In days past vehicle indicators were positioned on vertical body surfaces, with an white globe and orange lens, and they were very visible. However, modern cars in particular, position these mostly on horizontal surfaces, with clear lens and orange globes, making them almost invisible, particularly in bright sunlight, but fine in darkness.
It can be quite scary, when you don’t see an indicator, or aren’t seen, until the very last moment, even though it wasn’t lack of attention.
With brighter days of summer already here the problem is at its worse.
Nobody in authority seems to care. The vehicle past the standards test, and that ends to the matter. But what if its the standard that requires change. is this just an Australian issue, or global?
Do you have an example, a make and model, a picture, anything to show this. I have not got into a vehicle where most of the indicators are on horizontal surfaces, in may car (10 years old admittedly) there are none.
I haven’t personally noticed any problems with indicator lights. I find either yellow lens with white light globe, clear lens with yellow light globe or yellow LEDs easy to see in all light conditions. I however find that some newer vehicles have extra bright indicators (possibly coloured LED ones) which aren’t an issue during the day, but can be somewhat blinding at night.
The lights form part of a cluster on many modern cars, where the whole lens, forms part of the top front corner moulded to the same curves of the metal bodywork
My issue is the reverse. I see many modern vehicles as looking more like game machines that light up to entertain rather than vehicles with indicators. Some make more sense than others.
What is happening is our ADRs are being ‘adjusted’ to reflect the international LCD so vehicle manufacturers have less onerous adjustments to make for our market.
The type of vehicles this is most likely to apply too, are those that have a aerodynamic front. Hence unlikely to apply to 4WD and many ICE vehicles.
I agree on many models with a more upright front end which have the highly decorative LEDS are often highly visible.
I’m not referring to the rear light clusters.
I agree with longinthetooth about the visibility of some car indicators. The front indicators on my 9-year-old Golf have pathetic visibility in bright sunlight. I have to take a right turn on smaller roundabouts very conservatively, knowing that oncoming drivers ahead have difficulty seeing my right turn indicator. I also have difficulty determining whether some vehicles have their right turn indicator on at roundabouts. It is worthwhile walking around your own vehicle and checking the indicator visibility in bright sunlight. Some of you may be surprised at how inadequate they are.
A major problem with vehicle indicator lights has recently appeared. Until about a year ago, all turn signal lights were set at about the height of the bottom of the rear window of the car.
Now, several models of Kia and some other makes have put the turn signals down low near the rear bumper.
The serious problem with this is that in traffic when you are within a certain distance of that car in front of you or passing you, you absolutely cannot see their turn signals. You cannot see that they are signalling to change lanes or turn left or right.
This is a major safety issue and I cannot understand why it is legal.
Am I the only one who has noticed this?
The lower bumper position has been around for years. Example behind 4WDs with spare tyres hanging on the back. These vehicles has indicators below the spare tyre position on the bumper, so that the spare tyre isn’t obscure line of sight to the indicator. Many older cars, including the popular HQ Kingswood had indicators mounted with the bumper.
I think introducing Kingswood into a 2024 conversation is ridiculous. The after market modification to 4WD, unlikely to have gone through any formal Std approval, is also very different to the point @rjstevens has raised as this is manufacturer design which ought to have been approved by Australian Stds. It is concerning.
It isn’t aftermarket. A previous place of employment had Nissan Patrols and Prados which had rear door mounted spare tyres as standard when the vehicle was purchased. These have the indicators on their bumper bars as standard. These vehicles also had ‘dummy’ lights installed about half way up the rear of the vehicle - it was often the point of discussion as they seemed an additional cost/waste and possibly could be used in other countries where their own design rules allow. These weren’t operational as the tyre obstructed views to the lights.
There are other 4WD in the past where the indictors were mounted on the bumper bar as standard (from the factory). I have seen more recently, such as the current model Prado, that the spare rear tyre is recessed into the door. This reduces its protrusion from the rear of the vehicle. For such models, the indicator lights aren’t mounted on the bumper.
The bumper located indictors meet the Australian Design Rules.
There are other examples of low mounted indicators, such as on trailers and some heavy vehicles (low heavy equipment floats are an example that comes to mind). The design rule doesn’t specify the minimum or maximum height of the indictors on a vehicle. Indicators however can’t be obstructed from view, which can occur with factory fitted tyres (or even bike racks) and why manufacturers installed indicators on the bumpers in compliance with the Australian Design Rules.
In some workplaces, such as quarries and mines, indicators are also mounted on the roof to allow large mine equipment to better see the indicators. Again, this is allowed under the Australian Design Rules and these vehicles with roof mounted lights meets roadworthy requirements/can driven on public roads.
Often indicator lights are designed to be aesthetically pleasing, whilst also meeting the Australian Design Rules. Just because someone doesn’t like them for some reason, does not mean they don’t comply with the Australian requirements.
