busb wrote:In theory at least, I thought all motor vehicles should be checked once a year that includes headlight adjustment during an MOT - is this not the case?
When a car is loaded – luggage in the boot, passengers, or even a full tank of fuel in some cases – its attitude changes. Therefore the headlamps need to be adjusted almost every time the car is used. For this purpose an adjustment was provided on the dashboard, albeit often hidden away by the driver’s knee as if the makers suspected it would not often be used.
You only have to drive down the road to see that the manufacturers’ suspicion was justified.
With new headlamps that have greater dazzling risk (brighter, smaller, sharper cut-off, bluer, holes in the spectral power distribution) the EU mandated automatic adjustment of headlamp angle as the car’s load changes. Most new cars have this plainly necessary feature. (To make up for this, they have DRLs that dazzle even in daylight and allow dozy drivers to drive at night with DRLs instead of dipped headlamps.)
Bicycles are a law unto themselves and the lighting situation there is out of control. The law is a mess in most European countries and what bits and pieces of disjointed legislation exist are either daft or not enforced.
Road safety has improved greatly for other reasons, and that may be why lighting has not been given the attention it deserves for both safety and comfort reasons. Eventually that must change.
