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GM7HUD > TECHNI 13.08.04 13:47l 43 Lines 2554 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 73979_GB7ESX
Read: GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: Re: Car Battery Confusion.
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0SIF<DB0EA<DB0RES<ON0AR<WB0TAX<VK7AX<ZL2BAU<GB7MAX<
GB7WIS<GB7ESX
Sent: 040813/0849z @:GB7ESX.#31.GBR.EU #:73979 $:73979_GB7ESX [Witham, Esx]NNA
Lionel is correct with a significant number of UK motorists now turning
on their lights in poor conditions. There still a sizeable majority who
dont though. I sometimes wonder if what the think when they see say 70%
of the traffic comming towards them with dipped headlamps. I often wonder
why they dont turn their own lights on. But then I get the really scary
thought that they havent noticed all the other traffic has decided conditions
are poor enough to need lights :-(
There is a downside though to making driving with lights compulsory. That is
increased fuel consumption. Volvo were the 1st to have permanent "running"
lights followed by SAAB. They may have only had 4 x 5W bulbs illuminated but
the power to drive them had to come from somewhere. OK the fuel used is
not siginificant for one car and I doubt you'd be able to accurately measure
it but multipled by the millions of cars in the UK and that amounts
to a significant amount of fuel and extra pollution.
Anoth point (to stray slightly from battery charging) is that many modern
cars seem to have extremly feeble parking/sidelights. My last two cars have
had pathetically weedy sidelights. I think it's more the design of the
headlamps and how the sidelight bulbs are fitted. For a while many cars sold
in the UK (especially Ford cars) had a "dim-dip" system. Here the sidelights/
parking lights consisted of the normal 5W bulbs when the ignition was off. But
when turn on the headlamp dipped bulbs were placed in series giving a level
of illumination much better than just sidelights alone. The lights in this
mode weren't really bright enough to drive by, but you could see approaching
vehicles at a much greater distance. By connecting the lamps in series you
only needing an extra relay rather than more bulbs.
We should be able to rely on common sense to tell drivers to light up. Sadly
such sense is anything but common! Given that more and more cars sold in Europe
now come with automatic wipers that switch on when the windscreen is wet,
perhaps they should reintroduce dim-dpped lamps and have them come on
automatically as well?
Rear fog lamps? OOh dont get me started on them. They may be of benefit if
you are on some remote road, but the fact that people use them on busy
motorways blinding the driver behind them is inexecusable. That and
forgetting to turn them off. We've had a fortnight of fog, mist and harrs,
and I'm happy to wager that in another fortnight's time ther'll still be
people driving about with their rear fog lights on :-(
73 de Andy GM7HUD
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