Thursday, October 27, 2005
Auto-dimmer/high-beam
You may notice a pattern here!
Who can tell me who the idiot was who decided to move the high-beam/dimmer switch from the floor to the stalk on the steering-column!? This is another stupid idea! For those of you too young to remember, there used to be a button on the floor of all cars to the left of the clutch or brake (on automatics) that allowed you to turn on the high-beams with your left foot. This worked incredibly well! Now you have to push that little stalk forward to achieve this.
The floor-switch is a much safer, easier design. Imagine you are travelling a dark rural two-lane road that is very twisty with now lighting whatsoever. You have your high-beams on so you can see better. You enter a very sharp turn. As you are making the turn, you suddenly see another car coming towards you from the other direction. You obviously need to dim your lights so as not to blind them and possibly cause an accident. To do this, you have to remove your left hand from the wheel while negotiating this dangerous curve and pull the stalk back towards you. Not exactly the safest move.
With the floor-switch, all you have to do is tap the switch with your left foot which is probably resting right beside it anyway. I guess it worked too well to be allowed to last.
Turbo Ghost
Who can tell me who the idiot was who decided to move the high-beam/dimmer switch from the floor to the stalk on the steering-column!? This is another stupid idea! For those of you too young to remember, there used to be a button on the floor of all cars to the left of the clutch or brake (on automatics) that allowed you to turn on the high-beams with your left foot. This worked incredibly well! Now you have to push that little stalk forward to achieve this.
The floor-switch is a much safer, easier design. Imagine you are travelling a dark rural two-lane road that is very twisty with now lighting whatsoever. You have your high-beams on so you can see better. You enter a very sharp turn. As you are making the turn, you suddenly see another car coming towards you from the other direction. You obviously need to dim your lights so as not to blind them and possibly cause an accident. To do this, you have to remove your left hand from the wheel while negotiating this dangerous curve and pull the stalk back towards you. Not exactly the safest move.
With the floor-switch, all you have to do is tap the switch with your left foot which is probably resting right beside it anyway. I guess it worked too well to be allowed to last.
Turbo Ghost
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Twas the Germans my friend. In Euorope blinking the high beams has several meanings. Greetings...going around you...idiot etc. Stomping around on the floorboard trying to flash the brights at some moron on a dark night who's probably asleep anyway, is uncool. Those foot switches were only good for a few years in salted road states. They get crusty and stick down and all sorts of clumsy things. Anyway I remember when the high-bean switch was moved too the blinker switch and thought it was great. You could flash the brights on & off real fast. Plus when you are the moron driving half asleep for several hours with the brights on and suddenly a car appears over a rise. It's quicker to flick the blinker switch. You'd have to drive a BMW some time in your life to understand good ergonomics. Everything is in easy reach as it should be for the ultimate drive. Remember, European high beams are 900 times brighter then what we are used to over here in the states. The BMW's high beams are leathal weapons, no kidding. If I have to flash the high beams at someone, they don't want it to happen again.
# posted by 
: 2:16 AM
: 2:16 AM
Ill have to disagree with the stalk being quicker. Your foot is right there while your left hand might be on the ledge or your lap or simply maneuvering the wheel. Sometimes you just can't take your hands off the wheel or at least shouldn't. I will agree it is quicker for the little flip to warn someone to dim their lights but, not that much faster. The whole control switch situation is ridiculous now anyway. Headlights should be pulled-on and turned to the left (CCW) to brighten the dash lights and a little further to turn on the overhead. There are way too many switches in too many places now!
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