Or when it's dark. I'm imagining a cyclist or pedestrian seeing only the blinking light and maybe a vague outline of the vehicle at best, seeing the <- blinking and thinking, "that car is turning left". Then the cyclist wakes up in the hospital after being flattened by a right hook[1]
Usually yes. But in urban areas (where there are lots of street lights, and lots of cyclists), people often forget to turn their lights on. I guess it's becoming less of a problem now that most cars have auto lights, but I still see cars driving around without lights pretty regularly.
Last year saw a revival of drive-in cinemas in my area (for ... obvious reasons).
Apparently drivers are getting so used to the automation, that the staff was doing rounds telling the audience to turn off their automatic lights.
Then, on the way out, at least the driver in front of us completely forgot to turn on the lights again. This was not in a well lit area, but on cross country roads. I honestly have no idea how the driver did not notice that she couldn't see the road well.
Same here! I went to a drive-in just a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in .. decades? .. and that happened. The other thing was all the people in big SUVs parking backwards and opening up their tailgates, thus blocking the view of people behind them. The house rules said that open tailgates should not extend higher than the vehicle itself, meaning some folk had them tied partly closed, but I think enforcement was mostly complaint-based.
If the drive-in theater became a real thing again, I imagine it would have to adapt to these realities.
Yeah I’m astonished at how often people drive with headlights off. Why is it even an option for lights to be off when in drive? I can understand wanting to turn them off sometimes, but not while moving.
I think the proliferation of daytime running lights is partly to blame here, because you still get some light out of the front even without headlights on.
The thing that always gets me is switching between (rental) cars that have automatic headlight sensors and those that don't.
That is not a safe assumption if you're a bicyclist or pedestrian at night, especially if the area is well-lit with cool light (such as white LEDs) that share a general color with headlights.
Good enough for now, but in 10 years those cars will be worn with the typical problems of any other 10 year old car. At least a few will have non-functioning tail lights until the owner realized the problem and gets around to fixing it. (I suspect in my past I drove with non-functional taillights for many months before someone told me - it isn't the type of thing you check often)
I make a point of checking at least once a week - I have to get out of my car when leaving the house to close a set of gates, so I grab a big rock from the yard to wedge down the brake pedal and walk around the vehicle doing a brief inspection.
It's annoying at first, but quickly becomes habit.
My 2000 Audi has an indicator light that comes on if one of the stop lamps is not working.
It would be nice if this was a standard feature in every car. Trying to determine whether the lights in the tail lamp cluster are all working without some assistance is difficult at best.
1 https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2019/04/08/whats-a-right-...