Feet on brake pedal when stopped.

[Vipers]

Tony33 said:

hough as has been explained several times the modern design of cars makes it normal practice for many owners to be sat with engine off, feet off pedals, handbrake on yet with the brake lights still illuminated (in manual or automatic cars). It isn't an apparent lack of understanding of how to drive but a lack of understanding how modern cars work and it isn't the "muppet" in front setting out to inconvenience other road users. Stuff changes and the highway code takes a while to catch up between publications updated, take the advice on CPR for instance.

So do I get this right, engine OFF, feet off, handbrake ON, brake lights on?

So when you get in the car and insert the key do the brake lights come on?

Just asking, because I am interested.

[Tony33]

Vipers said:

Tony33 said:

hough as has been explained several times the modern design of cars makes it normal practice for many owners to be sat with engine off, feet off pedals, handbrake on yet with the brake lights still illuminated (in manual or automatic cars). It isn't an apparent lack of understanding of how to drive but a lack of understanding how modern cars work and it isn't the "muppet" in front setting out to inconvenience other road users. Stuff changes and the highway code takes a while to catch up between publications updated, take the advice on CPR for instance.

So do I get this right, engine OFF, feet off, handbrake ON, brake lights on?

So when you get in the car and insert the key do the brake lights come on?

Just asking, because I am interested.

No but when you come to a halt in certain modern cars with electronic handbrakes, auto hold features and stop start you will have exactly that; engine OFF, feet off, handbrake ON, brake lights on

[jmorgan]

^^^^^^
That is most odd. How do you turn the lights off? Key out or something?

[Tony33]

jmorgan said:

^^^^^^
That is most odd. How do you turn the lights off? Key out or something?

Ignition off I suppose (press the Starter on a keyless) but that is not working as designed. BMWs, VWs etc have had this feature for some time. Don't assume the person in front is sat with their foot on the brake.

[jmorgan]

Tony33 said:

jmorgan said:

^^^^^^
That is most odd. How do you turn the lights off? Key out or something?

Ignition off I suppose (press the Starter on a keyless) but that is not working as designed. BMWs, VWs etc have had this feature for some time. Don't assume the person in front is sat with their foot on the brake.

I learn something new every day.

Still a pain in the rods though.....


Edit. Thinking about it, there are many motors that I sit behind that are not stop start.

[Tony33]

jmorgan said:

Tony33 said:

jmorgan said:

^^^^^^
That is most odd. How do you turn the lights off? Key out or something?

Ignition off I suppose (press the Starter on a keyless) but that is not working as designed. BMWs, VWs etc have had this feature for some time. Don't assume the person in front is sat with their foot on the brake.

I learn something new every day.

Still a pain in the rods though.....


Edit. Thinking about it, there are many motors that I sit behind that are not stop start.

Yeh, there is a new breed of technology and the assumptions people make about the "muppet" in front with his foot on the brake stem from simply not being aware of this new tech.

[Blib]

I've been driving for nigh on forty years and not once have I been more than the slightest bit inconvenienced by the dazzle of brake lights from a car in front in a queue.

Fog lights, on the other hand, are a totally different matter. Back in the day, my mother owned a Toyota Starlet (Or, was it a Honda Civic?). The fog lights in that were on rocker switches which reset to off whenever the ignition was turned off. YOYOY can't all cars be fitted with them?

[Tony33]

lbc said:

It is actually illegal to sit in traffic with dazzling brake lights, but you are unlikely to get fined for it.

It isn't illegal. "Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, the Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see 'The road user and the law') to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’"

So if someone was to crash because they claimed they were dazzled by the brake lights of the driver in front in a queue for a long period it may be taken into account. Seems unlikely and if the driver in front could prove it was as the car was designed it would clearly get nowhere.

[Boosted LS1]

And yet some of the LED's I come across are brighter then fog lights. The whole situation seems bizarre and ill thought out imo. A mechanical handbrake seems like a simple enough device.

[hwajones]

Into Park during stop/start traffic?!
lol

[CarAbuser]

SK425 said:

What's irritating - because it's a car forum - is primarily the apparent lack of understanding of some of the basics of how to drive a car. I don't understand why, in a place like PH, the response isn't a unanimous "yes, of course I switch my brake lights off in a queue". The irritation is compounded when you see people not only admitting to selfishness and laziness, but not at all bothered about it.

Of course there will be people out there, loads of them, who can't get the basics of driving right or just aren't interested - dawdling about everywhere at 35-40, sitting in the middle lane for miles on end, riding the clutch at junctions, failing to dip their main beam for oncomers (or never putting their main beam on in the first place), habitually using the left lane to turn right at roundabouts, not getting up to speed on slip roads, and so on - but how have people like that ended up at a place like PH? That's what I don't understand. I don't know if that's just the current state of PH or it's always been like that.

What would be your solution for owners of automatic cars with electronic handbrakes?

You would be the first person to get pissed off if you were sat behind someone who had to go through a 5 second sequence of button presses to disengage their handbrake at traffic lights or in stop/start traffic.

It's just not feasible to apply a handbrake on modern cars.

[jhfozzy]

Tony33 said:

lbc said:

It is actually illegal to sit in traffic with dazzling brake lights, but you are unlikely to get fined for it.

11 Any other lamp Used so as to cause undue dazzle or discomfort to other persons using the road.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989/1796/regul...

