Submitted 5 months ago by spicytuna62@lemmy.world to youshouldknow@lemmy.world
Why YSK: Your signals alert other drivers as to what you’re doing; a signal bulb costs a few bucks and is usually an quick and easy repair to do yourself (consult YouTube); and any place that regulates motor vehicles probably requires you to have working turn signals. Knowing when and how to replace a burned out signal bulb can save you an interaction with law enforcement.
I sometimes back into parking spaces that are in front of a glass storefront so I can see that my brake lights are working.
This is really smart. Considering tail light will get you pulled over, this can save you some pain. I never figured out a good way to check on my own. Thanks!
Another tip is asking literally any human.
Put on your emergency lights and walk around the vehicle?
This "hyperflash"ing will also happen if you have replaced an incandescent bulb with an LED bulb due to the different power requirements.
LEDs draw so much less power that they don’t draw enough current through the flasher relay. The relay will then think that the bulb is burned out.
To fix hyper flash due to having installed LED bulbs you can wire a resistor inline or replace the flasher unit with a unit designed for LED bulbs.
Yeah. And that’s why fitting arbitrary bulbs in your car isn’t allowed in some countries. You have to use something that is certified for use in your specific car.
Yes, there is mandatory inspection every 2 years here. Your car will absolutely fail if you use some uncertified shit.
Blinkers will flash fast with trailer hooked up too if there is a light duty flasher.
You should also know that (most?) Auto Parts stores will either loan you a screwdriver to change the bulb, or actually do it for you. For free.
Be prepared, though. It’s easier in some vehicles than others. Some will require you to move other things out of the way first just to get to the bulb. The bright side is these days there’s a YouTube video for everything.
This is like “I’m 16 and just got my car” level of YSK.
Fun Fact: in the dominican republic it’s very common for cars to never get any replacement bulbs whatsoever throughout the life of the vehicle. The amount of cars you find on the roads with no working lights is terrifying, just like how their drivers behave in traffic.
This is like “I’m 16 and just got my car” level of YSK.
For you and me it is, but a lot of people don’t really know much about their vehicles, or haven’t had the opportunity to learn everything about them.
It’s never too late to learn something new.
Next you’re going to tell me I haven’t had my blinker fluid changed each year.
Not everybody knows what you know.
Is there a part of the US, Canada, Britain or EU that doesn’t have a law mandating working blinkers for a vehicle registration on a regular cadence?
You’d be surprised at how many people drive for decades without ever having lifted their own hood.
But more importantly, how drivers behave to pedestrians?
Additionally, if your dash goes dark, your tail lights/brake lights are likely dead.
So you mean if you see the dashboard indicator going fast, the bulb outside is burnt?
Yes
Or dying
You can’t see the bulb from inside so that’s how they warn you
Or you have a blown fuse.
I don’t believe so. The clicking is from the bimetal strip that flexes due to electrical resistance heating up the strip and repeatedly breaks then connects again as the metal cools and makes contact. A blown fuse would not send electricity to the blinkers to cause the rapid blinking. The reason it blinks faster with a blown bulb is there’s more voltage to the strip so it heats up faster and breaks the connection sooner but doesn’t allow it to heat up enough to cause a longer off delay.
Not as much any more. Most vehicles now just play the sound over the driver’s door speaker. The blinking is a PWM. Lack of current draw results in the PWM firing faster.
I miss having a car that didn’t have timed pulses, like where if you tap it once you always get 3 blinks. I used to love overtaking people sat in the middle lane and then mash-tapping my inside indicator, as if to say “RRRAAHHH YOU SHOULD MOVE OVER!!” and then I would latch it on and blink normally while I pulled to the inside clear lane. Half the time, people understood what I was getting at and moved over themselves.
The other move on middle lane hoggers was to overtake them, move to the inside lane, slow down so they pass you and then move out and overtake them again. The game was to count how many times you could do this before they moved over. I never got a very high score.
Yeah. You are the asshole here
Really? Go on, back that up with some objective reasoning.
You’re kind of an a*hile for doing the latter. But I get it. Middle lane hoggers are amongst the worst. And I have no good solution to offer.
Honestly the best solution, as with most traffic annoyances, is just to quietly curse at them as you go about your day and let the police deal with enforcing the laws.
When trying to teach someone a lesson, you might get the occasional person who was absent-mindedly being annoying, but most people are just going to come away from the interaction thinking YOU are the asshole. Not to mention the person who is being an asshole on purpose looking for confrontation…
I’d agree that it’s kind of asshole-ish, but not full blown asshole. However, it’s perfectly legitimate to do, meanwhile sitting in the middle lane is explicitly illegal in most cases. I did find that it was better to slow down with the brakes, if only lightly to show the lights, as just taking your foot off the throttle was more likely to confuse. Also, I was sure to make it two separate lane change maneuvers with clear space in front of them, not just sweeping across two lanes across someone’s nose.
Also, slowing down so that they pass you inevitably hurts you, as you end up accelerating more than necessary and reducing your fuel economy. Tbh, I don’t do it that often, precisely for that reason.
Frankly, I wish beginner driving instructors would teach what I learned in advanced driver training:
If you’re not overtaking something within 10 seconds, you should move to the inside lane.
I ended up working to 7 seconds, as I found 10 seconds was sometimes hard to judge at distance, and by the time I hummed over it I was well within the bounds of staying out. Meanwhile, if you ever drive in the Netherlands you’ll find people cutting your nose off all over the place - they pull in right away.
Hah, that’s funny though
signal bulb costs a few bucks and is usually a quick and easy repair to do yourself
Heh. $200 sealed units are fun.
Quick and easy fix for me is 2 hours of tearing apart the entire front end to access the bulb. On a Chevy.
Everyone with a car should be checking their signals at least once a week.
Park near either a reflective surface or close enough to a wall that you can see the lights individually. Apply your brakes make sure all of them light up, turn your signals on and make sure front and back on both left and right side flash, with emergency brake applied go into neutral and take your foot off the brake to make sure your reverse lights work, test your high beams and fog lights.
Mines fast because that’s where I store my meth.
wilberfan@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Many seem to have the attitude that if you never use them, the bulbs will never burn out. Problem solved.
Brkdncr@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
How is your BMW these days?
folkrav@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Here it’s the pickup trucks
jvrava9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Nissa Altima, BMD and partiay Audi drivers be like
thoughtorgan@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Q5 and a4 drivers use signals. If it’s an S model they do not 😂