| People wonder "Why is there a law for this stupid thing, it's a regulatory hassle", and yet time and time again it comes around there was at least some partially legitimate reason said rule exists. Simply put vehicles are at the point where we need a rule that says "The doors can be unlocked and open if the battery is dead" Full stop, no ifs, ands, or buts. |
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| ▲ | Zak 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | One of my unfavorite random car regulations is that as of some time in this millennium, cars sold in the USA may not have required lighting on movable bodywork. This bans new cars from having clamshell bodywork like that found on classics like the Jaguar E-type and Ford GT40. I suspect it also results in many cars having narrower truck/hatch openings than they would have if they could put mandated lights on the trunk lid or rear hatch. It's not hard to imagine the partially legitimate reason that on occasion, someone will drive with the trunk open, but do we really need a law about it? | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's not hard to imagine the partially legitimate reason that on occasion, someone will drive with the trunk open No, it's a much more serious and likely reason -- people stopping on a highway at night, getting out, and opening their trunk for some reason (like a spare tire, fluids, etc)?-- then their lights (and the reflectors in the lamp housings) are pointed at the sky. | | |
| ▲ | alistairSH 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Or, movable bodywork is more prone to be misaligned during normal operation. Headlights get out of alignment sometimes. I posit that likelihood goes up if the lights are themselves mounted on a hood/door/whatever that can also go out of alignment. | | |
| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | kube-system 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah that is important for headlamps -- but for signal and marker lamps, the point is visibility. |
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| ▲ | WalterBright 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My dad, in the 1960s, put reflective tape on the rear bumpers. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Some automakers have chosen to meet the standard while keeping their lights on movable panels by placing additional lights/reflectors in the bumper to meet requirements. |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | layman51 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your post reminded me of a video on the an imported TVR Tuscan, filmed by Doug DeMuro where he covers this too. The TVR Tuscan is one of those cars where if the rear trunk is open, you can’t see the turn signal lights. In the video it is claimed that because of that, by laws in the UK, the trunk must have a triangular exclamation point sign as a safety precaution to let other drivers know when the vehicle is immobile. That is around the seven minute mark of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32u6KPTALxg | |
| ▲ | tbyehl 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Every safety regulation is written in blood. That particular blood was probably people stopped at night with the trunk open to access a spare tire or tools. And then there was more blood because sometimes those people forget to leave their lights on, or their lights don't function because the battery has died, so we got more regulation requiring ugly reflectors. And so on. |
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| ▲ | cucumber3732842 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It is not the government's job to enumerate every specific brand of stupid design that may be harmful multiplied by every class of product nor should it be. If you want to do that stuff, do it with a performance test or criteria, not with stupid whack-a-mole rules. And don't think that weasel wording the test to the same effect is any better. If you want to do this the not stupid way you need to actually do the hard work and figure out what the over-arching general case performance characteristics need to be. With better styling cues and design that make it obvious how to use the Tesla handles (and all the degrees of copycats) it wouldn't be an issue. But that isn't the kind of sleek sext angular bullshit modern car designers like so it never got made and here we are. | | |
| ▲ | csours 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Game it out - if you issue guidelines, people abuse them, then government agencies get in trouble (isn't it your job to stop this kind of thing?), so government agencies issue strict rules. Bureaucracies have many fathers, the society we have is the result of conflict and incentives. | | |
| ▲ | cucumber3732842 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Game it out - if you issue guidelines, people abuse them, You wind up with smaller gaps with the qualitative and rules based approach than you do with the whack-a-mole list. >then government agencies get in trouble (isn't it your job to stop this kind of thing?), so government agencies issue strict rules. Government agencies tend to grow in scope and resources when they screw up. Even when punished, it's not like they go bankrupt and everyone is out of a job. >Bureaucracies have many fathers, the society we have is the result of conflict and incentives. And ideology. You can incentivize the Taliban all you want they won't send their girls to school. I postulate that the failure of american regulatory to systems to regulate without sucking is driven in large part by what goes on in the heads of the subset of people who spec out, create and operate said systems. |
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| ▲ | pixl97 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >enumerate every specific brand of stupid design that may be harmful As commonly said by the libertarian at heart, right up until the point their loved one gets injured or killed, then they are at the forefront of regulation. > But that isn't the kind of sleek sext angular bullshit modern car designers like Who likes safety and security? These features commonly make every day use more difficult. Who needs unblocked fire exits, that takes up too much room in the building. Who needs a common interface for a safety critical device, that removes the 'cool' factor. |
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