Can't see black at night - tell him

[peterdarby]

Except for lucky timing I could have really been whacked. I had stopped at a stop sign to turn left onto a four lane divided road about nine at night. Sat there for about a minute waiting for the cars to give me a brake on both sides of the road. One car was opposite also waiting to turn left. I wanted to make sure that when I made my move he wouldn't be a problem so I really waited for a -no car coming- situation. Well, eventually there was no traffic coming and I pulled out trying to angle over so the car opposite wouldn't get confused. Suddenly I saw out of the corner of my eye a black car with no lights bearing down on me from the left. Luckily he was far enough back that a touch of the throttle got me out of trouble. I could just see him flicking his lights on after hitting me and telling the police I pulled out in front of him for no reason.

[cnc]

You were lucky. Probably a good thing you were very aware of the potentially dangerous situation you were in at that intersection.
Here in Canada daytime running lights have been mandatory for a number of years and come on when you start the car. So even if a driver forgets to put his lights on at night, at least the head lights are on, but in a dimmer mode.

[ponch]

I had that happen to me once. I had a black KZ1000 and I was making a right onto another road and a guy in a cherokee made a left on the same road from a parking lot. I swerved and he swerved and his front bumper just touched my left foot. It was night, the bike was black and I was wearing a black leather jacket with a black helmet. Black is bad for night riding.

[ringadingh]

You were lucky, its hard to see at night when there is an unlit car on the road. I had a similar thing happen last night when I was in my truck.

[usranger74]

You were lucky. Probably a good thing you were very aware of the potentially dangerous situation you were in at that intersection.
Here in Canada daytime running lights have been mandatory for a number of years and come on when you start the car. So even if a driver forgets to put his lights on at night, at least the head lights are on, but in a dimmer mode.

Many, many yrs ago I read about CAs day time light law and some of the stats that shows how much safer it was. From that day on the lights on my cars, SUVs and trucks have had their light on (high beam at that) in the day time.

[leadbelly]

Daytime running lights should be mandatory in all states.
I was just in MT, Id & Wa states and couldn't belive how hard it is to see traffic, even in the daytime or at dusk very hard to pick up traffic.

[petenomad]

Peter, glad you were able to escape unharmed, way to pay attention.

Most people don't turn on their lights when its raining and Daytime running lights would definitely help - especially with white, silver and gray cars.
General motors was installing on all their products for a while, but I'm not really sure if they still do. Seems like I have seen some studies indicating that these were not really as effective as initially thought.
Most newer cars have some sort of automatic light sensor so a lot of people just get out of the habbit of turning them on for rain.

[AlabamaNomadRider]

I don't understand these idiots driving without their lights on. I have my light switch set so lights are on all the time. Most new cars have this feature, why people don't use it I will never understand.

[markclark57]

Our cage is a 2002 Chev. Blazer. On that model you have to manualy turn the lights off after starting the car every time to run without them. It would be nice if all the cages had manditory "lights on" like the Motorcycles do.