Tonight on the way home I spotted...

mike65

6 cars with one headlight out, 2 cars driving with side lights only. One car with sidelights and fogs, one er pony and trap with no lights at all.

This at 5.10-5.30 pm on non-urban roads.

Mike.

masto1983

I saw a hedgehog in my garden once................


No, its f*ckin ridiculous, though theres no use getting excited about it, you just end up getting pissed off. Hopefully this new garda road unit their talking about will get some of these twats off the road!

impr0v

On my way home I ended up parked beside one of these temporarily:



a Maserati coupe GT with 04 D plates. Nothing spectacular but a nice little runabout to have.

I also saw about 8 new type ford focus' parked outside the Ford dealership. They look completely unremarkable.

BrianD3

mike I'm surprised you managed to count the cars with defective lights. I usually lose count because there are so many.

I did spot a couple of good ones on the N52 (twisty national secondary road) at around six this evening
-a car towing a big trailer with no lights whatsoever on the trailer.
-a tractor with no front lights at all apart from blinding spotlights located on the roof of the tractor.
-several other tractors with lights which were either too dim or too bright plus one asshole who had white spotlights shining down from the roof on the *rear* of his tractor.

BrianD3

mike65

I missed plenty of others as they had no lights! :eek:

Mike.

Silvera

"Tractors and trailers with no lights" ?!

.......Don't get me started !!


(Slow moving vehicles should also have to display a rear reflectorised triangle, as in the U.S and some E.U. countries).

glynf

I also saw about 8 new type ford focus' parked outside the Ford dealership. They look completely unremarkable.

Went to take a look at one with a mate today, he was mad to get one,
-say's now he would be mad to get one.
very basic, plasticy and cheap inside, and 27k for a 110Bhp 1.6 Tdi with a few extras :eek:

byte

Quite a few new cars look plasticy and cheap inside. The new Golf interior didn't impress me (especially the gawpy stereo) .

The Muppet

mike65 wrote:

6 cars with one headlight out, 2 cars driving with side lights only. One car with sidelights and fogs, one er pony and trap with no lights at all.

This at 5.10-5.30 pm on non-urban roads.

Mike.

What no unlit cyclists ?

unkel

The Muppet wrote:

What no unlit cyclists ?

No cyclists period

Neil_Sedaka

Look no further than the next Dublin Bus to see dodgy, non working headlights. Do Dublin Bus mechanics not know how to fit a bulb? :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

Yeah saw a bus in Tallaght today using Hazards instead of headlights.
Don't get me started about indicators not working..

Victor

Silvera wrote:

"Tractors and trailers with no lights" ?!

Amen!

And then they give out when you bring this to their attention.

Seth Brundle

There should be a grant to fix it!

ambro25

What's Irish Law (or Rules of the Road) say about non-working brake lights (and more importantly, are you at fault if you rear-end or is it 50-50?)?

Not my situation, but had a couple of close calls in the last 4 days and starting to get p***ed (especially since I told one of the drivers in questions and just got verbal abuse back).

BrianD3

Re: tractors. I'm not sure about this, but I think a lot of the tractors on the road are actually owned/driven by builders rather than farmers. It has become a trend in recent years to use big tractors and trailers for hauling building materials around which would have been transported using lorries in previous years. AFAIK the reason is that it's much cheaper to tax a tractor than a lorry.

You also see big tractors being used to pull really big (artic sized) trailers loaded with grain and livestock etc.. Again, I think that tractors are being used in place of lorries.

All of this is bad because tractors on the road are a ****ing menace and especially so on national secondary roads at night.

BrianD3

ando

ambro25 wrote:

What's Irish Law (or Rules of the Road) say about non-working brake lights

yea that gets to me aswell, especially if your behind a truck or big van were you cannot see ahead. The m50 is a nightmare for that kind of scenario. I'd think that it would be the person behind that is at fault unfortunately if a crash did occur

Mick L

mike65 wrote:

6 cars with one headlight out, 2 cars driving with side lights only. One car with sidelights and fogs, one er pony and trap with no lights at all.

This at 5.10-5.30 pm on non-urban roads.

Mike.

....and a partridge in a pear tree??

At least with indicators not working they can't indicate left while turning right or vice versa, thats seriously just taking the piss.

ambro25

ando wrote:

yea that gets to me aswell, especially if your behind a truck or big van were you cannot see ahead. The m50 is a nightmare for that kind of scenario. I'd think that it would be the person behind that is at fault unfortunately if a crash did occur

Oh well... God forbid it ever happens, but if it does I'm of a mind to report the b*****d. (then again, he/she may just tell Gardai they were working before the smash :mad: ). Not fair! (especially -as you said- if you can't see ahead, maintaining a security distance or not).

hefty_langer

what is far worse than tractors driving with no lights, is a tractor with one f*ck off floodlight hangling off the back, As you drive up behind him it looks like a oncoming car with full beams on... Until you end up with a plough impaled on the windscreen....

