When To Use Your Parking Lights

My BMW had an interesting feature. You could turn on the parking lights on one side only, the driver's side of course.

Any Euro spec car has it standart for decades. Left or right via the left stalk (same as indicator but with ignition off). I don't even remember a single car without it. Even my 1972 Beetle and my Notchback/Type 3 had this.


What we call parking lights is what European refer to as "city lights", where with enough ambient lighting from street lights in the city, one can drive with the markers on with the dash illuminated.

There's no such thing as Euro 'city lights'. Not within ECE legislation. There's a so-called 'parking light' (switchable either left or right), a so-called 'standing light' (both left and right, for standstill, no driving allowed with) and of course 'driving lights' (low beam and high beam).
You may happen to see cars driving at night with just 'parking lights' (what you called 'city lights') on in 1950s/60s French movies, but that's 50 to 70 years ago and I'm not even sure it has been legal at that time (may have been easier on the camera just because reduced dazzling). I've seen the same in American films.
Add dedicated daytime running lights (Halogen or LED) for some ten years and true adaptive headlighting (dazzle-free permanent highbeams) legal in EU for a few years (finally coming to the US), which includes shorter-range 'city light', but that's certainly not what we're talking about here.
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Any Euro spec car has it standart for decades. Left or right via the left stalk (same as indicator but with ignition off). I don't even remember a single car without it. Even my 1972 Beetle and my Notchback/Type 3 had this.




There's no such thing as Euro 'city lights'. Not within ECE legislation. There's a so-called 'parking light' (switchable either left or right), a so-called 'standing light' (both left and right, for standstill, no driving allowed with) and of course 'driving lights' (low beam and high beam).
You may happen to see cars driving at night with just 'parking lights' (what you called 'city lights') on in 1950s/60s French movies, but that's 50 to 70 years ago and I'm not even sure it has been legal at that time (may have been easier on the camera just because reduced dazzling). I've seen the same in American films.
Add dedicated daytime running lights (Halogen or LED) for some ten years and true adaptive headlighting (dazzle-free permanent highbeams) legal in EU for a few years (finally coming to the US), which includes shorter-range 'city light', but that's certainly not what we're talking about here.
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Then what's the purpose of the middle position, where only the markers and dash are illuminated in Europe?

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Since there are no such things as a city light anymore... then Europe needs to catch up to US VW's for the longest time.

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Then what's the purpose of the middle position, where only the markers and dash are illuminated in Europe?

Pretty much clear, isn't it? That's what I ment with so-called 'standing light' (both left and right, for standstill, no driving allowed with) . . . .
Again, ECE regulation still doesn't know any 'city light' (except what modern adaptive lighting uses which is a full low-beam driving light with just slightly lower and broadened range). What you called 'city light' isn't alloweed for driving in Europe. Well, things may be common differently in some parts.


Since there are no such things as a city light anymore... then Europe needs to catch up to US VW's for the longest time.

I don't get what you're after.
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Any Euro spec car has it standart for decades. Left or right via the left stalk (same as indicator but with ignition off). I don't even remember a single car without it. Even my 1972 Beetle and my Notchback/Type 3 had this.

Add dedicated daytime running lights (Halogen or LED) for some ten years and true adaptive headlighting (dazzle-free permanent highbeams) legal in EU for a few years (finally coming to the US), which includes shorter-range 'city light', but that's certainly not what we're talking about here.
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My '86 Volvo didn't have one side parking lights. Or at least I never found it.

It didn't have day-time running lights either which became universal in Canada about the time I bought the car. I found that if I turned the Volvo's headlights on, they would only come on when I turned the ignition key on and they would go off when I turned the ignition key off. So doing that was a good substitute for day-time running lights and that is what I did for most of the 18 years I owned the car. But I suppose doing that could also have hidden the one side only parking lights feature.

Experiments in the '70's or 80's showed that day-time running lights make a vehicle visible when it's much further away, especially in low light conditions. So they are a good safety feature. The only downside is that a vehicle that doesn't have them when most other vehicles around them do have them almost disappears in traffic. Thus the need for all vehicles to have them, which is why they have been manditory on new vehicles in Canada for a couple of decades, and why used vehicles imported to Canada must be fitted with them as well. It's quite uncommon to see a vehicle without them in Canada today.
 
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'Euro spec' is the key here.

Lighting has been market specific from the beginning ~120 years ago and it still is.
Not sure about Canada, but the US required more than a decade to allow for true
adaptive headlights with dazzle-free/permanent highbeams. Finally it's coming to
the US.
.
 
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'Euro spec' is the key here.

Lighting has been market specific from the beginning ~120 years ago and it still is.
Not sure about Canada, but the US required more than a decade to allow for true
adaptive headlights with dazzle-free/permanent highbeams. Finally it's coming to
the US.
.


Yep. We are well behind in adopting the latest and best technology.
 
Would have been nice if the moron behind me, in the Dairy Queen drive thru, with his lifted jeep wrangler equipped with LED aftermarket headlights would have used the parking lights.
I have a super bright flashlight stored in the center console, I just grab it and aim it backwards at the following drivers face. Never tried it in a drive thru :) Don't go thru at night anymore. In fact we didn't go through when I was younger -because there WASN'T any drive-thru!

You parked and a young girl wearing an A-line skirt - or hot pants - and little garrison cap and came up to the driver window and took your order.

Or, you walked up to the window. We would stand in line at Riley's Roast Beef after closing time to get a "Big One" on an onion roll. You had to know the lingo - the line moved fast and they were soup nazi's ignoring you if you stood around like a dope "pondering and thinking" about what you wanted to eat. NEXT !

-Ken
 
By what I've seen around here lately, the best time to use the parking lights is when it's dark out and you're staring at your mobile phone instead of the road.
 
I'm constantly amazed by the number of cars I see driving with NO lights on after dark. It used to be that the dash only lit up when you turned your lights on, now with the electronic dashes that are lit up all the time and folks not being able to find or use the "auto* setting it's become a every day thing in my area. With the dumbing-down that's becoming the norm, there's too many that can't either deal with the technology or have any common sense. Coming up on an all black vehicle with all black trim at 65 mph and no lights is always a jolt to my senses.
 
Like many drivers, I have my lights set to auto and they operate with no input from me. On when its dark and off when it is light. Works for me.
 
I don't know if it was factory, or the PO did this mod to my Fiat 500 Abarth I had, but I really liked it.

I could leave the lights in the "parking lights" mode - it would turn on all the parking lights the fog lights, and disable the DRL's. They also would turn on and off with the key, so I just left it there all the time (obviously unless it was dark). It gave the car a cooler look than just driving around with the big dorky DRL's on all the time. My Corvette does something similar, but not automatic. I can turn on the parking lights, fogs, and no headlights. Not that anybody has a hard time seeing a bright yellow Vette...but it looks slick with the lights on, and no "pop-ups" out.
 
Why are your sideview mirrors set to show you what’s directly behind you? That’s what the rear view mirror is for.

Adjust the side views properly - to show you what’s in your blind spots - and this issue with bright headlights behind your car won’t be so much of an issue anymore.
 
Why are your sideview mirrors set to show you what’s directly behind you? That’s what the rear view mirror is for.

Adjust the side views properly - to show you what’s in your blind spots - and this issue with bright headlights behind your car won’t be so much of an issue anymore.

Because at this point I'm used to QWERTY.
 
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