Are the points I made and supported by Tim3 important issues. Is the point that rjstevens made an important issue.
I think they are.
That is the point of this thread.
If you think they are untrue, then demonstrate with evidence. If you think they are spurious, pointless, of no value say so. Otherwise address the issue instead of taking us down pointless rabbit holes.
I agree with what “longinthetooth” has said and for some time I have been concerned about the latest trends in vehicle indicators being not up to scratch as in “they don’t pass the pub test for grabbing the attention of other motorists”.
As long in the tooth points out, some are hard to see in bright sunlight. This is on new vehicles, not those with lenses which have faded and become UV light damaged and semi opaque as a result.
I don’t have a list of offending vehilces and I don’t intend to make one. But I do notice the problem is quite common on tradies utes. Whether these are aftermarket lights fitted by the owner or standard lights I don’t know.
One newish trend I notice is the travelling LED style of indicators. Some of these are quite effective, but to be effective the travel speed of the LED’s needs to be a certain minimum speed to catch the attention of other drivers (I’ve seen some with a very slow travel speed which fails the attention getting test).
Also the number of LED’s in the travelling indicator needs to be a minimum for the same reasons. I have seen, typically, tradies utes where there are only 4 LED’s in the travelling indicator and the 4th LED is oly on for a fraction of a second, so essentially only 3 LED’s and not very bright and totally does not pass the visibility and attention grabbing PUB test.
Vehicle indicators need to be designed so that people with varying grades of eyesight can see them easily enough. I suspect the ADR body needs to take a hard look at this matter.
Whilst we are on this topic I would like to raise a similar issue about bright and glaring out of adjustment headlights, which are blinding to cars going in the other direction or irritating in your rear view mirror - something which many cars suffer from and I suspect their owners are ignorant, perhaps sometimes wilfully as they may have deliberately aimed their headlights high and fitted ultra bright HID lamps to them.
This is supposed to be checked at registration inspections BUT I have never actually witnessed an inspetion station check headlight aim, they just check that high and low beams are working.
In some cases the problem might be that the driver is unaware that the headlight aim on many modern cars can be adjusted to suit the load in the car. When the car is fully loaded the headlights will aim higher then usual and this adjustment can be used to compensate and lower the headlight aim so that it does not annoy other drivers.
That’s all good BUT so far every time I have pointed out this feature on somebody’s new car, they have no idea what it’s for and really don’t care either.
Don’t patronise me with comments that my eyesight is bad. I can watch cars on the road at night and easily point out those which have out of alignment headlights and it’s bleeding obvious.
The comment was that bumper bar lights has recently appeared. The comments I have been making is that they have not recently appeared. They have been around for decades (using the HQ Holden example) and also more recently with 4WDs with rear mounted tyres.
Suggesting it is recent gives the impression that car manufactures are not complying someway with ADRs or the ADRs have changed. This is not correct.
Bumper bar indictors/lights are legal, meet the ADR and have been around for a long time. Just because someone doesn’t like them or thinks that they are a safety issue, does not mean they can’t be installed at that location.
Personally I have no issue with bumper bar mounted indicators and don’t think they are a safety issue. Many drivers on Australian roads also don’t use indicators or use them correctly. This poses a far greater safety risk than the location or brightness of an indicator. It may also lead one to think that the indicator light isn’t bright enough it is hasn’t been used.
Just because lighting meets ADRs does not always mean the ADRs are right. I’ll agree there are some vehicles where the front signals are not obvious regardless of daylight.
Vehicles entering and exiting roundabouts are a good example. Sometime the front blinker is not obvious and the side signals (usually on mirrors these days) show to the side and back, not so well to the front - so one does not know if the vehicle entering or in the roundabout to one’s right is going around or what.
The ‘game machine’ variations that are bright with many clever touches might be visible but also may cause distractions.
While they might care the global problem is a ‘manufacturers friendly’ approach.
When I wrote ‘are being’ that is meant in an historic context as ADRs are routinely refined and updated. Sometimes it is for safety reasons and sometimes it seems as catering to newer design trends.
I’ve occasionally questioned my own eyes as to whether a vehicle is indicating most often at roundabouts. But have been too focussed mostly on driving to take a second look once the other vehicles movements have betrayed intent.
Picking up on the previous reference to harmonisation with Europe etc, and LCD.
Without judging whether it is right or wrong - UN regulation 148. Those with a deeper interest will see similarities to how it is in Australia.
If there is cause to change what is for the front of a vehicle and integrated into the styling - it appears we need to change how Europe and possibly the rest of the world designs motor vehicles. Front styling and directional indicator light design the concern.
Thanks for this EU link.
The mere fact of the existence and hence recognition of the need supports the proposition that there is an issue. I scanned the 59 pages to see if I couldn’t find any aspect that deals with the relative illumination of the lights, compared to the surrounding reflection of sunlight, that perhaps requires countries closer to the equator to also consider that.
