To think that you should always use your headlights when driving in the dark?

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Now that it's getting darker much earlier in the afternoons, I've started seeing quite a sizeable minority of people each day driving either only with sidelights or with no lights at all when it's already properly fully dark - dark enough so that (thankfully) virtually every other driver does have their lights on. I don't know if it's just in my area or if people are doing it everywhere?

Am I missing something important here, or do they just have a death wish? How difficult is it to turn a knob and put your lights on? Do some people genuinely believe that headlights are strictly only for night time - and if it's 3:30pm, you don't turn your lights on because it's still only the afternoon, even though it's far too dark to see properly or be safely seen without them?

AIBU to think that it should be 3 or even 6 points on your licence for dangerous driving, unless your lights have just that moment failed on you and now don't actually work? Just why?

I've seen many on motorways without their lights on. Or they only have working front lights or one working light. I get past them as soon as I can. Sometimes I think people start their journey when it's light and either forget to turn them on, or push it all the way home because "it's only 10 minutes further".

At this time of year, I tend to turn my lights on when it starts getting gloomy. On Thursday that was 11am as it was such a shit wet day. If I'm in the office I turn them on when I leave, it may be light but it will be dark at some point during my drive home (and it creeps up on you) then I don't have to think about it.

I also have daylight running lights but I still manage to turn my lights on.

Forgetting to put your lights on is not comparable to forgetting you've had 'several pints' 😂

I'm amazed that car manufacturers haven't considered the very obvious consequences of making dashboards fully visible without putting your headlights on when it isn't fully visible outside the car.

Sometimes automating things can help with safety; but sometimes it can reduce safety.

Now they're talking about possibly legally requiring manufacturers to instal breathalysers in cars, so all drivers are forced to prove to the car that they're sober before it will allow the engine to be switched on. Yes, this would likely save lives (at least until drink-drivers learn to get their kids or a sober non-driver to blow into it for them), but would be permanently annoying to teetotallers like me, for whom alcohol simply is not a part of my life - along with all of the vast, vast majority of people who do enjoy a drink, but would never for a second ever dream of doing so before driving. I imagine it would be even more objectionable if you were devout in a faith that forbids drinking alcohol and your car forced you to 'prove you aren't a sinner' every time before you can use it.

Yet they've actively taken away a longstanding basic safety feature that prevents drivers from realising that, if they can't see their dashboard, it means that they need to put their headlights on?!

How can you forget that you're supposed to be able to see the road ahead of you, or indeed your dashboard?

My last car I left my lights on auto, my current car doesn’t turn lights off automatically so I turn them off when I stop, but the dash lights up when the ignition is on.
I drove several yards down the fully lit main road the other evening, I could see the road (&dash) fine. It was a helpful pedestrian waving at me that made me realise the lights weren’t on, but I’ve seen loads of cars driving without lights on recently

I clarified that above. I accept it wasn't a great analogy; but my intention wasn't necessarily in comparing the severity and potential consequences of the two, but my incredulity as to how anybody (certainly anybody with capacity to have a driving licence) could forget a very basic principle of driving.

Even in a non-driving comparison, it would be like (non-vulnerable) people leaving their house for a stroll around town, having just had a shower beforehand, and simply 'forgetting' to put any clothes on before going out!

"Forgetting" is such a poor excuse. It's so dangerous.

Fair enough - I don't see many drivers without their lights on but whenever I do, I definitely think 'wtf is wrong with you, can't you see it's dark?'

To give the benefit of the doubt perhaps they have not long pulled away and then turn them on soon enough.

It can be overcast and low visibility at any time of day.

I’ve also noticed that the cars with no lights are often grey or silver, it’s like they want to be camouflaged into the road

Just put your lights on, even if it’s daytime, it won’t do any harm, but it’ll make you more visible to other road users.

If there can be a standard sensor that repeatedly nags you when it notices that the person in an occupied seat hasn't put their seatbelt on, and another one that monitors the temperature outside and warns you when it gets below a certain temperature and so conditions could be icy, why ever could they not have another sensor as standard, working on a very similar basis, that repeatedly nags you with an annoying ping to put your headlights on when road visibility requires it? Or better, on cars with automatic lights, it overrides it and turns the headlights on when they're needed after a brief warning to the driver, even if the auto light feature is switched off.

You don't need to use headlights on a road that has street lighting

Yes, this absolutely. Ignore the clock - it's completely irrelevant what time it is.

Whenever conditions are dark or visibility is otherwise not good, you need to put your lights on. That's it. I don't see how this can be difficult to understand!

Indeed. My previous car had automatic headlights, but my current one does not adjust when it gets darker. At first, I would find myself driving on the 'daylight' setting.

Nobody does it on purpose, OP.

Err, you definitely do!

Not according to the highway code. When was the last time you read it?

What? Do you mean you don't need to use full beam (undipped) head lights when there's street lighting - in which case I would agree with you?

Why do some people have such an aversion to basic safety, when it literally takes two or three clicks of a knob? Are they trying to get a few more weeks' life out of a couple of already long-lasting £10 bulbs - like the man on the recent thread about tightwads who would cut matches lengthwise into four, to save himself a few pence?!

Lighting requirements (113 to 116)
113
You MUST
ensure all sidelights and rear registration plate lights are lit between sunset and sunrise

use headlights at night, except on a road which has lit street lighting. These roads are generally restricted to a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h), or 20mph (32km/h) in Wales, unless otherwise specified

use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226).

When was the last time you read it?

Because while it says you don't HAVE to use them when there are street lights, it also says you MUST use them when visibility is reduced, which is often the case even with street lights.

It says seriously reduced. On a dry, clear night, just being dark would not count as seriously reduced.

I would counter that by saying that you need to purposely make sure that you have adequate lights as a basic routine when driving. Headlights on a car when driving in the dark or otherwise poor visibility aren't a 'nice to have' optional extra - they're absolutely essential.

Sometimes, omission can be just as much a fault - and a danger - as commission.

Well, the highway code also says:

You should also

• use dipped headlights, or dim-dip if fitted, at night in built-up areas and in dull daytime weather, to ensure that you can be seen

So you should have them on regardless.

One issue is if your car is in the garage for anything they switch the auto lights off to avoid flattening the battery.
I also imagine working on an engine with those lights in your face would be annoying.

Over many years I have flashed many cars with no headlights, inc the police, I never noticed it was a police car until the lights and the light on top went on (back in the days when police cars were white with a strip on the side)

Unless you’re Aberdeen or north, at 3.30pm it’s not dark, dingy especially if weather is cloudy but not dark. Sunset is 4.03pm today where I am, you certainly don’t need headlights until 4.20 or so, 15 minutes after sunset for darkness but in foul weather you need them anyway (it’s thankfully drying up finally outside)

Sunset is 3.45 today, in Glasgow.

Eh? Being dark doesn't equate to seriously reduced visibility?!

I assume it's either referring to full beam (as opposed to everyday dipped beam) or maybe when the street lights have only just come on early - as they tend to be set to come on half an hour or so before the dark properly kicks in.

That said, street lights are set based on the time and season, so they aren't on when the weather is very gloomy and visibility is hugely reduced outside of those times - plus they may well be broken!

Why are people looking for excuses to justify not putting their lights on in the dark/gloomy weather because of a technicality? There seems to be a fear of ever being any safer than 'maybe just about safe-ish enough'! Headlight bulbs usually last for years before they have to be replaced, and even then, they're hardly expensive.

Nobody drives without them on purpose. Its either jumping between different cars, or cars being in the garage, etc.

Nobody is deliberately putting themselves at risk of not being seen