Cars Without Tailights

Toyota's penchant for tiny, high-candela brake lights may meet the letter of the regulations, but in practice aren't friendly to those following.
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Several year's worth of Priuses had plastic taillight lenses that were slanted in such a way they reflected the high mid-day sun. The brake lights on those were nearly invisible in those conditions.
 
I've seen this accessory on a few Jeeps. Seems to a good job of cutting the light emitted from the brake lights:

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I never understood this. I have aftermarket LED tail light housings on my Jeep so people don't rear-end me. Not sure why idiots would want less light coming from the tail lights. Reminds me of those morons who tint their tail lights.
 
To me seems that in general Asian manufacturers struggle with lighting much more than others. Either their dash is illuminated all the time and don’t gove indication to driver that DRL are on, or lights are so bad that it is like two candles in front when driving.
Also, turn signal on some Hyundai/KIA vehicles is low at corner of the bumper. That is another level of stupid.
 
I convert my fogs lights to HIDs, aim then as high as I can and wire them so they can be on anytime the key is on. Lot of rural driving but a lot of light too.

Both my Hyundais have good lighting. The OE Accent headlights are the best standard headlights I've ever owned. Brake and tail lights are bright. Only replaced a couple bulbs in 15 years.

The Gen Coupe had HIDs for stock low beams but the high beams sucked. Tail and brake lights are good. Backup lamps are worthless. All be addressed though over the years.
 
I never understood this. I have aftermarket LED tail light housings on my Jeep so people don't rear-end me. Not sure why idiots would want less light coming from the tail lights. Reminds me of those morons who tint their tail lights.

I've also seen where they get a bigger spare tire and remove the 3rd brake light, then add red LEDs in the lug nut holes for the spare tire. The factory 3rd brake light is much brighter than that crap.

The average Jeep Wrangler around here has at least one violation of vehicle lighting regulations on it, from what I've seen. This in a state with an annual safety inspection.

I even saw one where it was screwed up so the 3rd brake light was flashing with the turn signals. I doubt it left the factory that way.
 
Every once in a while I see a vehicle with NO functioning lighting on one side. No headlight, no parking light, no marker light, nothing.
This is a Chrysler problem. Happened to my brother with his (now ex-) wife's '00s Pacifica. That vehicle has two body control modules controlling lighting, one for each side. One failed, killing all the lights on one side. A replacement module was in the $thousands. My brother ran jumper wires from the remaining module to the affected lights and got them all working properly again.
 
This is a Chrysler problem. Happened to my brother with his (now ex-) wife's '00s Pacifica. That vehicle has two body control modules controlling lighting, one for each side. One failed, killing all the lights on one side. A replacement module was in the $thousands. My brother ran jumper wires from the remaining module to the affected lights and got them all working properly again.

When see a vehicle with no front lighting on one side, my assumption is that it's been smashed up there. Sometimes I'm able to see it well enough to confirm it. Often the rear lighting is working just fine.
 
When see a vehicle with no front lighting on one side, my assumption is that it's been smashed up there. Sometimes I'm able to see it well enough to confirm it. Often the rear lighting is working just fine.

As a side note, it's pretty scary to have one of these approach you at night on these Virginia roads with no streetlighting.

You cannot tell if it's a motorcycle or a car or truck and you cannot tell if it's over the center line (if the road even has one).

The fact that the lights are, in all probability, not working because they're smashed out because that driver caused an accident makes it even more scary.
 
I've seen numerous cars with what appears to be the headlights on, but no taillights on. Now they might just have DRLs on and the people think headlights are on because the instrument clusters are all illuminated now.
This! It's really becoming a problem. People apparently can't realize that their headlights aren't on
 
I've seen numerous cars with what appears to be the headlights on, but no taillights on. Now they might just have DRLs on and the people think headlights are on because the instrument clusters are all illuminated now.
Those and the morons who tint the rear lights need to publicly flogged. It was raining fairly hard the other night on my way into work and some genius in a pickup did the 'murdered out' all black look and the rear taillights were just barely visible.
 
Classic 🙄
Around here, that's the default solution for an Uber/Lyft generic HondYota product because "changing bulbs is too difficult" 😤
Hey you 🫵, got a low beam out (or two)?
Don't fix it, just blind everybody else 👀
Be a ride share driver 🫡

NYPD be like 👨‍🦯

All Hyundai/Kias have at least one tail light out (usually all 3)
Uber Camrys and Accords usually lack low beam
Every CR-V has a tail lamp out
Avalon's all seem to lose the 3rd high mount LED CHMSL, no one wants to spend the labor to fix it 🫰
All older GM SUVs lack at least one DRL (this is a canon event)
And don't start me on the LED retrofit blinders
My retinas hurt 🤕
I’m pretty sure GM made a deal with the lightbulb devils, I’d estimate 85% of all GMs with DRLs have at least one bulb out at all times. That’s on top of the soy-based wiring insulation that squirrels love so much to nibble on and cause phantom behaviors…
 
My family had a 02 suburban like 5 years ago, it had a drl out (the bulb socket melted)

Here there's a lot of cars without a working 3rd brake light
 
All modern car tail lights are way too bright, I almost need sunglasses to drive at night. Also its like most tail lights seem like they are red laser leds, I think they are bad for eyes. In the old days they had rules about allowable candle power for automotive lights.
 
My '11 Tahoe had the famous 1156 DRL bulbs that burn out. Did a LED replacement designed for that location, over 100k miles and zero issues with that problem. Once and done fix.
 
I was trying into the office this morning and a pickup truck had it's brake lights on as if it was braking all the time. A few years ago there used to be a 90s Explorer that I always came across when driving home that had no working tail light.....ugh.
 
Lights are too bright on most new stuff it’s light pollution… even worse is Emergency vehicle lighting which is idiotic - turn that foolishness down it promotes target fixation and destroys night vision …

For ages we drove around with incandescent bulbs and bubble gum Machines on top of the popo and everything was fine…
 
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The only folks who check their lights for proper operation are BITOG'ers. The rest of the world rely on yearly state inspections or LEO warnings or tickets.
I guess I've been conditioned by the ''dependable'' GM taillight sockets of the '60's.
 
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