Proposal for Daylight Running Lights on ALL vehicles.

Ok, suppose we put a website or even an extra page here (to pull in extra votes) and a petition forward explaining how daytime lights on for us (and no-one else) is a safety factor for us? We can moan all we want, but at least we can try to make a stand...?

There was talk of this in france last year, and i think there was also a bike rally in protest of it with 300ish bikes turning up, but thats the last i heard... but that was in MCN, so it could be ********

So we do something positive here?

Dunno, this would need the support of admin because the org would be in the frontline fire.

Originally Posted by on yer bike

There was talk of this in france last year, and i think there was also a bike rally in protest of it with 300ish bikes turning up, but thats the last i heard... but that was in MCN, so it could be ********

There are parts of France where this is already in force. The section down from Bordeaux and Irun through the Foret des Landes is one section, there are more

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Dicky Ticker

Two words--------------------BAD IDEA





[New motorbikes nearly all have AH an this would only merge into a sea of lights if all vehicles ran with headlights on]

Well if the org is going to make a stand Ping it had better get its facts straight.
IIRC there is no proposal for every car to have headlights on permanently but to have DLR lights on.
IMO that would still give an advantage to Motorbikes and improve the safety of cars, so if it is done right I would support the proposal.

In my opinion its a bad idea, simple reason, if lights are always on, people get used to them. the idea for bikes was so that they could stand out, no more "sorry mate i didn't see you", but if everyone has lights on, you don't stand out anymore, then drivers not looking out for you, wont notice you because of your lights, bang, crash, bye bye bike.

[Stu]

My point is, if they maintain a difference between bikes with headlights on and cars with lesser DRLs it would be good.

[northwind]

I'm not sure about that at all... Maybe for bikers, but you can't oppose a general safety measure that could help the other 99/100 vehicles on the road on the grounds that it might make things slightly worse for the other 1/100.

I think Stu's right... As described, the new law doesnt' actually massively reduce our visibility, but it makes cars easier to see. I reckon that balances out, or could even work out beneficial. WE're all making assumptions here, but there's a lot of actual statistical analysis out there on the impact of daytime lighting etc which we don't seem to be talking about at all. Sometimes you have to take a step back. Maybe the reason it looks stupid to you is that you don't know the facts that makes it make sense.

Stupid idea but inevitable. When I started driving (early 70s !!), nobody used headlights where there was street lighting, only sidelights - headlights were only for seeing the road ahead in the absence of streetlights - this was in the highway code. Everyone was happy.

As soon as a small but large enough percentage of (IMO selfish) drivers started using headlights with streetlights it became acceptable, perhaps because it coincided with increased motorway usage, or heavier traffic generally.

Dave Lee Travis started a campaign on radio 1 to get everyone to use headlights everywhere (mid 70s), so anyone on sidelights was forced to use headlights to be seen (Radio 1 was a big influence then). I remember thinking No ! No ! No ! - this is a slippery slope ! Now at dusk we are met with a wall of light, this generation of drivers thinks the solution is to use even brighter lights to allow them (selfishly ?) to be seen. Could go on for ever. Funny how many situations in life are spoiled for the majority by the selfish actions of a small minority ! rant....rant....etc.

I personally think the solution is for everyone (except bikes !) to revert to sidelights, but that isn't going to happen.

The same situation is now happening with daylight use of lights. When I first rode a bike (late 70s) not many bikers used their headlights in daylight, I often got told "you've got your lights on mate", now I'd be a fool not to. This proposal is just a natural legalised enforcement of what's already happening.

This potted history of the headlights situation is as I remember it, others may remember it differently.

[Sid Squid]

Originally Posted by chazzyb

[I think a modern alternator creates a greater load on the engine the more power it's having to generate. I suspect rather than just sinking excess power when not required, the regulator can restrict the power output to match demand. That's certainly possible where there's an electro-magnet rather than a permanent magnet generating the field. Crikey, the DC dynamo on my old AJS uses that principle.

Not any more, nowadays better and more resilient electronics, (Suzuki reg-recs aside obviously ), allow us neat, light and very reliable permanent magnet alternators, output is constant, excess charge is dumped. The last Jap bike I can think of with a crank mounted alternator and variable output was a very neat bit of Kwak engineering, all the coils, including the field, mounted on a stator, and the whole was neatly clearanced such that the flux could jump the gap and the rotor required no brushes. Very neat and efficient but by today's standards rather big and heavy, the newer rare earth magnets we have now allow very small and light devices with no wearing parts.