CFLs and UHF interference

[The Natural Philosopher]

Hah. I used up a ten year old slide film in a camera on holiday. Digitized the result and spent an intersting couple of hours whacking out the green.

[Andy Champ]

Well I wouldn't - especially as the title points to the original post being about interference at a few hundred MHz, which is a *long* way beyond the red end of *my* vision...

I just want to take pictures. I want them to look like I saw them. I know our eyes are rubbish, and so our cameras are rubbish too - but after ... umm.. I reckon well over 5 years worth of staring at CRT and LCD displays my colour vision is possibly a bit off.

Especially as women have better colour vision anyway :)

Andy

(Men have better night vision. Picking fruit vs hunting rabbits?)

[Mark Carver]

Pissing on target at 3am, without having to put the bathroom light on ?

[Dave]

IKWYM. Doesn't the light hurt the eyes if you do switch it on. :-( I have good night vision and it gets spoiled by cars at both night and day, who have badly aligned head lights, or fog lamps. Do drivers assume that their fog lamps are driving lights, because they are not yellow? On the same subject, I get blinded by the number of drivers that are using head lights during the day and there is nothing better to distract you, when they start flashing their lights in your rear view mirror as they bounce along the road. As for motorcycles, why do they drive round using full beam? That really gives me black spots in my vision. I've started to put mine on now, when they approach me.

Mad as a wasp

Dave

[PeterMcC]

Dave wrote in

I think you're confusing fog lamps with those really cool lights placed low down at the front of the car, making both car and driver look dead stylish.

[:Jerry:]

I think the word you were looking for was "stupid" - making both car and driver look dead stupid.....

Now if I was a troll I would cross-post this to the car modification group! :~o

[Mark]

AFAIK you can't buy a motorcycle in the UK where you can switch the headlights off! I don't know anyone who rides around on full beam.

You won't like the latest EU proposals - they want compulsory daytime running lights for all motor vehicles.

[Rod]

Something like a diffuse light at the corners of a vehicle might well be a good idea. The problems of using headlamps during the day seem to me to be due to misuse - they were not designed to make the vehicle more visible but for the driver to be able to see.

On a sunny summer day, going from bright into heavily shaded roads, it can be difficult to see dark vehicles.

[Mortimer]

I've no problem with motorbikes using headlights during the day - anything that makes them more visible as they overtake or when their outline is masked by a large vehicle behind them has got to be a good thing.

The lights that really knacker my vision are rear (red) fog lights when I'm travelling right behind and brake lights kept permanently on when drivers are stationary in a queue of traffic. Why can't people use ther handbrake rather than footbrake when they are stopped at traffic lights?

[SpamTrapSeeSig]

In article , Mortimer writes

Blame Volvo and the EU: one introduced them, the other mandated them. I doubt there's a shred of evidence that high-mounted central brake lights are a net safety improvement.

Incidentally, if you think it's bad here, North America is dreadful, as most cars are autos and people sit for minutes at a time with a foot on the brake pedal, at traffic lights.

[:Jerry:]

As a sound engineer and anti EU person, you are of course entitled to your opinion....

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think actually they were introduced because there was a lot of evidence.

Doesn't bother me.

[Mortimer]

Actually it's the low-level brake lights that are the real problem; the high-level central one can be hidden by a suitably-placed sun-visor!

Another thing that offends my sense of symmetry, though it's not distracting in itself, is the trend for some modern cars to have just one rear fog light and one reversing light. The last few cars that I have owned (VW Golf and Peugeot 306) had two bulb-holders and "lenses" for the fog lights but only had a bulb fitted on one side - luckily it was easy to fit the missing bulb.

Exactly. Are people too lazy to apply the handbrake and/or shift the lever into neutral or park? Evidently they are. When I was taught to drive, the instructor drilled into me the need to put the car in neutral (or park or neutral for an auto, though he was very scathing about automatic transmissions!) and to apply the handbrake so I could avoid blinding the car behind with my brake lights, and that has stayed with me 25 years later. Paradoxically I understand that some recent automatic transmissions should not be left in neutral at traffic lights because the cooling oil doesn't circulate properly, which makes you wonder a) why they have a neutral setting, and b) why this design flaw hasn't been fixed.

[:Jerry:]

Liar, you obviously were not taught to drive, you might have been taught how to operate a motor vehicle but that is not driving), who in their right minds looks directly at any light source (especially when stationary). Sorry but your driving ability is the problem here and not those you are following.

Anyway, the real problem is not illuminated lights whilst stationary but lights that should not be illuminated whilst moving for the road conditions, such as rear fog lights that mask (or cause a distraction from) the more important lights such as brake lights.

[SpamTrapSeeSig]

In article , ":Jerry:" writes

Indeed so. But I don't let dogma get in the way of facts.

The escalating 'arms race' of vehicle lighting is down to EU regulation, which has recently also mandated the use of permanent dipped headlights (IIRC on all vehicles made after 2010 or 2012). Statistically speaking, one effect of this will be to increase motorcyclist fatalities, or so we're told, not to mention energy waste, etc.

These are the same chappies that mandated 'low energy' lightbulbs.

[SpamTrapSeeSig]

In article , The Natural Philosopher writes

It ruins night vision if you're stuck in a traffic queue, and it is much worse in the USA than here, because of automatic boxes.

[SpamTrapSeeSig]

In article , Mortimer writes

On many US cars that I've driven the parking brake has been a ratchet foot pedal. 'Park' has other implications too. I don't think you could safely use it at the lights. Even if the parking brake is a handbrake, it's very hard to use it on the road without a clutch, as you can't set the revs against it, etc.

I hate automatic cars, but I've never managed to hire a manual, despite being told in several locations that they were available.

[:Jerry:]

Come on, how many people remember 'old Cyclops' or the combined tail/brake light (that is a single filament bulb that was used for

*both* brake and tail light)? My point, lighting regs have been changing/evolving since before the EU (or even the EEC and before), so basically what you are saying is, you don't mind change as long as it's not a pan EU change - go figure...

People probably said the same things when traficators were superseded...

[dennis]

Its just more poor driving. If you were taught by a proper instructor you would use your handbrake. Its the ones that think I have passed my test.. now I can start to drive that cause most of the problems as they don't have a clue as to why the rules are there.

[:Jerry:]

Sounds like you need to learn to drive then, any fool can drive an automatic, that's why people who take their test in an automatic are only licensed to drive automatics...