It isn't illegal. "Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, the Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see 'The road user and the law') to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’"

So if someone was to crash because they claimed they were dazzled by the brake lights of the driver in front in a queue for a long period it may be taken into account. Seems unlikely and if the driver in front could prove it was as the car was designed it would clearly get nowhere.

He didn't link to the highway code, but to the "The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989" which is law, so yes, illegal.

[SK425]

Tony33 said:

Though as has been explained several times the modern design of cars makes it normal practice for many owners to be sat with engine off, feet off pedals, handbrake on yet with the brake lights still illuminated (in manual or automatic cars). It isn't an apparent lack of understanding of how to drive but a lack of understanding how modern cars work and it isn't the "muppet" in front setting out to inconvenience other road users. Stuff changes and the highway code takes a while to catch up between publications updated, take the advice on CPR for instance.

Agreed. Some posters have pointed out that systems on their cars like electronic parking brakes and stop start make it difficult to switch the brake lights off in a queue and I hoped it was clear that I wasn't directing my comments that way. Outside of that though, there is no excuse - yet there have been posters in this thread who have no good excuse, they just don't give a toss. When threads moaning about MLMs come up for example (which is even more common than this moan) you don't get half of PH leaping in and saying, "yeah I drive in the wrong lane. So what? Screw you" - presumably because the sort of people who have no interest in cars beyond them being a transport module to get from A to B and either don't care or aren't even aware that they're doing it wrong are not the sort of people who gravitate to a place like PH. So what's different here?

I don't let myself get wound up by people leaving their brake lights on any more than I let myself get wound up by all the other clueless and inconsiderate things people do out on the roads - that way lies insanity . But I think it's bizarre that any of those people have any interest in a place like PH - why are they here? And on PH just as anywhere I encounter them, I find arrogant, selfish people who are proud of their behaviour to be quite offensive. It irritates me that the rest of us have to share the same oxygen when these people really ought to be tied to the bottom of a canal where they'd be out of everybody else's way.

[Tje]

Tony33 said:

gnition off I suppose (press the Starter on a keyless) but that is not working as designed. BMWs, VWs etc have had this feature for some time. Don't assume the person in front is sat with their foot on the brake.

I've taken to turningoff the auto hold in the golf when it gets dark. hate the idea of sat blinding whoever is sat behind me.

[Pothole]

doogz said:

Pothole said:

do. I find it affects my night vision for a minute or so. What's your point? Just stop doing it, it's not difficult for you.

I don't do it. I never said I did.

More a not-boiling-my-brakes sort of habit, than being concerned about the gentle-little-flower-behind-me’s eyes.

But when I find myself behind someone that’s sitting on the brakes for any length of time, I don’t find myself becoming agitated or uncomfortable by it. I’m just asking if it does genuinely make people physically uncomfortable, as there’s a few bullst ‘retina-burning’ comments come out every time this is discussed, where people seem to be professionally offended, and exaggerating profusely.

OK. I've said how it affects me. I'd like all drivers to start giving a sh@t about all other drivers, but I guess I'm gonna keep wishing on that one. Meanwhile, this delicate little flower will continue to be adversely affected by other people's poor habits.

[romeogolf]

I've been thinking about this thread on the way home from work each day this week and wondering which cars give glare and which don't.

I wear glasses to drive, which usually give more of an issue with glare/reflections that driving bare-faced but have never found any brake lights to be an issue, even then. I've been behind a 64-plate CLS and an Evoque this week, both with bright lights, but neither glaringly so, at least to me.

I drive a Mercedes with the hand-operated parking brake, located on the dashboard next to the driver's door. Using this in traffic is incredibly uncomfortable. It's not 'within reach' - I have to lean forward each time to press it on, though thankfully it self-releases when I push the accelerator.

[anonymous-user]

Blib said:

I've been driving for nigh on forty years and not once have I been more than the slightest bit inconvenienced by the dazzle of brake lights from a car in front in a queue.

Fog lights, on the other hand, are a totally different matter. Back in the day, my mother owned a Toyota Starlet (Or, was it a Honda Civic?). The fog lights in that were on rocker switches which reset to off whenever the ignition was turned off. YOYOY can't all cars be fitted with them?

Agreed, brake lights on have never bothered me in the slightest and probably never will. I think some people have too much time on their hands to get worked up over stuff like this tbh.

[thiscocks]

The people who do this are normally also the ones riding the clutch at lights no matter how long they are sitting there. As soon as the lights go green they are already 100 metres down the road before I have even put it in gear. Why?

[jmorgan]

St John Smythe said:

Blib said:

I've been driving for nigh on forty years and not once have I been more than the slightest bit inconvenienced by the dazzle of brake lights from a car in front in a queue.

Fog lights, on the other hand, are a totally different matter. Back in the day, my mother owned a Toyota Starlet (Or, was it a Honda Civic?). The fog lights in that were on rocker switches which reset to off whenever the ignition was turned off. YOYOY can't all cars be fitted with them?

Agreed, brake lights on have never bothered me in the slightest and probably never will. I think some people have too much time on their hands to get worked up over stuff like this tbh.

I demand the right to be worked up over nothing!

And free mints on a Thursday.

Edited by jmorgan on Friday 28th November 15:13

[Roundozo]

To be honest I’ll happily sit on the breaks if I know it’s not too long a wait (I wouldn’t do it if I know they’re roasting hot from blasting down the previous road). The handbrake in the Z4 is not the most comfortable thing to get to and the rear lights aren’t that bright anyway.