Following somebody in queues this evening who clearly had a device right in front of them attached to the windscreen above the level of the dash, where it was obstructing part of their view forwards and providing a distraction. Usual <sighs>, but then I realised it wasn’t a satnav or functioning as one. As the queue became stationary and I came right up behind them I could see somebody moving about on the screen. Either they were playing a video, or on a video call (I think the latter as it seemed very amateur with nothing much obviously happening). Several miles and over 10 minutes later when I next was in a stationary queue behind them and could see clearly still playing the same thing (after stretches of 50+).

Sorry no pics – I thought about it, but on my own in the car, so wouldn’t have been on moral high ground. Was hoping they were going to turn off into housing estate as I was thinking of following and asking how much attention they were paying to their driving, but they carried on past mine.

I’ve made some terrible rants, but that is piss poor.

I’m struggling to get too worked up given how normalised it seems to be to have a device obstructing your view and distracting you like that. Sorry, will aim for more ****s and RaNdOm capitals next time.

Saw someone using an iPad as a satnav the other day.

Might have been a special satnav that does the announcements in sign language.

Not quite as annoying as the retards that don’t seem to realise their daytime running lights only work on the front. Seen a fair few this morning, on a day that visibility was challenging enough.

Mini drivers seem to be the worst offenders.

Fog lights are not rain lights.. Yes I’m flashing my lights at you because your glaring fogs are hurting my retinas…

most of the taxi drivers round here have tissue boxes and other stuff in the corner of the screen effectively increasing the A pillar blind spot – if you don’t care then you don’t care

The problem is that we’re actually in a giant computer simulation, which only has a fixed computational capacity due to the inevitable thermal limitations.

When the world’s population was only 4 billion or so, it could give most people a reasonable amount of intelligence.

But now we’re up to 7 billion or whatever it is, they’ve had to dial-down most people’s intelligence. They only keep the intelligence of cyclists up at sensible levels because otherwise they’d all be killed.

It’s only going to get worse.

It’s also why the forests are being burned down. Large trees are a bugger to simulate because of all those leaves.

Sorry, will aim for more ****s and RaNdOm capitals next time.

Perhaps if you had written this from the fast lane it would have helped

My wife got caught out by that in her new Mazda. Or rather caught by a friendly Police officer. It turns out that a new Mazda 3 always lights up the dash and buttons even if the lights are actually off so in dusk, with the DRLs automatically on and the dash lights on, she thought the lights were on as they’d always been set to auto. Turns out the recent service tech had set them back to manual, so she had no rear lights on.

Bad design in my view. If the lights aren’t on, the dash shouldn’t be lit.

Not quite as annoying as the retards that don’t seem to realise their daytime running lights only work on the front. Seen a fair few this morning, on a day that visibility was challenging enough.
Mini drivers seem to be the worst offenders.

Do you know I contemplated starting a rant on just this on the way in this morning. Seriously who thought it was a good idea just to light up one end of the vehicle!?

Fog lights are not rain lights

Also applies to certain retina scorching rear bike lights especially in flash mode.

Driving down a (quietish) main road last night and the car in front of me was wandering around on the road – ‘been at the pub’ I think to myself.
Draw up alongside at some traffic lights and she’s on facebook or something on her mobile phone held down below the steering wheel. There should be an app called Darwin.

Ahem, retard Boblo reporting for duty, Sah!

It has never even occurred to me that ‘auto’ lights when ‘on’ might actually be ‘off’… 🙁

I might have to go and have a look at what the bloody thing actually does at this rate :-/

bensales – Member

My wife got caught out by that in her new Mazda. Or rather caught by a friendly Police officer. It turns out that a new Mazda 3 always lights up the dash and buttons even if the lights are actually off so in dusk, with the DRLs automatically on and the dash lights on, she thought the lights were on as they’d always been set to auto. Turns out the recent service tech had set them back to manual, so she had no rear lights on.

Bad design in my view. If the lights aren’t on, the dash shouldn’t be lit.
My last car had a high contrast dash, which meant it was always lit up, regardless of whether your lights were on or not. It only caught me out at night once. 😳

Turns out the recent service tech had set them back to manual, so she had no rear lights on.

Yeah, I’ve been caught out by that before. First thing I check now when I pick it up from a garage.

Getting back to the OP, what about the fools driving with the satnav in their face, at night, in daytime mode? Even if they could see past the satnav, they will have very little night vision.

Ok, as this is the “Off at a tangent thread” could someone give me a reasoned argument for driving/riding without lights?

Saw a young lad in his Corsa the other day with a FOR SALE sign on his windscreen, i kid you not, it obscured two thirds of his view. 😯
We have never owned a **** nav, Wifey nav wins hands down.

OP yes we have there was a thread a few months ago

We sometimes put ours very low down in the centre of the windscreen as I find that less distracting than if it’s at the side, many cars like Audis have the inbuilt ones in a similar place now. It’s out of the sightline as its low.

Re bad light design we saw exactly the same thing the other day in a brand new Peugeot, we called out to a guy with no rear lights on and he was confused as his dash lights where on as where his led running lights so he thought all his lights where on. Agreed BAD design

My car has the dash lit up all the time (I think) but it also contains a headlight icon that lights up when they automatically switch on so you always know if they’re on or not.
Seems like an obvious ‘feature’ to have (surely all cars have this?), but then I would have thought it would also be obvious if you didn’t have your headlights on at night as you couldn’t see!

I spotted a few this morning with just their front fairy lights on. Cars are becoming more intelligent, people less.

Agree with everything above, my Fiesta has the dash lit all the time. WTF does that need to be, years ago the dash lit when the lights were on.

I’ve seen loads of drivers coming off retail parks etc which are well lit without having their lights on as you simply can’t see if they are on or not when looking outside.

Anyone else notice those new Nissan Quashai (sp) with the day running lights ? They are so close to the indicator that the indicator is barely visable.

dash lights are dash lights. They light up the dash. They do not indicate or inform the driver of anything.

headlight indicator is a headlight indicator

the only bad design is having some software feature that can seemingly change functionality when the car visits the main dealer for a service.

I think every single car I’ve ever been in since an Austin Maxi has had a permanently lit dash.

last Peugeot I drove had a head up display, which by definition is in the line of sight (for mothers taking kids to school at least – not for 6ft3 males). I’d rip that off if for some unknown reason I actually bought one.