Red/Orange Lights Festival
There are voices calling for European and American automotive requirements and standards to be aligned, or ate at Least Mutually respected. In Terms of Lighting, Europe is USUALLY Ahead, but there is one American rule that would indeed make European Traffic Safer.
The Undersigned Gets All Warm Inside When Seeing A Bright Red Flashing Light And Gets A Kick Out Of Orange Daytime Running Lights And City Lights, But There Is No Rational Side To That. We Cannot Possible Call These American Lighting Excesses Safer. With European Lighting Standards, The Different Functions Are Much More Clearly Separated from Each Other Than In North America. Orange here is (Almost) Always a Direction Indicator, White Means Front and Red is a Rear or Brake Light. Simple.
If it ever comes to pass that American and European Car Requirements are merged, it would probably be wisest to follow European rules in many areas. Europe also Appearars to Be Somewhat Less Conservative Than America in This Area, And Is, for Example, More Open to Allowing Advanced Dynamic Direction Indicators and Matrix and Laser LED Headlights. MoreOover, we had a flashing light on the side of the vehicle and a rear fog light at the reear by law since time immemorial, parts of the car lighting that are still placed in the ‘Optional’ category in America.
The ‘Side Marker’
Yet America is Sometimes Ahead TOO. For Example, The Third Brake Light was invented here in the 1980s, a light that prevents a lot of accident. And then there is also the type of lamp that we specifically focus on in this article: the ‘side marker’. The ‘Side Marker Light’ Has Been Mandatory for All Passenger Cars Since 1968, But Has Never Been Officially introduced in Europe.
The ‘Side Marker’ Has Been Mandatory in the US Since 1968, and Can be Seen here on a mustang from that year
The ‘Side Marker’ Should Not Be Confused with the Side Direction Indicator and Is A Permanently Lit Lamp That Is Orange At The Front And Red At The Rear. In this way, a car is not only simply more visible from the side, but you can also immediately see which way a car is driving and how big that is car, in Poor visibility. The Lights Are Namely Mandatory As Far Forward or Backward As ‘Practical’, Although Judging by Practice That Doesn’t Come Down to A centimeter.
Orange in Front, Red in the Back: We can’t make it any clearer
American Side Markers must not only be lights, but also reflectors. That explains why the lamp units are still visible red and orange to this day, even when the lighting is switched off. We can doy Imagine That Many Car Enthusiasts would prefer to see a Colorless Lens, Especial at the Front, And That Is Done Afterwards (And Illegally) in North America. From a safety point of view, howver, there is little to criticize about the side marker.
Cheaper
The Chrysler Town & Country Uses One Light for the Rear Light, Brake Light, Direction Indicator and Side Marker. Nice and cheap!
Incidentally, it is not the case that no cars are delivered in Europe with side markers at all. It is or simply cheaper to leave them on, so that the same light unit can be used all over the world. This Applies in particular to Rear Lights, where it is of Sufficient to Let a Small Part of the Lighting Shine ‘Around the Corner’.
Nowhere in the rules does it say that a ‘side marker’ must be a separate lamp, only that must be a burning and reflective lamp on both sides in the prescribed color. At the Rear, The Requirements Can Therefore Be Easily with By Providing the Rear Lights with An Extra Reflector and Extding Them Far Around the Corner, Although There Is Usual Indeed An Extra Light Source.
The Current Mazda MX-5 has ‘Capped’ Holes Directly in Front of the Front and Beind the Rear Wheel Arches.
Anyone Who Pays Attention Can Certainly Find Traces of ‘Side Markers’ on Cars That Are Built Accordination to European Specifications. For Example, the ‘Hules’ Left Behind by the Side Markers in Front of And Behind the Wheel Arches of the Mazda MX-5 Are Visible Capped, And You Can Get (White!) Reflectors from the Accessory List Way to Fill That Hole.
The ‘Side Marker’ in the Taillight of A Lexus LC500 does not Light Up in Europe.
In Other Cases, The Lights Are Simply Switched Off (Lexus LC500, REAR) OR Provied With a Different Function (Turn Signal, Porsche 911, Front). Often only a reflector remains when switched off. In The Past, that reflector was of Made Orange, because a Red Reflector on the Side is Actually not a ‘Thing’ in Europe. A Shame, because remains of the side marker also Loses its function as a ‘Direction indicator’.
Of the hole of the American Side Marker was Filled with an Orange Reflector in Europe.
Volvo S40/V40
We also see this in cars that were never delivered in America, but still had or have side markers. An Example of this is the Citroën C6, which had Orange Side Marker Lights without Reflectors in the Front and Rear Lights. The First Car Delivered in Europe with Real ‘Side Markers’ was, to our Knowledge, The Volvo S40/V40, which Already had four orange side markers in Europe in the 90s and for whoever. In America, The Rear Lights Were Made in Red, But Otherwise The Lights Were The Same Worldwide.
Later there Were Numerous Examples with a Red Side Led or Even An Orange-Colored Marker Light in the Headlight, Althegh The Reflector is Usually Missing.
Or course, we are also curious about your opinion. Should this red/orange lights festival be introduced into Europe as soon as far as you are concerned, or is this in these times of meter-long led headlights and waitsy as outdated as a cassette tape?