Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 14:40:28 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: LED taillights WAS: Re: repost optional bulb sizes/wattages?
In-Reply-To: <010301c869b3$48249a80$25a6734c@homelrmqqm1lky>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Most license plates are reflective now too of course, helping in rear
illumination and ID, 'friend or foe'
And once headlights hit them the red reflectors in the tail lights are quite
bright too.
I just notice from a long way off at night odd tail light configurations
make it hard to get range and bearing down accurately.
Diving in snow and falling snow, I've seen huge snowplow dump trucks, at
night. that may have white spot lights on top of them, even 16 feet off the
ground, and really odd light configurations and it can be 'really' hard to
tell first, from a good distance, WHAT it is, then next, 'how far' away it
is. And they can be coming AT you on your side of the road sometimes even,
but that's not TOO common.
Looks like a bloody UFO at first from a distance.
Standard tail light configurations help in such situations, a lot.
And some new American cars still have rear red turn signals, with only a
'two filament' set up - that is each rear turn signal is also a brake light
bulb and going straight, it's a brake light bulb, but when you put on the
turn signal, it stops being a brake light bulb and becomes a rear red turn
signal light.
Which is from the 50's , less safe, and dumb. The only logical thing is euro
and vanagon style separate rear amber turn signal lights.
And I do notice a lot of amber turn signals on American cars that are very
close to the headlight, and at 300 feet it can be hard to see the turn
signal flashing right next to the bright headlight, especially in the day
time.
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
william thompson
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:00 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: LED taillights WAS: Re: repost optional bulb sizes/wattages?
Many of us who have a military background have learned to distinguish
between *threat* and *friendly* vehicles, aircraft, and watercraft.
The Chevy with the four separate lights on each upper pillar was quickly
referred to as *A SOW* Pig farmers would understand. I have
put a bright orange reflective tape around the two inch center, recessed,
band of my
dark brown van. It compensates for the pathetic excuse of rear lighting on
the vanagons. VW did a similar thing on the blue-grey vans with a silver
stripe.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Grebneff" <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 1:51 AM
Subject: Re: LED taillights WAS: Re: repost optional bulb sizes/wattages?
>There's another factor - if you've ever been driving at night and started
>to
>come up on a station wagon or van with the tail lights going up the whole
>rear upper corner............from a long way off it's hard to get a
| 
