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 Post subject: Wipers and headlights
PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:26 
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Following on from this post: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 5476#85476

It's good general advice that if you need your wipers, you also need your headlights. I'd like to see this advice given a wider airing.

But since it isn't working adequately at present, I'd like to propose for discussion the idea that headlights should come on automatically when wipers are operated. I don't generally agree with automating things and talking choice away from drivers, but I can't see much in the way of a downside to this.

I'd put a 2 minute delay on turning off the headlights to allow for all the variations of intermittent and 'flick wipe' functions. (i.e. headlights stay ON until wipers have been OFF for 2 full minutes.)

Headlights on when cars are parked is the only downside I can think of at present, and we could perhaps disable the link when the handbrake was applied.

Ahh - another downside and it's perhaps a biggie. Start driving in daylight rain... carry on driving until it's dark. Then the rain stops. Two minutes later the headlights go out without warning! :yikes:

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:48 
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I don't know about that Paul - it sounds like a very good idea in theory, but there are plenty of times I can think of when its been raining enough for me to need my wipers, but not poor enough visibility to need headlights.

Personally, I'm not a fan of any automated systems like that - I would never buy a car with automatic wipers or headlights for instance. I think alot of the time its simply down to poor education - people just don't realise how much your visibility can be reduced when its raining.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:57 
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Sixy_the_red wrote:
I don't know about that Paul - it sounds like a very good idea in theory, but there are plenty of times I can think of when its been raining enough for me to need my wipers, but not poor enough visibility to need headlights.

Personally, I'm not a fan of any automated systems like that - I would never buy a car with automatic wipers or headlights for instance. I think alot of the time its simply down to poor education - people just don't realise how much your visibility can be reduced when its raining.


I must admit that that's well aligned with by beliefs also. :yesyes:

But this is 'brainstorming' and it'd be nice to have a good set of arguments on the subject.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 13:13 
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What if it’s a bright sunny day and you’re using your wipers to clean the front screen of flies?

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 13:30 
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SafeSpeed wrote:
I'd put a 2 minute delay on turning off the headlights to allow for all the variations of intermittent and 'flick wipe' functions. (i.e. headlights stay ON until wipers have been OFF for 2 full minutes.)
I can see a problem with washing your windscreen and then having people flash headlights at you for the next two minutes. FWIW, I often switch my wipers on and then apply intermittent squirts of the washer because I've found that technique most efficient at cleaning the screen without emptying the washer tank and provides the maximum visibility while the screen is being cleaned.

SafeSpeed wrote:
Headlights on when cars are parked is the only downside I can think of at present, and we could perhaps disable the link when the handbrake was applied.
I can see a problem with that because every time you pulled up at traffic lights or a road junction your headlights would go out! Perhaps it would be better to only kill the headlights if the engine was switched off. Perhaps it would be better to reinstate the Swedish idea of day notice lights.

SafeSpeed wrote:
Ahh - another downside and it's perhaps a biggie. Start driving in daylight rain... carry on driving until it's dark. Then the rain stops. Two minutes later the headlights go out without warning! :yikes:
Yikes, indeed!

Perhaps we could give drivers the choice of automatic or manual wipers and headlights. If you choose "automatic", your headlights would switch on automatically when your wipers did and and/or whenever the ambient light reduced below a set threshold. This works on the assumption that if you want control of these you will accept responsibility for using them correctly. If enough vehicles had these systems, it would establish a norm for using headlights with wipers, and those on "manual" would be more inclined to follow that convention. Hey, as a side effect it could also overcome the phenomenon of flashing with your wipers (which is something many of us who alternate between Japanese and European vehicles do quite often)! Of course, even if in "auto" mode you could manually switch either wipers or headlights on.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 13:40 
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If you have the car deciding to switch on the lights with the wipers then drivers are going to be engaging their brains even less. There are also other times when you needs your lights in daylight eg low sun setting/sun rise to improve your visibility to others which become forgotten in the 'my car does everything for me'. I think it is best to keep the operation down to driver choice and hope the education starts to catch up with them. Motorway gantry signs seem to be the obvious place to start with these messages.

There are too many ifs and buts with a combined headlight and automatic wiper system. Unless you have automatic lights too that are set to sensible thresholds then I can see there will be lights going on and off all over the shop. You usually switch off wipers inside tunnels too. Imagine the logic needed........ The wipers and lights would need to be on when the car is moving and when the vehicle was stopped in traffic. How do you know if they're in traffic or just stationary for some other reason and felt like washing the screen? If you didn't have them on with a wash wipe what happens when someone wants to wash their screen when their lights are already on due to the rain? Do the lights go off or stay on? What happens if the driver stalls the car or it cuts out for another reason?

