quote:Originally posted by Cartman: "Actually, at least with BMW, Mercedes and Audi cars you can choose what kind of voice you would like to have..."
Yes, thankfully. "Please turn left here." in a soft female voice is so much more assuring than "HIER LINKS MACHEN!" is in a hard male one. B)
In the aircraft industry, both military and civilian, the voice that tells you things like "Terrain - Pull up!" is frequently referred to as "Bitchin' Betty" because of the female voice. It was discovered that a female voice gets the pilot's attention a lot quicker and easier than a male one. Yes, most pilots are still male, but even the female pilots respond more readily to the female voice.
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For some reason, I thought daytime running lights were usually the parking lights: the orange lights located on the car's corners. At least, those are the lights (if any) that I usually see lit during the daytime around here.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I've never actually gotten out of any car I've driven to look, but the sidelights have always been the first setting you turn the lights control to, the second turning the actual headlamps on. I seem to vaguely remember something in the Highway Code about leaving your sidelights on at night if parked on a main road or within 10m of a junction or something. Apparently we'll actually have to re-qualify when we move to NZ, that'll be fun. . .
quote:Exactly when did you decide to start hating everything and everyone?
February 1st of this year at 6:57pm and twenty-nine seconds. Would you like the milisecond, too, or is the above sufficient to quench your incesent curiousity?
It's been for much longer than that. At least a year.
quote:Originally posted by Austin Powers: And about the side-lights: thanx for the info. I'm not sure that we have them in Germany.
How many light settings do you have on your car? Almost every car I've ever seen has 3:
1/ Side lights 2/ Headlights (dipped) 3/ Main Beam/Full Beam
The idea being that you use dipped headlights at night, in well lit areas, and full beam lights when there are no streetlights or other cars. Although as you say, a large number of cars have dipped headlights that are as bright as Full Beam lights (either that, or they are actually driving with their main beam on. Which I'm sure should be illegal, and possibly is). People forget that the main point of headlights is not to allow you to see, rather it's to allow other cars to see you. And considering the brightness of some headlights, you're lucky if you can see anything at all for the blinding light in your rear view mirror.
I don't actually think that you're ever suppossed to drive with just side lights, since I don't think they make any difference at all to how well other cars can see you.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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"People forget that the main point of headlights is not to allow you to see, rather it's to allow other cars to see you."
If that were true, there would be no reason to have high beams. I would think that actually being physically able to see the road on which you're driving is certainly at least as important as other people seeing you.
Registered: Mar 1999
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But how often do you use high beams, anyway? And I've just realised that American highways are more likely to have long stretches without other cars or lights, but I'll ignore that and carry on so there...
Er, where was I? Oh yeah. There are actually very, very, very few times that most people ever use their full beam over here. Sure, we have motorway stretches without lights, but very rarely (or, indeed, never) are they deserted. And even then, you don't really have trouble seeing the road. The only time people do use their full beams on a regular basis is really driving along small country lanes, and a large number of people never do that.
But, to word it in Tim-satifactory-fashion...
"Most of the time, the main point of headlights is not to help you to see the road, but to allow other cars to see you."
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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But how often do you use high beams, anyway?
There's a twisty, hilly and sometimes deserted road through a park that I drive home on at night. More than one, come to think of it. So rather often.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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I'm ignoring American roads and anyone who lives out in the sticks. So there.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Actually, plenty of people use high beams all the bloody time. They seem to subscribe to the "I use them to see, not to be seen" school of thought. Or maybe it's just that low-beam headlights just aren't as dipped as they used to be. As an evil SUV driver, I'm way higher off the road than most car drivers, and I still get blinded sometimes by oncoming traffic. But whenever I encounter someone who really feels they need their lights on full despite being faced by oncoming traffic (me), I win the duel. My extra lamp pods, that only come on when I'm on high beam, provide so much illumination they can hypnotise a fox at 200m!
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Actually, I use high-beams at night all the time - that is if no car is coming in my direction or if I am not driving through a village.
I live in a rural area after all - wooded I might add - and none of our roads are lit, apart from roads in villages. So everybody I know uses high beams as often as possible - and certainly not to BE seen, but to SEE.
quote:For some reason, I thought daytime running lights were usually the parking lights: the orange lights located on the car's corners. At least, those are the lights (if any) that I usually see lit during the daytime around here.
That's one thing I meant with different appearances of cars in different countries. Here in Germany we don't have these orange "parking lights". We have lights to signal which are sometimes orange, but nowadays at least the casing is mostly white, for aesthetic reasons. The function of "parking" lights is carried out by our "side-lights".
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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posted
quote:"Most of the time, the main point of headlights is not to help you to see the road, but to allow other cars to see you."
No, that's the point of the dimmed (side) lights. The full (main) lights are solely for road illumination in really really really thick fog or whatever. Or you were simply saying, albeit in a somewhat convoluted manner, that both side- and main lights are headlights and you just meant the former. Maybe.
I = TEH SEMANTICS KING!
[ February 11, 2004, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Daytime running lights are the low intensity lights in your main headlight casing that come on when the vehicle is on. In our truck, however, these lights turn off when the parking brake is on. The parking lights are the lights on the corners or, on older vehicles without wrap-around head/taillights, marker lights on the side (also on newer Audis and VW on the front fender). And Liam, you really should include highways and people in the sticks, as I travel on an unlight highway for about 15 minutes and then down a hilly, twisty, wooded road to get to my house and without high beams at night, you can't see much of anything (unless its a full moon).
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Lee: Apparently we'll actually have to re-qualify when we move to NZ, that'll be fun. . .
I think you can drive for a year on a UK licence before having to take the test (one of my friends may be working in NZ during his gap year an we were talking about this).
How many countries have a driving theory test now, BTW?
Registered: Feb 2002
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