DE88ROX wrote:
tomman58 wrote:
Is it me or are some of you confusing headlights of any type with the running lights that are where you old parking lights were.
As late as yesterday it was late, late duck and a guy in a silver car had no lights on at all, thanks to a superior being looking after me, someone caught him with their lights or I would've made a left right into him.
I have running lights, Head lights, and parking lights.
All vehicles have the latter two. Parking lights (amber/yellow) are whats used for turn signals.
Our are you talking about fog lights?
So many lights in front, and so much confusion about them (understandably so, as they are somewhat more complicated than they seem).
Headlights are pretty obvious; they're bright white lights to illuminate the roadway at night. Headlights of course have high beams and low beams, the latter of which should only (or at least mostly) shine approximately below horizontal.
Parking lights are low-intensity amber or white lights to enable a vehicle to be visible when stopped on the road at night. In practice, they are not very useful on their own, particularly for cars and light trucks, but they are required.
Indicators (turn signals) are bright amber blinky lights to indicate turning or, when operated in tandem, as hazard warning lights. They are brighter than parking lights.
Fog lights are low-mounted, moderately bright white or amber lights intended to provide illumination close to the vehicle in foggy or rainy conditions when the regular (particularly high beam) headlights would glare rather than illuminate. They're usually seen being operated in perfectly fine weather, creating additional glare for other drivers.
Marker lights are the set of five little amber lights along the top of large vehicles that serve to show their height and width.
Daytime running lights are moderately bright white lights that are on when the headlights are off to make the vehicle more visible to others, and are especially valuable at higher latitudes where dusk-like conditions are more prevalent. Daytime running lights may be separate fixtures, or the high beam headlights operated at considerably reduced brightness, or turn signal lamps lit continually, or (less frequently) low-beam headlights on at either full brightness or reduced brightness. The first two are the most common.
In the rear, one has tail lights (low-intensity red lights on when the headlights or parking lights are on), stop lights (higher intensity red lights), indicators (higher intensity red or amber blinky lights), a license plate illumination light (low intensity white), backup lights (moderately bright white lights), a CHMSL ("center high mounted stop light", or third brake light, which I think may not be required for large vehicles), and red marker lights for larger vehicles or trailers. The stop lights and indicators may sometimes be shared.
On the side, one may have marker lights and turn signal repeaters.
All of these are regulated by DOT standards, which specify acceptable colors, brightness, visibility and illumination angles, positioning, etc.
