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rscThis afternoon, driving from Gloucester to Cambridge and back in rainy, intermittently foggy, weather, with visibility ranging from OK through so-so to pretty bad, I observed a distressingly (I wish I could say surprisingly) large number of vehicles with their headlights off. A minority, to be sure, but a pretty substantial minority.
Massachusetts passed a law sometime in the last few years mandating that a moving motor vehicle with its windshield wipers on must also have its headlights on. Of course, enforcement is nonexistent, but really, folks, this law shouldn't be necessary; it's depressing that the Legislature found it necessary to legislate what ought to be common sense.
Some of us who have driven in rain for more than, oh, ten minutes have noticed that, when visibility is poor, cars with their lights on are much more visible than those without. Some of us have reasoned from this observation that our own vehicles would likely be more visible with the lights on than not. And then, there's this final link: The better other drivers can see my vehicle, the safer we all are.
Sometimes, if I find myself in such conditions directly behind or ahead of an unlighted vehicle, I turn my lights off and on several times, in the hopes of triggering a thought process like the one above. I did this about half a dozen times today; not a single driver showed any signs of taking the hint. One of the vehicles was an ambulance.
(Of course, it's easy for me, because the Subaru has the feature of automatically turning the headlights off when the ignition is switched off, so I just leave them on all the time. But twisting that wand on the steering column is not really that hard -- if it is, you shouldn't be driving.)
Massachusetts passed a law sometime in the last few years mandating that a moving motor vehicle with its windshield wipers on must also have its headlights on. Of course, enforcement is nonexistent, but really, folks, this law shouldn't be necessary; it's depressing that the Legislature found it necessary to legislate what ought to be common sense.
Some of us who have driven in rain for more than, oh, ten minutes have noticed that, when visibility is poor, cars with their lights on are much more visible than those without. Some of us have reasoned from this observation that our own vehicles would likely be more visible with the lights on than not. And then, there's this final link: The better other drivers can see my vehicle, the safer we all are.
Sometimes, if I find myself in such conditions directly behind or ahead of an unlighted vehicle, I turn my lights off and on several times, in the hopes of triggering a thought process like the one above. I did this about half a dozen times today; not a single driver showed any signs of taking the hint. One of the vehicles was an ambulance.
(Of course, it's easy for me, because the Subaru has the feature of automatically turning the headlights off when the ignition is switched off, so I just leave them on all the time. But twisting that wand on the steering column is not really that hard -- if it is, you shouldn't be driving.)
