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?

But surely people think about this when they collect their cars after an MoT or repair? If the mechanic is significantly taller or shorter than you are, they've probably moved the seat back or forward from where it suits you. They may have left a plastic seat protector on, which is clearly not intended to stay on there after you've collected it; they might even have turned the radio station over from Classic FM to Kerrang whilst working on it!

Yes, they've repaired and made your car safe to drive, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to routinely check a few very basic settings and adjust them if necessary when you get it back. They're a mechanic; not your mum.

Or you can switch them off as in from Auto to always off or always on. This happened to me recently. I have my headlights always on auto, left the car to be serviced and they switched them to off. I drove out of the garage about 5pm and it was just starting to get dark. Also driving on well lit roads with lots of traffic so not immediately obvious. Took me a good ten mins to realise and I’m sure lots of people who passed my car thought I was an idiot. There were the daylight running and spots that would have been on so not in complete darkness

well they obviously can see well enough, that's the whole point!
I'm sure if they were driving in pitch dark on a B road they soon would realise, but between all the street lights, stars/light pollution and other people's car lights it's rarely that dark on most roads in the UK at mid evening.

I have my lights come on automatically now but I definitely forgot once or twice in previous cars that didn't have that option. It's not some sort of grand conspiracy, or strength of feeling about the exact time of day, it's just human error.

You seem to be unnecessarily pedantic. Nobody is going to argue that it's not safer to have lights on once it gets dark, but at the end of the day people do forget things! There's not really more anyone can say to that, so I don't really understand what you want from this thread.

It's not at all comparable to having multiple pints because that's an active choice you make, not slightly misjudging driving conditions and not realising you haven't turned your lights on until 3:33 when it was probably dark enough to do so at 3:21.

It's very MN how some people are denying that other people's experiences of weather in different parts of the country and on different days could possibly differ from their own!

The weather doesn't know or care one bit that 'but it's too early to be dark and gloomy yet'!!

Odd that 19% feel you are being unreasonable for the life of me I can’t see why.

My point is that, as a driver, you simply cannot rely on other drivers using their headlights or on councils turning on streetlights and keeping them in good repair. I'm surprised that dangerous driving doesn't concern you too.

I'm not saying that it's a grand conspiracy, but I was wondering what goes through people's minds to fail at such a basic essential of driving. I know people can make human errors, but I'm just shocked at how often I see this recently.

Nobody is going to argue that it's not safer to have lights on once it gets dark
Somebody upthread did specifically assert their belief that there is no need to use headlights at night if there are streetlights - supposedly backed up by the Highway Code!!!

I've addressed the analogy with drinking several pints twice above. It was about people 'forgetting' the absolute basics of driving before being in charge of a potential death machine. I've also repeatedly said that I'm talking about when it's properly dark and dismal and not just when dusk is gradually starting to draw in.

From this thread, I wanted to ask people's opinions and thoughts as to why so many people seem to do this and whether it was happening a lot elsewhere or just a concerning peculiarity in my own town. It's an online chat forum, where people discuss all manner of topics that cover the entire gamut of human interest - whether that be the war in Gaza, what people's favourite dishes are from the Chinese takeaway or anything in between. It isn't an emergency COBRA meeting or a UN summit and nobody is forced in any way to participate in any thread!

The OP never forgets anything, apparently, so is merely judging those who do.

Only on mn could several people argue about putting their lights on when it’s dark! They could argue in an empty room I suspect.

I'm not sure who ever told you that about me - they were most certainly wrong!

But there's forgetting - which could indeed include pulling away and then realising that you've forgotten to put your seat belt or your lights and quickly remedying it, which many of us will almost certainly have done when our minds are elsewhere - and merrily driving along for miles and it never crossing your mind to even double-check that your lights are on when it's pitch dark. If your mind is too busy to even remember that you need your headlights on when the road is very dark, I would suggest that you aren't in a frame of mind and therefore are unfit to be driving at all.

