Learners allowed on motorways from 2018

Understood. I even though it should work fully, not at all or at least

Quite and as the central brake light feed was causing the fuse to all three to blow ... ;-(

Understood.

It's interesting to see how some of these supposed 'new / clever' features and technologies have actually been about for years ...

"At the turn of the century, 40 percent of American automobiles were powered by steam, 38 percent by electricity, and 22 percent by gasoline. 33,842 electric cars were registered in the United States, and America became the country where electric cars had gained the most acceptance.[25] Most early electric vehicles were massive, ornate carriages designed for the upper-class customers that made them popular. They featured luxurious interiors and were replete with expensive materials. Sales of electric cars peaked in the early 1910s.

In order to overcome the limited operating range of electric vehicles, and the lack of recharging infrastructure, an exchangeable battery service was first proposed as early as 1896.[26] The concept was first put into practice by Hartford Electric Light Company through the GeVeCo battery service and initially available for electric trucks. The vehicle owner purchased the vehicle from General Vehicle Company (GVC, a subsidiary of the General Electric Company) without a battery and the electricity was purchased from Hartford Electric through an exchangeable battery. The owner paid a variable per-mile charge and a monthly service fee to cover maintenance and storage of the truck. Both vehicles and batteries were modified to facilitate a fast battery exchange. The service was provided between 1910 and 1924 and during that period covered more than 6 million miles. Beginning in 1917 a similar successful service was operated in Chicago for owners of Milburn Light Electric cars who also could buy the vehicle without the batteries.[26]"

And:

Cheers, T i m

All cars have a warning indicator on the dashboard for brake lamp failure, so the driver already knows if the brake lights is not working. So what's the point of warning him?

He might not care if one of the brake lights is working OK, but that's of course an extremely dangerous situation with the loss of redundancy. But I see this every day. Shows the importance of having a dash cam, e.g. to counter a claim that the brake lights were working.

Likewise.

Because some just can't help themselves and don't believe the rules apply to them ... or don't believe the rules override their need for a soapbox. ;-(

Yup. ;-(

Quite.

Cheers, T i m

Yes, it would be nice if they did. As a motorcyclist I can't get out of the habit of doing a 'shoulder check' as well, just as I'm about to pull out to overtake and doing so has (potentially) saved me a few times now. It mainly helps when I'm about to pull out as someone else is just pulling back into the same lane (so I wouldn't see them in the lane I'm about to pull into in my o/s mirror)

;-)

Oooops.

Typical. As you say, probably asleep.

Joking aside ... a mate, working long hours away was diving home round the M25 late one night and remembers hearing car horns but didn't know where they were coming from. Then there was a large bang that woke him up and he had run up the back of a large lorry ... and the horns he was hearing were folk trying to wake him up!

Luckily it was a lorry and he hadn't hit it that hard (no major damage to his car and none to the lorry) ad was able to pull onto the hard shoulder safely etc. He carefully drove the rest of the way home very much awake!

Cheers, T i m

They do?

I know most have a light indicating the handbrake is on and that the fluid is low but I don't think any of ours have an indication of a failed lamp?

See above.

Some seem to pass it off that's for sure but many seem grateful and I've seen a few then stop and have their passenger get out to check for themselves.

Good point ... except I'm not sure the fact that their brake lights weren't working are an (acceptable) excuse if you run in the back of them?

Cheers, T i m

Only one of our three cars has lamp failure detection and judging by the number of cars driving with one or both brake lights out, a lot of others don't have it either. The EU have mandated a number of costly, but less than useful things on cars over the years, which makes it doubly odd that at least brake lamp failure detection hasn't been a requirement for decades - the rest of the lights you can check easily by yourself.

SteveW

My understanding is that there is no clear definition on what illegal undertaking actually is, but that it is often accepted that continuing in the same lane and passing to the left of a slow(er) moving vehicle in the lane to the right of you is acceptable, whereas moving to the left lane to pass them is not.

SteveW

Nothing illegal in it. A normal overtake and correct pull back into lane one. There is then nothing saying I am not allowed to slow down. Once they have passed me, I am perfectly entitled to change my mind, pull out and pass them.

The last time I did it. I was on a completely empty section of motorway in the early hours of the morning (I was literally the only vehicle in sight going in my direction), when someone pulled on in front of me, straight into the second lane and stayed there at 50 mph.

How are they ever going to learn the error of their ways if no-one ever points it out to them?

SteveW

very few cars have brake light failure warning

I'm very surprised to hear, I thought that was an obvious indicator, easy and extremely cheap to include by the manufacturer. But of course you don't really know if it's included unless you read the manual, or a brake lamp fails. I'm dumbfounded - with all this electronics in cars nowadays. A tiny little LED on the panel, what's the problem?

But modern cars comes with very skimpy manuals, nothing like them old cars manuals where you could find everything, e.g. my thick Saab 9000 manual 115 pages - what do you want to know?

But I judge the distance between me and the vehicle in front - if it reduces too much I slow down. That guards against both me going too fast and the one in front slowing.

Having said that, brake lights are a useful advance warning, particularly when the car 2 in front brakes and you see its lights reflected in the wet road under the one imediately in front.

Even if they did, very few drivers would take any action.

I've given up telling people I follow into car parks etc that they have a light out. I'm either met by a puzzled look, or a statement along the lines of 'Oh, it's OK, it's going in for a service next month'!

Chris

Far too frequently the brake lights are the first indication that the vehicle in front is about make a turn.

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Application of the brakes is the commencement of the manoeuvre and not the "signal". Applying the brakes before indicating is effectively brake testing the following car.

I think we should add this to the list of driving test failures that we can report along with middle lane hogging.

Yes, brake lights, stop lamps are now universal, but some brake lights on some newer care are very bright, I sometimes have to use the sun screen when queuing behind such a car.

Over a thousand pages in the owners manuals for a modern Lexus! But no, the great majority of cars on British roads do NOT have brake light failure warning.

How do you know this? It's not obvious until the brake light fails. But with LED lights they don't fail very often. My car year 1995 has indicators for all kinds of lights, for the doors and the boot and for brake pads and ABS. It doesn't have tyre pressures, I now learned that this is mandatory on new cars. So I can't understand why they should miss out on brake light monitoring.

I would suggest that many of the people you are questioning here have worked on may cars both over many years and recently and know it because it's what they do. ;-)

But many might be replacing brake light lamps for others so would know.

True ... so even less of a reason to have a lamp failed indicator. ;-)

Yes, *some* older cars were littered with all sorts of indicators and gizmos but many weren't.

I think you are right.

Because (as has been mentioned) apart from people not taking any notice of them, many don't seem to realise the implications of not having fully functional brake lights or who will be held responsible if it is noticed by the authorities.

On that last point, how many here have seen a Police car behind a vehicle with a missing light and seen them not do anything about it?

Cheers, T i m

I only know the A3 has a warning light because I've just checked in the manual ;-)

I repair a good quantity of mixed types/makes of vehicles every year. I get MoTs carried out on about a hundred vehicles a year. I very rarely check over a vehicle before an MoT, on the journey to a test, I drive the cars and I observe the dashboard and displays, during the test a significant number of vehicles have a failed brake light, since no warning was showing it is reasonable to assume that those vehicles have no warning system for brake light failure. The only ones I can think of offhand are Mercedes, Honda and Lexus. Certainly nothing on the majority of the vehicles that I work on, which in the main is small fords and vauxhalls which are probably the most common cars in the country.