Auto Gossip

Press, Issue 32345, 10 July 1970, Page 17

Auto Gossip

by

A. J. P.

■ Vision Problem 1 Bright lights can upset 5 night vision badly when you are driving you do not 1 have much difficulty in the > city, of course, because of r the generally higher level t of lighting, but the prob- - lem is very noticeable on I the open road at night. This, of course, is one of the i reasons that dazzling headlights can be so dangerous: > not only do they affect night ’ vision at the time, but the : reduction in vision, in many t cases takes several minutes i to wear off. So a driver daz- • zled by your badly-adjusted : lights may not recover full • night vision for several i miles, and in that time he ; may easily be confronted 1 by an emergency in which ■ he needs all the vision he ' can get. Panel Lights 1 But some car manufacturers compound the problems of night driving by installing instrument-panel lighting which is too bright and which cannot readily be dimmed. Today all cars should have rheostatcontrolled panel-lights, and a simple on-off switch is not good enough. There is also a very good argument for a resistance which lowers the brilliance of brakelights, indicators, and the indicator tell-tales on the

dash whenever the sidelights are switched on. Although such devices have been used by at least one manufacturer for some years, other car-makers have been very slow to follow suit. Winker Tell-tales The first automatic panellight dimmers appeared about 15 years ago, acting on overdrive or automatictransmission selector “windows.” But the logical extension of the system to other lights which should be dimmed at night took place in but few instances. Again, in many modern cars the flashing-indicator tell-tales on the dash are so painfully bright at night that one tends to use the indicators after dark only when absolutely necessary. And over • bright rear winkers are a constant annoyance to other drivers even in brightly-lit city streets, as most motorists can attest. Radio Lights But what particularly annoys me is the habit of

car-radio makers of fitting their units with tell-tale and dial lights which are fine during the day, but far too bright at night, and which cannot be dimmed or switched off' All right, so I could switch off the radio, but I happen to find it a great companion on a long, solo night drive. And I fitted it because I intended to use it. The best answer at present, is to stick a piece of insulation tape over the light for night drives but I am sure radio designers could come up with a tidier solution. Effective instru-ment-light dimming is rather wasted if there is still one bright light glaring from the dash, whether it be the radio light, or an excessively bright mainbeam warning light. A bright radio light is wanted during the day, whereas a, bright main-beam light is not, and it is usually fairly simple to fit a less powerful bulb to the main-beam warning light. Quote of the Week “McLaren once wrote his own epitaph when he said: “To do something well is so worth while, that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy.”—From a tribute to Bruce McLaren printed in an Australian newspaper.