New EU law as of Feb 2011

[mcghee]

Steve, unless the road lighting laws have changed fitting your running lights around the fog light grilles will render them mostly useless. The law is that any light fitted with its centre closer than 500mm to the road surface can only be used where conditions reduce visibility to 100m or less, unless they are wired to operate only with main beam. This is one of the reasons lots of cars now have foglights as part of the headlight cluster, thus becoming auxiliary driving lights, and being permissible any time dipped beam may be used. Also, if you know anyone using 100/80 headlight bulbs on public roads they're breaking the law.

The car you saw with 1964 number plates must display what we know as standard number plates, i.e. white front and yellow rear. The date on which the vehicle was first registered is the important date, constuction and use laws are quite clear about that.

Regarding the old Volvo system, which was the same as Saab's. The sidelights were fitted with 21/5 twin filament bulbs. 5w for parking lights and relay switched to 21w when the ignition was activated. The later dim-dip system which lasted until about 1990 was largely pointless. This was the system which lit the dipped beam bulbs at 1/5th brightness when the ignition was on. It meant that if you flashed your headlights a few times with the dim-dip lights on the relay blew.

 

[Steve L]

Today just typifies how the new EU regulation as it stands is just going to be totally inaffective.
Been raining all day but still you see cars with no lights driving down the road. Then you see cars with poor visability lights on. But seldom do you see cars with dipped beam headlights on, despite it being part of the highway code. I would say today there are about 4 out of 10 cars actually driving to the highway code recomendation.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_069859
As daytime running lights are considered marker lights there is as far as I can find no stiplulation of height from the road as they only illuminate with low wattage lights half the power of headlights or less.
Rather than introduce new regulation for new cars, the EU need's to be more posative and make regulations for all vehicles. There should be a retro fit catch up period so that all vehicles comply. Then there can be no excuses for drivers to escape their obligation to behave responsibly on the roads. Too many drivers plead ignorance to get away with non compliance with regulations.

 

[Icemaker]

I have retro fitted the Ring LED day running lights to mycar BRL0397 http://www.speeding.co.uk/acatalog/Aurora_Day_Light_Running_Lamp_.html
Only three wires to connect
Red to + on battery
Black to - on battery
Yellow to sidelight +
They come ready connected to a relay so light up when the engine is turned on. Go off when the side lights are turned on.
I have used them through UK, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany & Switzerland. with no problem of any one flashing me

when i purchased my transit last aprill i had the ring aurora daytime runing lights retro fitted to it as they are a much lower wattage to using the headlights during the day and so help keep the fuel costs down. the lights where brillianty bright and made my vehicle much more visible, however around a month ago one of the the lights started to flash as fast as a strobe light and i was stopped by the police, they where sympathetic but said i could not continue with the lights flashing like that which is understandable, since the lights wher wired to come on with the engine and only go off when i switched on my side lights i now have to drive every where remembering to switch the side lights on. halfords who supplied the lights have refused to change them under warranty as i have mis laid theire receipt my fault i know but i took my van receipt to show that i had only owned the van for 9 months and the lights where fitted when it was new to me but they will not accept this as proof of when i purchased the lights, i now have to deal with ring themselves to see if we can resolve the issue.
i have traced the fault to the pretty poor connector where the lights connect to the ballast unit, it has corroded over a very short time and lost proper contact with the ballast unit, if you buy any of these lights i would recomend you seal this connector once you have tested the lights fitted to your car, mine isnt in an area that gets wet but it is in the engine bay and it looks like condensation has caused the problem over the winter with the car being very cold then the engine getting warm. £60 is a lot of money for something that fails so quickly.

 

[Steve L]

I've dropped across fitting instructions for daytime lights and low and behold they are legally able to be fitted next to front "fog lights".
http://www.halfords.com/wcsstore/libraries/document/958207.pdf
That makes a right mockery of the police stance on white front fog lights being used in non poor visability situations, especialy when ford and VW are offering retro fit DRL kits fitting in place where front fog lights exist on higher spec models. Just have a look at fleabay.
So now on my Rover 75 I could fit DRL's in the lower grille next to front fogs and so long as they are within 400mm of the outside of the car, they are marker lights.
What a cotradictory and confusing situation.

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

Must admit one of my pet hates is the plonkers that illegally drive along with dipped headlights and fog lights on in perfectly clear visibility WHY? The police do not have a stance on the use of fog lights, they are there to enforce the law made by government, and in the case of fog lights quite rightly so in my opinion, in the case of my Volvo they offer very little increase in road illumination, and no light be it fog lights, yellow lights, headlights, are any good in fog, all they do is throw it back, so the sooner manufacturers stop fitting them, or replace them with DRL the better. On the same subject, it gets a bit misty and on come the rear fog lights....................................in slow moving town traffic, again WHY? If peoples eyesight is that poor that they have to use two different sources of light IE headlamps & front fog lights it`s about time they went to specsavers.