The front stayed white, the rear stayed red. It is not nonsense. Go back into automotive history, cars were required to have only white lights to the front, red to the rear. It is quite logical - if you think about it. Ok, I see that's where you have a problem - thinking.
I know the answer. The issue is - you don't understand the question.
Sadly, I can.
They'll test them if they're fitted, but are they a construction requirement? Motorcycles don't need indicators.
I'm surprised the driver didn't just tell you kids to stick your arm out of the appropriate window.
Lights are not part of the Construction and Use Regulations, but are covered by separate Lighting Regulations.
IIRC indicators and headlamps) are not required on a vehicle that is only used during daylight and is not fitted with position markers (side and tail lamps).
But which vehicles need direction indicators and what kind do they need to be? After all, there are lots of different kinds if vehicles, including almost-cars like quadricycles (not to be confused with quadrAcycles). There are several models of electric "microcar" (that have a top speed of 28 mph and aren't allowed on motorways). Do these have to have indicators fitted?
And actually more difficult to wire it so it happens.
The front lights are easy: you have a dual-filament bulb with a 5 W for side lights and a 21 W for indicators. But you have lights that alternate between dim/bright rather than between off/bright - less obvious.
But the rear lights are more difficult, assuming it is the brake-light rather than the tail light housing which flashes for indicator. You need a way of turning *off* the brake light (if the footbrake is pressed) during the off period of the indicator, as well as turning it on (if it is off because the brake light is not lit) during the on period of the indicator. That needs a relay to make an XOR logic of brakes and indicators; a simple OR (two feeds connected to the same filament) is not correct because brakes applied means lights do not flash for indicator.
So much easier to have a totally separate housing for the indicator, preferably as far from other lights as possible so it is still visible when the car is braking or has its rear fog lights on and/or its headlights. No relay needed.
And then make that flashing light a colour that is not used for any other purpose, to make it even less obvious.
Combining the indicator with tail lights (dual filament) is easier to implement but less visible (like the front side lights) because you have a light which varies between dim and bright rather than off and bright.
I wish rear lights were implemented as:
- one housing for tail/fog (5/21 W dual filament) (dim/bright position lights)
- one housing for brake (21 W)
- one housing for indicator (21 W)
And mandatory to have fog lights on both sides because they act as position lights for cars approaching behind which cannot see the tail lights until close. With nearside-only foglight, a "motorbike close to the kerb" suddenly becomes a car, as you get closer. Paired lights mean that you can judge the width of the vehicle as you approach it in fog, before you can see the dimmer tail lights.
Also, the modern trend of only having one fog light means that the opposite housing is used for the reversing light on many cars, so the car only has one reversing light, which means only one hedge/fence/gateway is illuminated at night when you are reversing into a driveway. I tend to put my one-side foglight on when reversing at night into a narrow space to supplement the one-side reversing light. That shouldn't be necessary if the car has two of everything. I'm baffled as to why "two of everything" wasn't made mandatory in all countries' lighting regulations.
Until my present car (Peugeot 308), my previous cars (Renault 5s Mark 1 and 2, VW Golfs Mark 2 and 3, Peugeot 306) were fitted with two reversing light housings (both with bulbs) and two foglight housings (only nearside has a bulb) so I fitted the missing bulb. The 308 has a housing which is white for the offside and red for the nearside, so no possibility of having paired fog and paired reversing.
My wife's Honda CRV is even more weird: paired white for reversing lights (both with bulbs), paired red housings for foglight, *but only one has a bulb holder and wiring behind it*. I got the garage to investigate offside foglight not working and they discovered that the offside one was a dummy.
Obviously you need people to use their foglights properly: turn on when you can't see the headlights of a car behind, turn off when you can see headlilghts and judge that the car behind is clsoe enough to be able to see your tail lights and will be dazzled by your foglights.
Funny story: my VW Golf Mark 2 had three rocker switches side by side. Hazard, fog, heated rear window (not necessarily in that order). When I first got the car, I rigorously turned the "foglight" switch off and on as described above, and then suddenly realised that I'd been turning the heated rear window on and off instead ;-) The perils of having switches (in the driver's peripheral vision) which have their own reminder lights, rather than reminder lights next to the instruments where they are visible all the time.
Is that something that can be relied on in all/most cars: that the gear ratios will be proportional to the ordinal number, so the ratios are
1:1 1:2 1:3 1:4 1:5 1:6(engine:road)
(plus some final drive ratio - probably to achieve an overall 1:1 engine/wheel ratio in the highest gear).
My car, Peugeot 308:
Correcting those so top is 1:1 (by dividing everything by 0.6) gives
1st gear ratio 5.9:1 2nd gear ratio 3.2:1 3th gear ratio 2.2:1 4th gear ratio 1.6:1 5th gear ratio 1.3:1 6th gear ratio 1:1
All you need to know is the law is as complicated as possible to catch you out so they can make money in fines, as if taxes weren't enough for them.
