No brake lights...
Author
Discussion

johnnywb

Original Poster:

1,631 posts

239 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Three times this week i've ended up following (different) cars who had no working brake lights.

None of the times has it been possible to let the driver know, but clearly it's a far from ideal situation. Should they be reported and if so, who to?

tvrgit

8,490 posts

283 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Wouldn't bother. Better things to do.

tigger1

8,478 posts

252 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Pet hate of mine, people with any lights not working.

There's a lot of cars nowadays seem to ONLY have the high level brake light working...which is also annoying as it shows how rarely people bother to check their lights.

Prof Beard

6,669 posts

258 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
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Yet another symptom of the replacement of trafpol by automated enforcement in my view...

Hooli

32,278 posts

231 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
do you find they are often tatty cars that even if new look uncared for & tend to brake harder than needed?
seems to be the rule around here, i reckon its deliberate to try & get some compensation.

johnnywb

Original Poster:

1,631 posts

239 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Hooli said:
do you find they are often tatty cars that even if new look uncared for & tend to brake harder than needed?
seems to be the rule around here, i reckon its deliberate to try & get some compensation.
One was, another was a private hire vehicle!

It's surprisingly hard work following a car with no brake lights actually.

joewilliams

2,004 posts

232 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Hooli said:
do you find they are often tatty cars that even if new look uncared for & tend to brake harder than needed?
seems to be the rule around here, i reckon its deliberate to try & get some compensation.
I find it's often the newer cars. The owner assumes that all the maintenance will be taken care of at the annual service, and no checks need to be done in between.

Big Rod

6,265 posts

247 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Pet hate of mine too having ploughed into a car with no brake lights one night a number of years ago. Try proving his lights weren't working after the accident and his rear light clusters have evaporated.

And yes I'm noticing increasing numbers of them too.

I do try to inform the driver, but sometimes it's just not possible.

Noticing quite a lot of cars with no tail lights on too.

Dracoro

9,038 posts

276 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Remarkable how many nearly new Mercedes have failed lights. I would expect most bulbs to last 4/5 years at least.

Anyway, be honest, how often do you REALLY check your lights? They can go at anytime. Fortunately for me, I park my S in my garage so can check the brake light reflecting against the door each time I start up.

Like tyres/oil, I check them all when I think to (prob on avg once a month), certainly not every journey. Most people will check less than I do I'll bet.

If you get the chance, just politely inform someone if you see their lights out. Prob make more of a point of doing so if NONE of their brake lights are working!!

bigdods

7,175 posts

258 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
computer says 'xxx light' when I get a blown bulb on the omega. SUrely it cant be that expensive to have this system installed on all cars ? The TVR I check brake lights every time I drive by reversing up to the garage door :-)

tigger1

8,478 posts

252 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Dracoro said:
Anyway, be honest, how often do you REALLY check your lights?
Brake / reverse / tail / headlights daily. (Yes, I do - usually my means of looking at reflections)
Indicators - apart from the increase in speed which tells me one has blown...everytime I fill up washer bottle, about once every week, depending on how many miles I've done.


dhutch

17,931 posts

228 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
I think its largly a aspect of not caring. Or just expection it all to be covered by its routine service intervals.

One of the bonus of of the hight leval strip brakelights is there usally a stack load of bulbs, so its rare that they have all gone unless somthing specific has taken out the whole cluster.
- Ive followed cars before which have only had about two of the eight or so bulbs left, and non others.

Some redundacy is good really, I dont check mine very often. I proberbly walk round the car and check the bulb (reflection of brakelight) maybe every 6-8weeks depending on how much im driving.
- But that the same time i am also ways constantly aware of what might or might not be working, for instance i can see my high leval brakelight glow in the rear view mirror whenever its dark. And notice indicators flashing or not in carparks and the like.

Tyre presures proberbly once a month as well, or anytime im doing a long jounrney and not checked for a while.


Daniel

Big Rod

6,265 posts

247 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
bigdods said:
computer says 'xxx light' when I get a blown bulb on the omega. SUrely it cant be that expensive to have this system installed on all cars ?
Not a bad idea, but not infallible. I had a Supra that supposedly had a bulb/lamp failure warning, but it broke and stopped the brake lights from working. Ironic huh!?!?!

Anyway, even though my car has a failure warning thing on it, I check them manually as often as I can remember. Most generally in the glass door at my house when reversing into the driveway.

sjtscott

4,215 posts

262 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Dracoro said:
Remarkable how many nearly new Mercedes have failed lights. I would expect most bulbs to last 4/5 years at least.

Anyway, be honest, how often do you REALLY check your lights? They can go at anytime. Fortunately for me, I park my S in my garage so can check the brake light reflecting against the door each time I start up.

Like tyres/oil, I check them all when I think to (prob on avg once a month), certainly not every journey. Most people will check less than I do I'll bet.

If you get the chance, just politely inform someone if you see their lights out. Prob make more of a point of doing so if NONE of their brake lights are working!!
I was following a Merc A Class just yesterday with only the tiny highlevel brake light working!!

EU_Foreigner

2,838 posts

257 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
Xenons at the front and leds at the back, not much to go wrong anymore ...

Hooli

32,278 posts

231 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
johnnywb said:
Hooli said:
do you find they are often tatty cars that even if new look uncared for & tend to brake harder than needed?
seems to be the rule around here, i reckon its deliberate to try & get some compensation.
One was, another was a private hire vehicle!

It's surprisingly hard work following a car with no brake lights actually.
to be honest i dont take much notice of brakelights when following. takes me miles to decide if they are just using engine braking or have no brakelights.
only time it gets 'fun' is if they emergancy stop. mind you i did once hit a doubledecker bus (didnt see it guv hehe) because it pulled an emergancy stop with no brakelights, so since then ive made an effort to learn to not need to look for them.

Vipers

33,524 posts

259 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
joewilliams said:
Hooli said:
do you find they are often tatty cars that even if new look uncared for & tend to brake harder than needed?
seems to be the rule around here, i reckon its deliberate to try & get some compensation.
I find it's often the newer cars. The owner assumes that all the maintenance will be taken care of at the annual service, and no checks need to be done in between.
And the same driver who probably has absolutely no idea how the jack works, or ever bothers to check the spare wheel pressure. (Or the cars wheels). How many drivers do you see them checking them at the garage.

smile


paul.deitch

2,317 posts

288 months

Wednesday 12th December 2007
quotequote all
the problem is going to go away soon! the new LED bulbs (front and rear) coming out are multiples so the likelihood of "catastrophic" failure is very small. however can be expensive at the moment. i'm thinking of experimenting and making my own, but not using them at mot time.