Of course we all forget things, but most of these things only impact on ourselves. If you forget to bring an umbrella and you get soaked, it doesn't affect anybody else and it doesn't really matter unduly. If you forget to put the milk back in the fridge and find it on the side the next morning, you have to go without your cornflakes and it's no great loss to anybody. On the other hand, if a pedestrian is crossing the road in the dark when they check and can see no oncoming traffic, and a completely unlit car smashes into them at 30mph... that's possibly a rather more important reason not to forget something.

@NellieJean , There's a large town centre supermarket near me and the car park is brightly lit. The road outside is well lit. I see cars without lights quite often. It's a simple mistake not dangerous driving and the AIBU was AIBU to think that it should be 3 or even 6 points on your licence for dangerous driving for not having the lights on.

My car has an auto function and the lights come on automatically when the light is a certain level.

DH's car doesn't and when you are driving on well-lit roads in a city and can easily see where you're going, it's easy to forget.

It’s very rare that people drive around in the dusk/ dark without headlights, I think you’re exaggerating a bit. It would be quite an old car that necessitates tuning them on too.

as others said, they forgot. Flash them and they’ll be reminded

you don’t seriously think they’re just refusing to put their lights on for fun do you?

I find it weird that you're allowed to drive without lights on in the uk at all, in my country headlights have to be used regardless of light conditions so you don't just forget to switch them on when its dark as you switch them on as soon as you start the car. Much more visible, much safer.

Do people sit at home in the dark, groping around all evening and bumping into things, 'forgetting' to turn on the light switch?!

Come on OP. You are deliberately not thinking here. If I get into my car in a floodlit car park, and drive out onto a main road with streetlighting and lights coming out of shops/homes can you not understand why that does not appear "dark" even though it is dusk/night? Pulling out onto a country lane in the middle of nowhere at night would obviously be dark.

Quite clearly people are not putting their lights on because they can see fine and don't realise their lights are not on. It is not a deliberate decision.

There were two separate AIBUs in my OP - the main one in the title and a second one at the end that I maybe should have phrased differently to avoid any potential confusion.

As I've said repeatedly throughout this thread, I get that we all make mistakes - and one would hope that somebody making a momentary error could be warned (by other drivers or the police) and remember to be more careful next time. I certainly wouldn't be wanting to pounce and give people points on their licence the moment they started their engines in the dark before turning on their lights a second or two later.

If drivers are happy to drive around in the dark on the basis that there are streetlights, that's up to them. I'm not in the police or an employee of their car insurance company, so I'm in no position to be able to state with any authority whether they would agree with them if they were involved in an accident after dark and they told them that they hadn't felt it necessary to turn their own car lights on.

But the reason why I started the thread is that it's not rare - at least in my own town/area. I recall seeing the very occasional driver without lights in the past - including one a few years back that I followed for a couple of miles through a big city centre on a Saturday night with me and countless other drivers repeatedly flashing, but apparently oblivious to what any of the other vehicles on the road were doing and resolutely leaving their lights off - but it's the number of people I've noticed doing it recently since it started getting dark early.

You would naturally hope that it's a genuine error and that flashing them would make them realise and quickly turn them on; but you have no idea of the driver's temperament and how nastily they might react if they feel affronted by you 'telling them off'. Some of them may even be doing it deliberately to cause you to crash into them, to scam your insurance, denying everything about having no lights on - we just can't know.

Even if they aren't the type who are prone to road rage, if they're of the same mind as some people on this thread, they won't thank you for warning them that they can't easily be seen, because they presume to know better and somehow think that it's 'fussing unnecessarily' to ever think to use your lights unless on a windy country lane at midnight.

I notice this a lot as I walk almost everywhere. If someone is in a quiet road I'll wave and try and let them know.

I'm not saying at all that people are doing it deliberately (except possibly a tiny minority playing chicken or seeking an insurance scam 'crash for cash').

