Sunday, July 24, 2011

Checked Your Headlights Lately?

Starting work early and at various times during winter I've had the opportunity to take notice of how good the headlights are on cars passing by. Sometimes in between buses I can count 340 cars going past. As a rule I have noticed that between 2.5% and 4% of all cars passing have a crook headlight or the driver has even forgetten to turn the headlights on altogether.

Trailers are another story. I didn't keep the exact figures but I'd say a quarter to a third of all trailers don't have correctly working lights. That's a sad indictment on our tradies. They need their trailers for work but fail to look after them. And driving around in the dark without correct lighting isn't too safe or too clever.

I understand that in Britain that there is an annual MOT test and for a normal passenger vehicle over three years of age you're looking at nearly A$100/year. I'm disgusted at times by the number of unroadworthy vehicles on the road, and the drivers who don't appear to be worthy of having a licence, and maybe an annual check of vehicles in Australia wouldn't be a bad idea. Can't see it happening though as it would seem to be just another tax. And they are not too popular at the moment.

7 comments:

Bankruptcy Ben said...

I guess one issue is that it, in the mind of many will "increase the cost" of owning a used vehicle, which is clearly incorrect but I'm sure many in England drop their cars after 3 years

Anonymous said...

Better safe than sorry those morons lol Gill

Iris Flavia said...

Same here :-(
Esp tractors - those guys driving them must have very ...good? eyes.
"New" cars have their lights on by default, like "mine".

Hammy said...

Too many people who have their lights on either have the high beam on or just the parking lights. Idiots. Not too many tractors in Perth. Not this time of year anyway.

Hammy said...

Ben - I'd say that the poorer, working class in Britain keep their cars for much longer so would be more likely to pay this fee. Still, it's a lot of money to change cars every three years to avoid paying some 56 pounds or so.

Iris Flavia said...

Here heaps have on their darn fog-lights. Hello, fog?! High beam - isn´t that kinda criminal? I´m night-blind and those lights´d make me, well... blind!

Just what is the difficult part about choosing the right light?

honkeie said...

We used to have inspections here on body damage. But the state changed all the rules to save money, now they only check for your emmission levels. So now we see all kinds broken cars rolling down the street