Kali

ando wrote:

yea that gets to me aswell, especially if your behind a truck or big van were you cannot see ahead. The m50 is a nightmare for that kind of scenario. I'd think that it would be the person behind that is at fault unfortunately if a crash did occur

its quite simple then. give yourself room to brake.

445279.ie

Last year I was driving from Limerick to Cork and decided to count cars with one headlight. Between Limerick and Mallow I counted 15 and thought the problem wasn't as bad as I'd thought.

However, on the Mallow Road alone, I counted 45!!! :eek:

De Hipster

AFAIK if you happen to rear-end someone where the tail-lights aren't working, it's more likely to end up 50/50 when the insurance companies get involved...word against word situation.

My brother was hit from behind (in the north), when attempting to turn right, the other driver claims that he wasn't indicating (untruth) the cops arrived, arrested the brother & were going to charge him until it transpired that the other guy had no insurance...the insurance companies are still looking a 50/50 pay-out & he is now suing for £10,000 compo!

A$$A$$IN

The best quite simply has to be on your way home from work at night on your local road and you suddenly have to swerve to avoid a pedestrian with no light or anything only to suddenly realise their moronic friend is on the other side of the road its ridiculous nearly caused a serious accident!!! :mad:

De Hipster

A$$A$$IN wrote:

The best quite simply has to be on your way home from work at night on your local road and you suddenly have to swerve to avoid a pedestrian with no light or anything only to suddenly realise their moronic friend is on the other side of the road its ridiculous nearly caused a serious accident!!! :mad:

Happened a guy I know...two drunks weaving all over the road, mate braked to miss one as the other ran across the front of the yoke & up & over breaking the windscreen, his leg & two years later it's still not sorted. Always the driver's fault it would seem.

ambro25

I always leave room to brake... but you always get idiots - if the guy/lass in front piles on with no stop lights, braking room or not, you're very likely fe***d.

Yesterday morning, town center, around Dublin 6
overtaking a cyclist at 07:45
normal headlights on,
no more than 25 mph,
indicating,
deporting myself no more than 1/2-way across the oncoming lane, which is empty as far as the eye can see (a good 300 to 400 yards)
...bog standard situation.

There's a small white Micra driving about 100 yards in front of me, same lane.

Waiting Yummy Mummy in her X5 coming out of posh drive decides to take off in the opposite direction & cross my lane between the Nissan & me, not seen the cyclist or my indicator (or the fact that there really isn't enough room even if there was no cyclist).

Stops after I pile on the brakes, winds her window down and starts giving me abuse about driving too fast, overtaking cars in town & whatnot. Clearly, she was scared sh**less and was just reacting to mild shock.

Needless to say, I replied accordingly (although no swear words, note: "silly wench" - which is extraordinarily sedate, for people who know me!) & took off.

But I'd have had the 5-series (which had already been checking what was in my boot for the last 10 minutes) 'literally' up my arse if my brake lights had been out (wouldn't like to imagine BM5 vs MX5 :eek: ).

You just never know when what - and it pays to check your brake lights regularly

dcGT

Kali wrote:

its quite simple then. give yourself room to brake.

In Ireland? On the M50? You'd effectively never reach destination as every fúcker would be squeezing in front of you given half a chance and consequently, you're pushed right back to the end of the next queue of traffic off the motorway. Irish drivers are incredibly adept at squeezing into dangerously small spaces at 70 mph. It's an Irish phenomenon

DC.

jozi

Tonight on the way home I spotted...


A Aston Martin DB9 on '04 plates, nice to see one being driven after seeing one at a car show. Lovely car

Jozi

ambro25

Does the Bentley Continental GT on '04 plates, which I clocked last night at about 17:30 around Tenerure, beat that DB9?

mike65

Tonight a ended up behind a guy with his ****ing rear fog lights on! Grrrrrrrr

Mitsubishi Galant, white, WD plate, twin exhaust engine. I have your number! :mad:

Mike.

JohnBoy

BrianD3 wrote:

Re: tractors. I'm not sure about this, but I think a lot of the tractors on the road are actually owned/driven by builders rather than farmers. It has become a trend in recent years to use big tractors and trailers for hauling building materials around which would have been transported using lorries in previous years. AFAIK the reason is that it's much cheaper to tax a tractor than a lorry.

Close enough.

Remember all those big cool volvo dumpers that everyone used use for moving rubble? They're no longer legal for use on the road (special exemptions are available) but by and large the'ye illegal now.

I think it might have had something to do with the fact that if a small car got rearended by one it would just collapse underneath the engine.

that's why there's so many tractors with dumper trailers running around nowadays. plus you can just stick a 16 year old in there and pay him pennies.

last night had a 156 on my ass for a while, pass side light would come on over the nasty bumps and then off again, then on, then off

good ole italian electrics.