h a l f b a k e r yQuis custodiet the custard?
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Scenario: Rain followed by a fast-moving cold front has coated the highway with ice. You are driving carefully but another car whacks your rear bumper. Immediately your engine dies, your brakes lock, and you slide across the centerline into oncoming traffic. |
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I think hypnodisk's idea is meant well but needs some further thought. |
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California driver's license test question from the renewal test I took last Monday: |
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If your vehicle is going to hit from behind, you should:
[ ] Be ready to brake after impact
[ ] Hold down the brake pedal
[ ] Shift to neutral and turn off ignition |
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The third answer is close to the idea proposed here; the California Department of Motor Vehicles prefers the first answer (and so did I, having been in several such minor collisions.) |
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Just after being bounced around is the absolutely last time you want to lose control of your vehicle; you may be in the wrong lane or headed for other cars, and you need a way to move out of there quickly. |
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That's an interesting question -- much better than most questions I see on a driver's test. ("Are you allowed to hit pedestrians? [ ] Yes [ ] No") |
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14. the parking lights are used when you are: |
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a) parking
b) driving in fog
c) driving at night
d) signaling a turn. |
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real question from my driver's test. |
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But I don't know the answer to that question. What the heck *are* "parking lights" used for? How can they possibly be useful when parking? |
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According to Car Talk's Tom and Ray Magliozzi and some their listeners (see link), Parking Lights are a historical remnant from the days without parking spaces and lit streets; today they're used as a backup when your headlights burn out, and to increase your visibilty when you're parked in unexpected, badly lit places. |
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case in point, whilst driving pizzas around at 12:30am, I *very frequently* park my car at strange, obstructive angles in any spot I can find, be it in the middle of the street, the edge of a lawn, a sidewalk, or what have you. Most places where I am forced to do so are also very poorly lit (the two trailer parks just up the street come to mind). I leave my parking lights on the entire time. I'm not sure if it's ever helped any other drivers, but I know it makes me an obvious target, anyway. :) |
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In that situation, I usually leave the "four-way flashers" on. I think of those as distinct from "parking lights", though of course they share the same bulbs. I just wonder why the headlight knob has that extra click. |
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So, [mihali], what was the right answer? I would argue that (d) is literally correct. |
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back then the right answer was (a), but after seeing this discussion, i guess (c) is a possible answer. |
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but i still think they're actually used in parking situations. when i was in europe a few years back, a friend was driving a volkswagen golf, and she had the ability to turn on the parking lights on either the left side or the right side of the car, depending on what side of the road she was parked. she needed this feature because the road was not lit in any fashion, and their was no shoulder to on which to park. she just dropped two wheels off the road and onto the dirt, and left the car there. 4-way flashers are a good alternative, but maybe they use up more of your battery life than 2 or 4 low power parking lights? i couldn't tell you without knowing the power rating of the bulbs. her parking lights seemed pretty dim, compared to our 4-way flashers over here. |
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