What I'm saying is that drivers should deliberately and actively know when it's appropriate to have their lights on - as instinctively as you carefully check your mirrors before pulling out, even though you haven't happened to notice anybody else around with a general glance.

Having said that, I remember a thread on here from some time ago where the OP had been in a parked car in the seat facing into the middle of the road, and she opened her door without looking at the road, right into a cyclist riding past along the road - necessitating an insurance claim iirc. I was astounded at the number of people on the thread who insisted that the cyclist was wholly to blame for using the road normally without looking into every parked car in case they might have an occupant who could potentially fling their door wide open into the traffic, totally oblivious.

I've done it twice.

1. this was my first time driving in the dark (I learned in spring and passed on dinner) AND it was when the car has just come back from the garage when they switched off the auto lights - which I didn't know as a new driver. It was dusk and I didn't realise things were darker then they should have been. Urban driving at least, so

2. first time in a new car. It was a 1m trip to the nearby garage along a brightly lit road so I didn't realise (and wondered why people waved at me).

We all make mistakes, all we can do is our best and to try and learn from them.

But how do you know that people "have been merrily driving along for miles" without their lights on? You only see each individual car for a few seconds at a time.

I can't remember the last time I noticed a car without its lights on at a time when it should have been, and if I did I didn't then follow it for miles to find out when the driver realised!

You're acting as if it's something that happens every day, and you know they've been driving for miles, but you don't. That driver could have just set out 2 minutes ago and forgot to turn on their lights, but remembered the second you were out of sight. They could have been driving for 4 hours, it was light when they set out, and they noticed it was now dark and decided to turn on their lights 30 seconds after you thought they "should" have. Their lights could have been set on automatic but the light bulb broke/mechanic or other driver turned it off without them knowing/are driving a hire car, so assumed their lights were on and didn't realise until it got very dark/they turned onto a smaller road.

Even though I think we should have BST year round so this would be less of an issue, I agree with the OP.

Points on a licence should of course be a ban with no exceptions once you reach a certain level.

I just got back from shopping and there was another one today - 5:45pm and very much night time in my town, however blindingly light it may currently be elsewhere in the UK. I was about to pull on to what looked like a clear roundabout, but had to stop suddenly when I saw this completely unlit car coming around.

I don't know whose fault that would officially have been if I hadn't seen them and pulled on to the roundabout, and we'd crashed - would it be mine for pulling out when it wasn't clear of theirs for driving at night without any lights? Either way, I know a very easy way that it would have been an awful lot safer for both of us - even though there were a few streetlights very high up.

It seems like there are quite a few forgetful people in my town, bless 'em.

My car is 2011, but it does have a little 'auto' symbol on the light knob. I've had the car for three years, but I've never actually used that setting. It's extremely clear from the driver's seat what setting it's on - unless you only ever stare straight forward and never turn your head or your gaze when driving.

Not only would I not trust it - and from this thread, it sounds like they're very liable to cause a lot of confusion and resulting unlit cars in the dark - but I've simply never had any reason at all to use it. If it's light with good visibility, I don't need lights on; and when it gets dark and/or the visibility is poor, it takes me less than a second to click it on.

What improvement do they actually bring to the driving experience? Are people really so lazy that they had to invent a whole new system just to save them from turning a knob two or three clicks every now and again? Is it for drivers whose eyesight and/or perception of the conditions isn't good enough to be able to tell whether it's light or dark? If so, it's deeply worrying that those people are allowed to drive in the first place.

My garage does this every single time. Its clearly annoying for them when its in the workshop.

Ive flashed countless people this afternoon, if you are driving in well lit areas with lots of other cars around you and you started driving in daylight I can see how people without auto lights can forget.

Not a chance in hell you are forgetting where I live though, 60mph unlit windy roads!

We had a car behind us on the motorway without its lights on last week, it was about 6.30pm so pitch black up here. My husband couldn't see the car in his mirrors. I could if I squinted. It was a small, dark car, like a Fiat 500 or something. Actually quite scary how invisible it was.