What happens if the sensor fails and the lights are continually going on and off?


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 16:06 
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Hows about a voice chip that prompts the driver to use lights if he drives with no lights in the dark or rain.

CAR:"bling .... rain, lights on.. ?"
Driver : Arggghhhh :(

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 16:38 
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Well they say that what is fitted to the S-Class becomes standard in few years. And the current one has Headlamp Assist and of course automatic wipers.

They do say however that the lights still need to be switched on in Fog, so they are not quite there yet. Paul, perhaps you should suggest the idea and see what they do with it?

And in next years version reviewed by Clarkson there is also FLIR (forward looking infra-red) Not yet on their website, but in Clarkson review http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-1732584,00.html


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 17:02 
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My car has automatic windscreen wipers with a rain sensor.
The windscreen wiper switch goes Off, Automatic, 1, 2.
Even in positions 1 or 2 it detects the vehicle speed, and if you have stopped it will make the wipers only activate intermitantly (which is rather a nice feature really)

I find the automatic mode is quite good, it is a bit like a variable speed intermitant wiper control and usually (but not always) gets the speed pretty close to 'right'.

The manual sais it has automatic headlights but the car doesn't seem to so I don't know how they work.

So automatic headlights could be linked to the rain sensor rather than the wiper control.

It also has two other nice features:
1. When the front wipers are on and you select reverse gear it will wipe the rear windscreen.
2. When the wipers are off and you pull the stalk towards you to wash the windscreen it will squirt the screen for about 1 second before activating the wipers.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 21:46 
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Peugeot have a rain sensor - it works at night by a LED behind the RV mirror.
Light scattered by the rain drops allow the detector to activate the wipers. No scatter, no wiper.
The faster the car is travelling, or the more scatter, ther faster the wipers operate.
It's activated by pressing a button on the end of the wiper stalk.

Now if the detector also measured light received, then the headlamps could be kept on in dark conditions, eliminating the problem of the lights dying when the rain stopped.
There are several cars with auto lights - including I think the higher spec. Peugeot. I have no problem with automation of certain features - as long as there is an overide switch to turn the damn thing off if you REALLY dont want it.!!

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 22:33 
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A slight tangent but with the new HID (High Intesity Discharge) lamps it is a legal requirement that they have washer jets but having seen a collegues with these, spraying water does very little to clean the lens, so why not wiper blades for headlights like some of the old Volvo's had ??

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 07:42 
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Safety Engineer wrote:
A slight tangent but with the new HID (High Intesity Discharge) lamps it is a legal requirement that they have washer jets but having seen a collegues with these, spraying water does very little to clean the lens, so why not wiper blades for headlights like some of the old Volvo's had ??

And not-so-old Volvos... my 51-plate S60 has the "winter pack" which included headlight wipers as well as washers. Though I notice the new models appear to have washers only. I guess wipers mean increased production costs, more things to go wrong, and reduced aerodynamic efficiency.

Ernest Marsh wrote:
There are several cars with auto lights - including I think the higher spec. Peugeot. I have no problem with automation of certain features - as long as there is an overide switch to turn the damn thing off if you REALLY dont want it.!!

The same car above, being a Volvo, came with day running lights as standard. One of the first things I did was get the dealer to tweak the software to turn that feature off, on the grounds that I'm the pilot in command and I'll decide when the lights are on, thank you very much. But in the few weeks before I did that, at least two well-meaning little old ladies asked me if I knew I'd left the lights on...!


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 00:34 
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The same car above, being a Volvo, came with day running lights as standard. One of the first things I did was get the dealer to tweak the software to turn that feature off, on the grounds that I'm the pilot in command and I'll decide when the lights are on, thank you very much. But in the few weeks before I did that, at least two well-meaning little old ladies asked me if I knew I'd left the lights on...!

Jasper Carrot did a very good sketch on this very subject, which featured a Volvo!! I couldn't elaborate, without appearing to insult ALL Volvo drivers! :lol:

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 00:52 
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I don't want automatic wipers/headlights... I like being able to flick the wipers on when I need to, and if they were totally automatic - ie they couldn't be switched off, what are you gunna do if one of the blades break, or if the catch snaps and you can only wipe once in a while... That happened me one day, ended up just pushing the rubber back into the wiper, and that way I could get about 15 wipes out of it before it fell off again... So I fixed it and kept it for spray situations - I wasn't on the motorway, was just a back road, so it wasn't that bad, and I only had about 8 miles to travel anyway... I suppose the 'smart' thing would have been to take the back wiper off, but its bigger than the left hand one...

