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"Should" is a word that ought to be banned from this sort of discussion. It's illegal in this country—the UK—to drive at night without lights. Doesn't stop it
by cstross 7y ago
"Should" is a word that ought to be banned from this sort of discussion.
It's illegal in this country—the UK—to drive at night without lights. Doesn't stop it happening, though. Either someone forgets to turn the lights on, if they're manually controlled, or they actively turn them off because the UI is ambiguous (this happened to me, once), or the filament bulb burns out (again: filament bulbs are/were mandatory in the UK, originally to rule out carbide lamps without actually banning them), or there's a wiring/software fault.
The point is, vehicle safety measures should be fail-safe, and driving an invisible vehicle at night and relying on lights to make yourself seen is kind of the opposite of that.
- blueprint 7y agoshould. ought. ....
- Marsymars 7y agoFollowing that, it's hard to argue that cars shouldn't come with mandatory reflective strips. (Which, of the top of my head, actually doesn't seem like a bad idea.)
- whenchamenia 7y agoMost do. Every car and motorcycle I own has reflectors on all sides.
- Marsymars 7y agoDo they? Every so often I come up on a vehicle at night with no lights on, and I've never noticed any notable reflectors, like say, runners wear at night for visibility.