lo and behold it passed.... 

Paul Ch said:

My old car failed because the fog light tell tale light had stopped working.  The fog lights were fine but this "safety feature" meant it failed - it didn't need a light but because  it had one that didn't work it was a "fail". 

Sounds right to me.  So far as I know, it's always been a requirement since fog lights became a requirement.  I'm sure all of us have found ourselves stuck behind a car with its fog lights on, despite there being no fog for days.

Now imagine how often it would happen if cars didn't have a warning light on the dashboard.

I've just seen an electric push bike on my walk into town at lunchtime. As it went into the underpass beneath the roundabout not far from Futures Place, its lights came on automatically (both front AND rear) and then back off again once the rider had exited the underpass and back into what passes for daylight at this time of the year. 

Now if only cars could do that too.... 

My Peugeot 508 does that when set to auto lights.  DRL then full lights when the sensors think it is needed.  There is one slight flaw in the system.  When it snows it thinks that full lights front and back are not needed so I then switch to manual overide.  Also in foggy conditions I sometimes need to manual overide it. 

Sergio Fernandez said:

My Peugeot 508 does that when set to auto lights.  DRL then full lights when the sensors think it is needed

Is that both front and rear lights though Sergio? Many cars I see on my daily commute will have only the front DRLs on with nothing on the back. It's a bit scary when you come up behind someone in thick fog with no lights on the back but their fancy LED strip lights on the front are on so they think that's sufficient! 

I've recently had a dash cam fitted to one of my vehicles as I'm fed up of drivers cutting tight in front of it to turn off at a junction rather than pulling in behind to wait a few seconds. My truck is 2 tonne and doesn't stop on a penny like my usual mode of transport can! I have a lot of renewed sympathy for truck drivers... In a recent commute to work in heavy rain I'd say there were around 2 in 10 cars on the road that were not sporting rear lights on their cars. Overtaking them and you could see their DRLs were on but no lights at the back where it's really needed especially on motorways and small country lanes! 

Is that both front and rear lights though

On my other half's car it is - front DRLs when it thinks it's daylight, sidelights/dipped headlights front and rear when it thinks it's dark.

   - Andy.

On my car front DRLs when it thinks it's daylight.  No rear lights at all

sidelights/dipped headlights front and rear when it thinks it's dark or you enter a tunnel

When there is fog front and rear lights have to be turn on by the driver. 

I have always thought it was a poor design decision not to make the vehicle visiable from the rear with lights if they deem it is needed to have the front of the vehicle visiable by DLRs

Sergio Fernandez said:

I have always thought it was a poor design decision not to make the vehicle visiable from the rear with lights if they deem it is needed to have the front of the vehicle visiable by DLRs

Yes I fully agree Sergio Fernandez 

Again this morning, driving into work in rain and drizzle and many cars do not have rear lights on but their DRLs are on at the front.  I'm astounded that Automotive designers haven't addressed this by now! 

I saw this a few days ago and meant to post a link - looks like something might be happening about the light glare:

I saw this a few days ago and meant to post a link - looks like something might be happening about the light glare:

It is not just the glare that is the issue.  A lot of car coming out of the factory or the main dealer showroom have the lights set at the wrong height and the wrong beam angle.  The motor trade are well aware of it, they choose to ignore it. 

That should be picked up at an MOT though surely Sergio? I know they test it on mine as they've picked up on it after I'd had a new headlight installed. 

The problem I have is that my car is rather 'low' to the ground and everyone else seems to have SUV's that sit a lot higher than me. Meaning that their headlights are right in my eyeline anyway... 

It seems to be the social norm nowadays to look after oneself with no regard to how your actions affect those around you i.e. "I'll have the brightest lights on my car so I can see and I don't care if it dazzles everyone else on the road." 

I read a comment on a YouTube video the other day (my guilty pleasure is watching dashcam videos of bad driving, most of the time by those with the dashcam themselves!!! ) where someone said 'Drive like it's a collaboration, not a competition' which I thought was a really nice mantra 

Loading of the vehicle also has an effect. Mine have had adjusters to lower the lights when there is a heavy load at the rear. How many people use this function?

SUVs or CrossOvers have become common place and they have the lights positioned higher on the frame of the vehicle.  4 x 4s can also suffer from this issue.  Some also have self adjusting headlight beam angle.  The cause and effect is the same.  They are blinding the oncoming traffic be it vehicle or cyclist. 

The drivers of these vehicles are sometime aware as people will tell them the lights are blinding, some will have oncoming traffic flash them to make them aware.  I agree that there is a culture of people that look out for themselves and don't care about the impact they have on others. 

As a side note the road surface (lumpy and bumpy) and the amount of potholes makes the glare and blinding isssue worse.

I have the same function on mine and when I am boot heavy (especially for Scuba diving out from Portland Bill)  I will adjust the lights to not be a menace to other road users.  However most other roads users do not adjust it or even know about it.

A typical example is with 4 settings from 0 to 3.  0 is for 1 person in vehicle with half a tank of fuel.  So if they fill up the fuel tank then they should have it set to 1.

For sure MOT should adjust the lights and note in report it was wrong. 

It is not an MOT failure in my book but some unscrupulous mechanics may just fail so they can get another retest fee. 

I think there is a problem also that the beam shape rules assume a filament source and a parabolic refelctor with a glass lens, and if you define the centre of the bright part, the rest sorts itself out, but that is not really the case for LED and gas discharge lamps, nor with badly fogged plastic with any sort of lamp behind it - there can be a lot of 'splash'

Arguably such light would benefit from a peaked hat style hood to give a hard cut off to the top of the beam.

right now gas discharge lamps can  must be self levelling, but that is about it.

"

But the beam patterns are intended to put most of the energy below the horizontal in 'dip' many do have quite a bit above that.

LED lamps can have a very sharply defined cut-off above a certain angle.  Which means that nobody should get dazzled on a level road.  It doesn't work so well if the road is hilly.

Certainly they can/could , but as far as I can tell, they don't.

Mike

My new (to me) car has LED lamps, and there is a very sharp cut-off line at the top of the beam.  Anything below that line is much brighter than above it.