Government Committee proposes £1800 car tax for 4x4

The real feudal system, which wasn't all that commonplace, and soon got warped out of all recognition, was one of the last political systems in Europe which wasn't built on principles found in an abusive parental relationship.

Yep the next bit of craziness, which sounds more real a threat than the lib dems heavy bias on the all party committees decision is daylight running lights. On a series? you must be joking. If they really want to harmonise we will all be driving on the same side of the road as Johnny Foreigner, and that is just not British.

Brilliant energy conservation measure - I wonder how many extra tonnes of CO2 THAT releases.

Steve

On or around Sat, 12 Aug 2006 18:31:15 +0100, steve enlightened us thusly:

quite a lot - especially if they're talking about headlights. Running with lights on uses about 150W on a typical car (plus another 110 for the fog lights on chavmobiles, of course). say there are, on average, I dunno, 10 million cars on the road at any time in daylight hours, so that'll be 1500MW of power, all of it generated in inefficient oil-burning generators, 'cos the car's efficiency as an electricity generator is not a major design issue. About as much as a decent-sized nuclear power station...

Even if there are only 1 million on the road, and I seriously doubt that, it's 150MW.

and even if you go the same way the Swedes did, with 21W running lights, then you still want about 54W per car for a pair at the front and a pair of rear lights, so those 10M cars are still eating 540MW of power to little purpose.

typical crap spouted by someone who's not even begun to think about the consequences.

Dunno, but ask the next council road planner how much extra CO2 is released into the atmosphere due to road humps and see what he says.

Alex

In Sweden it's for road safety purposes, and it really does make it a lot easier to see other cars in certain weather conditions; fog, early morning haze, dusty weather, even just cars painted in colours that blend in too easily. It makes a lot of sense.

(Yeah, guess who grew up in Sweden?)

Please don't encourage them. I am quite capable of deciding what qualifies as poor visibility and will make use of the illumination facilities on my vehicle to assist other road users in noticing my presence. The last thing I need is for every driver to become light-blind because every vehicle has lights blazing during the day.

"Common sense - waassat?"

You may have common sense but a large number of other people out on the road do not!

I'm a saab driver, so quite like DRL's ;). On my saab it is just the sidelights that stay on all the time NOT the headlights. The normal sidelight bulbs are not very bright and i wouldnt say they 'blazed'. They make the car that little bit more obvious - in the same way that bike riders often keep their lights on all the time.

There are quite a few occasions where i have thought to myself that the car infront would have been a lot more obvious if it had lights on. Sudden rain storms or snow/fog are the most common.

Like when it suddenly starts pissing it down really heavily in the afternoon on the way home from work and you are on a busy dual carriageway/motorway and there is loads of road spray not that many people seem to turn their lights on - but it helps a lot and stops cars suddenly appearing infront of you as they become visible..

And half of those cruise up and down the high street on Friday nights...

Exactly. Or grey cars (why are they so popular now, anyway?) on grey roads on overcast days... the buggers turn invisible.

light-blind

Well, that's what the driving test is supposed to do, to make sure *all* drivers have road sense, common or otherwise.

I still prefer the choice.

It's a legal requirement to run with lights in such conditions. What p155es me off is when in fog and you catch up with someone, the driver in front knows you're behind but still keeps his high intensity rears switched on.

Martin

|| They make the car that little bit more obvious - in the same way that || bike riders often keep their lights on all the time.

Headlights on a bike is one of the few ways that bikers can make themselves more noticeable to car drivers. This measure would remove that small advantage.

Indeed, but must they keep them on main beam all the time?

It would really remove it, theyre still going to be more obvious, its just that the cars will show up too.

If they do actually force this rule through then i think it is about the only new ruling that i know about that i dont disagree with!

You say that like everybody on the road drives perfectly! ;)

true, the choice is nice but having to put up with everybody using DRL's wouldnt really harm you in any way. In full daylight i dont think that my sidelights even show up much anyway. They only start showing up as soon as the light drops (which is when you need them anyway)

I wonder how often the requirement is enforced or how many people get pulled over for it. Not many i guess!. Not the easiest thing to enforce i suppose.

Bet you pedestrian RTAs go up, especially in winter.

Steve

I wasn't aware that I'd been following you Tom :-), would be nice if they did though. The consideration for other road users is what's missing now.

Martin.

NO!!, i'd rather you pull out on me and write both my life and my £5K bike off!!! Don't be such a dipstick, bikers use theirs like because drivers DON'T use their eyes!

Theres a reason why i only drive cars that have proper bumpers rather than ornamental ones! :)

Main beam is a pain - it's too bright. Folk in front can't tell how far back you are.

Use whatever device your imagination can think of to ensure your visibility but don't make it hard work for other road users.