Undead
Senior Member
It's not aftermarket. The vast majority of blinding headlights are stock from the manufacturers.
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- Thread starter Haljackey
- Start date
lenaitch
Senior Member
I know there are regulations regarding Lumens output but I'm not sure there are any regulations about colour temperature. So long as the manufacturers are compliant with regulations at the time of manufacture, I doubt there would be a legal foundation for a recall. The fact that regulations are weak is not the manufactuers' fault.
Equipment violations are largely ignored now. Part of the problem is regulatory law is full of 'what-ifs', exceptions and 'ya-buts' that most cops simply give up. In addition, poorly crafted laws and/or a lack of enforcement technology renders a lot of enforcement completely subjective.
One problem with aftermarket bulbs is, if they don't exactly match the reflector pattern of the housing it can scatter light all over the place.
Or, in some cases, people are simply dicks. We had one guy with a full width LED lightbar on the roof of his truck. If you met the guy on a curve you could feel your eyeballs start to melt.
One problem with road markings is cost. Embedded cat-eyes or something similar have to be cut into the road to permit snow removal, and the same snow removal wears down road markings faster, making the products with micro reflective elements much more expensive.
Jonny5
Senior Member
Oh, yes. I saw this on a trip to California about a year ago. It wasn't on every expressway, but one in particular had excellent reflectors of some kind on every single dashed lane marker and they were very bright late at night during a storm, also they were apparently unfazed by cars driving over them. On one downhill section of the highway you could see all the lanes marked out with the reflectors for a whole mile ahead.
They had the same thing on multi-lane off-ramps also with very clear LED lighting indicators for which lane was for what at the end of the ramp.
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nfitz
Superstar
UK and other places have been using things like this for at least 60 years.
But there they last for decades. Here they seldom last the winter. Blame the weather.
urbancog
Active Member
Driving in the centre lane of a 3-lane UK motorway looks like this - white cat's eyes on both sides of the lane, the left lane has red + white markers and the right lane white + yellow.
If definitely lowers the cognitive load of driving, compared to the driving on a 400 series highway.
Prior to the current construction, there were some very effective recessed cat's eyes on Trafalgar Road in Halton Hills, that guided drivers around corner at the Hornby Road junction. These seemed to survive regular winter plowing. I'd like to see them used more often.
If definitely lowers the cognitive load of driving, compared to the driving on a 400 series highway.
Prior to the current construction, there were some very effective recessed cat's eyes on Trafalgar Road in Halton Hills, that guided drivers around corner at the Hornby Road junction. These seemed to survive regular winter plowing. I'd like to see them used more often.
lenaitch
Senior Member
They are used in a number of places, usually curves, that have proven to be problematic. They survive winter maintenance because they are cut in (recessed). One problem is cost when you consider roughly 17000 kilometers of provincial highways.
catcher_of_cats
Active Member
MTO put cat eyes a few years back on HWY 6 near Freelton. They are indeed cutouts but they all grew into large potholes after a few years and now need to be filled in this coming construction season.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Interesting. The was a set on a curve near where we used to live and they seem to have survived fairly well.
tsm1072
Active Member
I didn't see it mentioned earlier, but the rehab work on north side of the Niagara-bound Burlington skyway wrapped up a few weeks ago. With that done, the QEW is now 4 lanes from the freeman interchange all the way to Centennial, without the 3 lane pinchpoint at the Eastport/North Shore collector's. The collectors now rejoin with a 250m merge lane starting at the base of the skyway. This change should hopefully reduce the congestion due to weaving and merging just before the skyway.
I assume the future skyway rehab work will re-configure the Toronto-bound lanes to also maintain 4 through lanes over the skyway and the the way to the 403/407 interchange.
I assume the future skyway rehab work will re-configure the Toronto-bound lanes to also maintain 4 through lanes over the skyway and the the way to the 403/407 interchange.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
wait, what? I need to check that out.
MTO's designs for the HOV expansion through the Freeman Interchange had that stupid pinch point remaining from their design a few years ago:
You can see one of the 4 lanes across the bridge continue to exit at North Shore, with the HOV lane opening directly beside it.. retaining the 3-lane "pinch point".
It always frustrated me because it caused a huge amount of congestion for little real reason - and *especially* frustrated me that MTO did not identify it's removal in it's widening EA. Going westbound on the Skyway is a significantly worse congestion level because of it, so it's very good news if MTO has actually fixed it.
Edit: wait - do you mean Niagara-bound? That's the south side of the bridge. not as helpful as eliminating the Toronto-bound pinch point, but it will still help.
tsm1072
Active Member
I did mean Niagara-bound. They were doing rehab work on the north side of that skyway span during the fall and wrapped up in December. I believe they are scheduled to do the south side of that span, and the Toronto-bound rehab work over the next year, so we may see reconfiguration of the Toronto-bound lanes at that point.
Haljackey
Active Member
turbanplanner
Senior Member
I know it's still under construction but the new dixie off/on ramp configuration is horrible.
Going south on Dixie to the highway You've gone from 0 lights to 3!
Even better is that they are out of sync, so cars get stuck and the turn arrow is usually wasted
Going south on Dixie to the highway You've gone from 0 lights to 3!
Even better is that they are out of sync, so cars get stuck and the turn arrow is usually wasted
Dan416
Senior Member
I'm not sure whose jurisdiction they're under, but I find all new traffic lights in Mississauga, and most traffic lights in Mississauga in general, to have absolutely horrendous timing, as if they're specifically designed to stop you. I regularly just get a sea of red no matter what direction I go and no matter what time.
turbanplanner
Senior Member
I'm quoting someone else from a while ago talking about highway 7 but apparently the explanation they got was that constant greens leads to more speeding, though I feel like they totally ignored how hitting every single red will make people more aggressive in turn.