Fool. The point of colours is to distinguish between separate instructions of "I'm here", "I'm slowing down", "I'm turning". In fact there should be a seperate colour for brake and tail, especially considering the stupidly bright tails we have nowadays, so you don't notice someone braking unless you're looking at the lights at the time.
You pretend to know the answer to inflate your ego.
We use proportional fonts nowadays, state which words you were pointing to.
Why do you believe it's impossible to extract energy form something going 5mph? Hint: gearing.
See! You have a problem *thinking*, just as I noted.
I was working on vehicles with regenerative braking systems in the *mid
1970s*.
Electric motors, with or without regeneration, typically don't have
*gearing*.
It's very simple. Just like a two way light switch on your hall at home.
12V ---- SPDT relay ==== SPDT relay ---- bulb. Where ---- is a wire, and ==== is a pair of wires. Brake operates one relay, indicator operates the other, just like in your hall, one person could flash the light with his switch, and the other person could turn the light on with his. This results in the indicator overriding the brake. You could of course wire it so the brake overrode the indicator, but probably best to do it the first way, the other brake light serves as brake while on is indicating.Cars are full of relays anyway for stuff which takes more current than you want at the switch, like the rear demister. Also allows for it going off with a low current output timer.
I misread purpose as purple. I wonder why we can't use purple, then brake and tail could be different.
But if you use the brake, and the tails are on, it's still effectively varying between dim and bright, because there's another red lamp next to it.
I like the LED rows which "move" to indicate. They're much more obvious.
They are on some cars, and on mine when I swap the wires.
!!!! Surely the fog is on the offside?!
It's insane you can have one foglight. And one reverse light, which may not be as dangerous, but still looks f****ng stupid. How can you reverse on one side only?
I approached a lorry in fog, and it had those stupid twin tail lights. The two left ones were quite a distance away from each other. Through the fog it looked like two seperate vehicles further away. It felt really weird on my eyes as I approached it. I was gaining on it faster than I thought I would.
It's not modern, it's present on cheaper cars and always has been.
Those things are nowhere near bright enough to see. I once parked (for kinky reasons) at the end of a long farm lane. There was nowhere to turn round. I had to reverse a mile along a pitch black road and discovered I couldn't see. I had to reverse with brake and hazard and fog on aswell to see. Even worse I once reversed my neighbour's Rover 75. A 6 inch tall rear window is not good for reversing without hitting the kerb. Other stupid things in that "car" included the headlamp switch not being on the indicator stalk, but hidden on the dash somewhere, and coupled with that, the interior light went off as soon as you closed the door so you couldn't find it or the ignition. Yet they had thought to make the headlights stay on when you got out, so you didn't know if you'd left them on or not.
Add one yourself. Or fit a bright floodlight for reversing, either in the back window or on the roof. 4WD folk do so.
I wonder why it was missing. Did the previous owner remove it? I can't believe the manufacturer would put in a housing and wiring and no bulb. I had a Golf Mk4 and it had all the bulbs. They'd even though of putting a (lit) mirror in the driver's visor, so a woman could do her makeup. Most cars assume the woman sits in the passenger seat.
I had one of those. Automatically switched on 4WD 1 second after you started slipping, useless. Why not leave it on all the time?!
Easy enough to add one.
Having said that, I never use foglights, because they mean the person behind you won't know you're braking. If someone is approaching me fast enough they can't see a tail through the fog in time, that's their problem. So many OCD folk nowadays drive at the speed limit, they won't go over it on a good day and under on a bad day.
21W doesn't dazzle. 65W coming the other way is far brighter. Or 1000W if it's a BMW.
Near enough in every car I've had. Watching the speedo, It tends to be close to the red line at 20mph per gear.
"3th" :-)
I wonder, what do you call the fraction 1/41? A forty oneth? A forty firsth?
Why are you using a comma as a decimal point? Commas seperate things in a list.
Ooooh one of those fancy 6 gear cars eh? I've only ever had 5 (and 4 in autos).
I wish you'd corrected it so 1st was 1:1, then we could see whole numbers in stead of fractions. Here:
1st gear ratio 1:1 2nd gear ratio 1:1.85 3th gear ratio 1:2.68 4th gear ratio 1:3.61 5th gear ratio 1:4.65 6th gear ratio 1:5.92Close. But you have 6 gears. I'm only thinking of 5 gear cars. Looking at an extreme, 20 gears, you wouldn't have them be 1:1 to 1:20, there wouldn't be enough power, you'd put them closer together. So it depends if your 6th gear is added on the end, or squeezing everything up. Do you get closer gears, or a weaker more efficient one at the top?
<snip>
Those US indicator-brake lights:
Set one side of the bulb normally ground, but connected to 12V when the brakes are on.
Connect the other side to the indicator system so it is normally ground, but switched to 12V half the time when the indicators are running.
I don't know if that's what they do, but I think it will work. Without any relays.
Andy
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