And now I've seen it all ...

Many car parks now have ANPR cameras on entrance and exit. Stay more than the X free hours allowed and they send the registered keeper a parking notice.

Have a closer look at the signage at any of your large supermarkets... Saves the contracted parking company having to pay a man to walk around with a note book and it'll get *every one* who overstays.

At the Aldi here you have to type your reg number into a terminal near the tills, otherwise you get charged regardless of how long you stay.

Don't think it was that common till around the 1970's and electric lights have been the norm for roughly 50 years before that. Probably an age related thing,many will be too young to remember when many vehicles had the light controls on a knob on the dash board and the dip switch on the floor . Would not have been impossible to briefly switch the lights on but not as easily as twitching a finger on a stalk on the steering column. It was the ease of doing so from those when most cars had acquired them that made the practice common. I can't actually remember if my first vehicle with a stalk had a flash position on it. Main and dip only I think,one with a flash position came later.

G.Harman

I worked with a woman who dropped someone off in the morning and dropped back in in the evening to go to the shops, only for her initial departure and second entry to be missed by the system, which decided that she'd stayed all day and tried to charge her. The fact that our workplace had a permanent on-site police presence and that they'd logged her car as being in the company car park all day rather dented their enthusiasm to persue the matter!

SteveW

Ah, she was a barmaid.

I recall an account in the local rag where I grew up of a bloke who'd had his car gone over and the book thoroughly thrown at him for every little thing they could find. Even at the time, aged 17, I recognised a wanker who'd cheeked the coppers. It was something I bore in mind - most coppers are reasonable people, but if you take the piss they'll take it back.

What is needed is legislation that forbids parking with the headlights on facing oncoming traffic. Oh wait, it's there already, is it not...

And not having headlamps on when parked.

There's a Lidl I visit occasionally that has ANPR recording and when I can be bothered I make sure I am slow enough to be recorded on entry but have been obscuring my rear plate on exit.

They haven't bitten yet so I'm guessing I need to make a second visit later in the day, reversing the obscuring to waste some of their time and money.

I should have clarified that - it was a Police ANPR with a pair of coppers and a marked car.

Yes - Cranbrook (Kent village) has a local tiny supermarket that has just got one fitted.

Stupid thing is the car park is 1/2 empty most of the time and they will not let you pay to stay an hour longer, to say see a film at the new 1-screen wibbly cinema. The next car park is 1/2 mile up the road.

In article , D.M.Chapman writes

Yep, that's my indirect experience too, rellie bought 8quid headlamp bulb (an H4 ffs!) and was offered an option to fit for another 8quid or so which was declined.

Needless to say, rellie was unable to fit so I ended up doing it, not bad for a modern car but definitely needed a practiced hand to work the clips while working under the waterproofing boot.

So there was a threat and they wanted to make sure people were safe. There are many good reasons why the police use ANPR. That also includes catching people without tax and insurance taking the kids out.

Not so much upside down, but on some H4 lampholders it's possible to work only by feel and think it's in, but it's not seated correctly. I'm not without a clue and yet managed to do that last winter or two ago. I didn't realise until the next night I used the headlights in earnest and the nearside wasn't showing a proper beam at all.

Tinted specs used to be marketed as night driving glasses, but they are not a good idea. I don't even use the "dimming" feature of my rear view mirror. I can switch it off on my current car, on previous ones I have resorted to blue-tack to blind the sensor.

The danger is (eg) that cyclist in black with no lights, that is undertaking you as you turn left. Without the tint (glasses and/or mirror) you might just see him, with the tint he might disappear beneath the threshold where you might have seen him.

There is an argument that you can dispense with dipped headlights and everyone drives with polarised full beam-headlights. The drivers wear polarised spectacles with a 90 degree relative polarisation, or better still have a windscreen made to that prescription. Now you can even turn off all the street lighting (topical!)

This is not a new idea, I first came across it as a child in a book by J.B.S Haldene published in 1948, and the idea was not new then.

Plenty of drivers in the 60s would have been able to flash, even if only by flicking the lights on/off briefly. And cars with knobs on the dash board - that's the 50s you're thinking of.

The 50s and Lieutenant Scott's car...

In message , fred writes

Had to replace the rear light cluster a while back. I ended up showing the ford garage apprentice how to do it

It's not a fetish it's politeness.

I flash a lot (with headlights as well), and I hardly ever have to replace bulbs.

Someone did that to me when I was coming up a hill which was single file at that point (leaving a car park, he was in a layby on the right). I could hardly see a thing. I don't know if he was on full beam or it was just the angle - he had no need for headlights while being parked. I stopped and engaged my full beam (still couldn't see to get past him safely) until he (eventually) realised what was going on and switched them off.