headlights on all day

Having seen the FDA side of things and read Daniel's posts over the years I don't think it works the other way around. These sort of things are done using what I have called 'claybrookian logic' after the carter era appointee. If someone wants to change an ass-backwards US regulation you need to show a pile of bodies from the current regulation and it is assumed that your change will produce a pile of bodies because current US regulation is considered best in the world by default.

Remember how the storm sewers were going to be filled with blood when the NMSL was done away with? The same sort of buracrats will complain that people won't see the road signs at night and die in firey crashes as they slide off the road.

Reply to
Brent P
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Brent P wrote:

Right. And absence of evidence is considered evidence of absence, while evidence of absence is considered absence of evidence. The whole system is designed to protect the US market's home-field advantage, and is based on chest-thumping ("we're right and the stupid rest of the world is wrong!") and elaborate handwaving designed to distract from what's really going on: the highest bidder wins his regulation. Take a look at the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act of 1988, which shut down the "grey market": It was put on the books as a result of purchased lobbying by US subsidiaries of European carmakers, and their dealers, who were upset at their usurious markups being circumvented by private importers. There was not one scrap nor shred of evidence that privately-imported European-spec vehicles were involved with collisions, injuries or fatalities to any greater degree than US-spec vehicles, nor was there any evidence that they were safer -- there was no evidence at all having to do with safety, but this Act was promulgated based on high-minded notions of highway safety and protecting Americans' wellbeing against the menace of non-spec vehicles. Likewise, there are scores of provisions contained in the various Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards that are simply _different_ to analogous provisions in the rest-of-world ECE regulations. Not necessarily better, not necessarily worse, usually more or less equal, but DIFFERENT. We live in a time when "Tariff" is a dirty word (thank you, MBAs); it's considered backwards and unseemly to have overt trade restrictions, so we hide them within technical regulations. So sorry, we'd love for you to come and sell your cars here, but they don't meet our unique safety regulations. Too bad, so sad, bye-bye.

Canada pretty much gets dragged along for whatever drunken ride NHTSA decides to take. There are a lot of very smart, very capable, very knowledgeable Canadian regulators at Transport Canada, who would love to fix the deficiencies in US regulations for the Canadian market, but are prevented. This example from the Canadian lighting regulator: "Look, red rear turn signals are stupid. They're deficient. Everybody knows amber ones are better. But if I try to legislate for amber rear turn signals, we will get hauled into Free Trade Court by the automakers, and they'll demand we show them the pile of dead bodies from red turn signals." A few years ago, Transport Canada was looking at allowing ECE-spec whole vehicles and equipment (beyond already-permitted headlamps) into Canada. Not enacting any new prohibitions, mind you, just *allowing* ECE specs. The notion passed all the safety analyses, but automakers howled: "You can't do this! It'll screw up our parts distribution calculations, and when we make a car for the German market, we want it to stay in Germany! We need the different North American regulations to limit our liability to the vehicles we choose to offer here!". And the US NHTSA also howled: "You can't do this! If you do, we'll be the only ones in the world doing something different!"

And the punchline is that evidence suggests NHTSA is doing a rotten job. The Wikipedia article is pretty good, and is based on a very solid data source (Dr. Leonard Evans,

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DS

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

So the members of this group are in general agreement that if the UN was given the job of resolving differences between SAE and EU code lighting standards they would hand that job over to North Korea. Or did I miss something?

Richard.

Reply to
Richard

Sounds like you got it.

The UN is as corrupt as Ohio speed trap town.

Reply to
Brent P

That fits in with the stupid DVD regional codes so we can watch movies from say Japan on our US market DVD player and the plans for broad band over power lines. If you're not familiar with it, it's turning every electrical outlet in a home into an internet connection so any product that gets plugged into a wall socket can 'phone home'. This way the corporations can track the products from manufacture to landfill.

They don't seem to grasp the issue that once the product is bought by us, it's ours to use or sell as we see fit without their interference. (They can refuse servicing it under some conditions, but that's about it)

What I find particularly amusing is that companies want to retain regional differences to protect their markets but we as people cannot retain regional barriers to protect our labor markets.

Getting a bit OT here... but it just all fits so well.

Reply to
Brent P

The US Department of Commerce is worse.

Reply to
Richard Sexton

That's why you should always only ever buy Philips DVD players. I bought a DVP-642, brought it home, plugged it in, put a battery in the remote, pointed the remote at the player, hit 7 8 9 [OK] 0, and

*presto*, no more region codes. I can play DVDs from anywhere in the world. PAL, NTSC, region code 1, 2, 3, 4, whatever, doesn't matter, they all play perfectly.

Philips aren't impressed with all the greedy crapola added onto the standard they invented, as it seems.

They're corporations, with rights.

You're not.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

I plan on researching which ones are the easiest to unlock when I should ever buy one. The one I have was a gift and requires a service DVD from austraila to unlock the region. Of course I've heard walmart cheapies aren't region locked.

Reply to
Brent P
[dvd players]

I'd just get a dvd-rw drive and rip the contents and burn a dvd-rw dual layer disc. Not only will the region lock no longer be a problem, but the original disc can be stored in a safe place and remain scratch/pot-mark free.

Reply to
Arif Khokar

Another thing is, DVD burning wasn't around like it is now when mine was made, thusly it doesn't like burned DVDs...

Reply to
Brent P

I guess it really depends on the disc brand. I watch DVDs on my computer mostly, so I don't have that problem. I suppose a video card like an ATI all-in-wonder model with component output will allow you to use your computer as a dvd player (but I'm not sure about how well the unix drivers work).

Reply to
Arif Khokar

Good summation of the "discussion" to date.

Isn't this a.a.b? I know some clown cross-posted it, but come on!

Reply to
Toby

What the hell kind of pot leaves marks on DVDs ?

Reply to
Richard Sexton

Pioneer started the development of the DVD before Philips and Sony joined in. It was a consortium which agreed the final standard.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

The dust particle kind.

Reply to
Arif Khokar

If you're getting pot-marks on your DVDs, you're smoking way too much pot.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Not necessarily. There is a web site that will tell you what it can play.

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Just type in your player model (s7000) and select the right one. There are three of this example. Selecting Sony comes up with

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where you can see that it accepts CDR, DVD-RW, bit DVD+r, and VCD. Except that I don't understand the "bit" part, this seems to be correct for this player.

Reply to
DTJ

I love how this topic bout headlamps has gone all over to nucular arms to who invented dvds HAHA

BTW .. JVC invented VHS

Reply to
Kriznaft

Oh, yeah? Well SONY invented Beta. Oops, forget about that.

Well, Phillips invented Compact Discs! And also Milk of Magnesia!

Now, on to the pharmaceutical thread !

Reply to
Billzz

Enjoy the excursion. You don't have to be on the vehicle (BMW or otherwise, with or without lights), though...

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

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