I actually can't believe it, I put a new set of front wipers on not that long ago, and the past while they haven't been used really at all, except for washing... And the plastic part of the rubber has cracked, it really bugs me, not that they're overly expensive, although at £2 or so a go I'd rather not have to replace too many... I'm beginning to guess it's kids at school, thinking it's funny to break them on me...

Hm, automatic headlights wouldn't really tickle my fancy either, you might get to the point where you assume the lights are on, when they actually aren't... I really haven't got enough experience of other cars though to know about this kind of thing - but I always like to see the stalk, and see it's actually set to on, especially around dusk, because there are no real lights on my dash, except one to light the whole thing up, and in certain light conditions that's not gunna happen...

Automatic headlights would maybe stop the trend of guys driving on country lanes without lights... Because it takes 'skill' and shows you're a 'good driver'... But no doubt there'd be a way to disable them...

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 00:40 
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willcove wrote:
I can see a problem with that because every time you pulled up at traffic lights or a road junction your headlights would go out! Perhaps it would be better to only kill the headlights if the engine was switched off. Perhaps it would be better to reinstate the Swedish idea of day notice lights.


My Legacy already does this. I think they just wired the headlight switch into a circuit that's switched by the ignition. It can be annoying because the next morning you're driving around with dipped beams on in broad daylight.

Safety Engineer wrote:
A slight tangent but with the new HID (High Intesity Discharge) lamps it is a legal requirement that they have washer jets


That's odd, my Legacy has OEM HIDs (It actually failed the MOT before I bought it because the previous owner had bypassed the HID system and had bodged in a set of normal bulbs) but does not have headlight washers or wipers.
When did that law come in, and has it made my car illegal?


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 09:29 
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We already have automatic headlights and wipers on run-of-the-mill Peugeots.

My current car has both, the previous car (a Citroen Xantia) had auto wipers.

The auto headlights work fairly well but are easily fooled, coming on under motorway bridges and not on bright foggy days. But they don't flick on and off unnecessarily.

They are also clever enough to tell dusk from really dark, the headlights stay on after turning the engine off (to help you see your front door) if it is really dark but don't if it's light enough to see.

It would only need a software change to make the lights come on for rain as well as dark (in fact they may already do so).

Biggest downside is they only activate the dipped beam, not sidelights, again though it would only take a software change.


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 01:14 
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Lum

I'm checking and will get back to you, I had a reference to them but can't find it, hate it when that happens...

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 08:04 
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Ziltro wrote:

The manual sais it has automatic headlights but the car doesn't seem to so I don't know how they work.


Ignition on but engine off, press and hold the button on the end of the light stalk. You should get some confirmation.

Its not very well detailed in my manual either.


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 19:19 
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After a 26 mile trip on a very wet M1 today... I wish some people knew that they should be running headlights... The number of cars without lights on was shocking... I had been running them since I left school, because I knew there would be spray on the way home... I then decided to go for a drive, because I'm ferrying my gran to near that place tomorrow, and I didn't want to have to think about the route too much with her in the car... As soon as I got onto the motorway I saw an accident on the hard shoulder... Really didn't know what to do, but I knocked the hazards on and slowed down to about 35 or 40, as people in front were doing this too, and I assumed that would be right, although noone had flashed hazards, but I thought that they might warn people that I'm not just braking for fun, that I had a reason to slow down... Then continued down the motorway in the rain and spray - I hate being overtaken by lorries - and I was absolutely appauled by the number of people without headlights, especially seeing radio ulster were saying in the traffic anouncements "make sure you keep your distance and use your headlights." Some guy was running main beam - not terribly sensible on a motorway, and it certainly didn't help me see him any better...

Anyone in Belfast or anyone driven on the Westlink/M1 roadworks - that 30 limit is awful in my opinion... Firstly noone abides by it anyway, so the people that want to stick a bit slower get tailgated or worse... And secondly, 30mph on that road is a bit silly, especially when you consider where they've placed it...

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 03:34 
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This is why I believe in employing lights in wet weather.
Image
It's easier to see an approaching vehicle with lights, than one without.

If they were turned on automatically, it could only benefit other motorists in the long run.
The new LED low drain units seem ideal for this purpose, although I have not seen any deployed yet!

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