For those who haven't been to the US, I was blown away that some cars use brake lights as the turn indicator - good video on the set up (and issues): https://youtu.be/O1lZ9n2bxWA

Slightly different regulations between EU and US/CA:

> "The colour of the turn signals on vehicles in Europe is legislated to be amber," says Thomas Tetzlaff, spokesman for Volkswagen Canada. "In North America, there is no such legislation, but there are different regulations about the minimal surface area of the blinkers."

> North American regulations say rear signal lights can be either red or amber. Canada and the U.S. specify a minimum size for turn signal lights, but regulations in the rest if the world do not, Transport Canada says.

> Often, the easiest way for companies to get their turn signals big enough, without building brand new rear lights specifically for North America, is to also use the brake light as a turn signal, Tetzlaff says.

* https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/culture/commutin...

I was confused the first time I saw this in the US. Thanks for sharing the video, but nonetheless I’m still surprised that something as common sense as amber vs red lights for different functions is still something US-bound models fail to adopt. As the video explains cost saving must not longer be an issue, so I guess it is regulatory inertia.

All new EU models have daytime running lights and yellow turn lights. What ever is a requirement in Sweden is basically an EU one as well. Thanks to standardized EU certifications. Which is a good thing, mostly!

It’s true that EU regulation on this topic was harmonized in 2011. However, the harmonization actually loosened the Swedish requirements in several ways, particularly with regard to rear lights, which previously were required to be always on.

I bought a car (Citroën) a few years ago, and told the dealer I wanted it so the rear lights would always be on. They configured whatever doohickey is responsible for that, and made sure to charge me for it. But now the rear lights are always on, like they're supposed to, and I feel a little safer.

I think it's super dumb that it's not a requirement any more, and I don't see any reason for the change.

Which would make sense in general, wouldn't it? The thing with the rear lights being on.

Depends. Might make sense in countries with polar nights, not so much in the Mediterranean where it just sucks up energy, especially with EVs.

I wouldn't imagine the power draw from always-on rear lights to be especially high compared to, you know, actually moving the vehicle, especially if those lights are LEDs. And the studies I'm finding measuring this exact concern don't seem to show particularly significant impacts on fuel efficiency / emissions for ICE vehicles (a couple percent, tops, and that's assuming small cars w/ tiny engines and some pretty comically inefficient DRL implementations - hardly relevant for creating a new standard that can mandate e.g. dedicated LED-based DRL systems).

It does seem that the updated regulation allowed new cars to be less safe in the Nordics. It’s an interesting precedent.

That's what we have California for. They're like america's exhausted mother, constantly swooping in to prevent us putting bad things in our mouths or being jerks to other kids.

Your comment is cancer (in the State of California).

> over the color of a piece of plastic

It isn't even about the colour (which is trivial to control with software and 8 extra cents in LEDs), but about the colour of the plastic.

That's the dumb thing that proves it's about protectionism. Same with DRL: it's controllable in software.

Meanwhile, Canada lets you import any >17 year old hunk of junk from anywhere and that's somehow safe and okay (because it doesn't harm new car sales so directly, yet still much more fatal to occupants).

> Meanwhile, Canada lets you import

There are far more important reasons to do this than protectionism and it's disingenuous to skip them and jump straight to protectionism.

Banning old cars would harm the parts of the population which can't afford brand new cars (that's a huge chunk) and guarantees that every time regulation demands something new everyone has to buy a new car.

On the other hand not mandating new safety tech harms everyone in general and guarantees that cars new and old will forever be much worse than they need to be since manufacturers won't be in a hurry to spend more money on tech. Keep in mind that a car with DRL and ABS will be an "old car" a few years from now. 10+ year old cars have ABS today because at some point it was mandated on all new cars.

It's a reasonable compromise to let people buy and use the old cars as they are (or anything that uses old, outdated tech - lead based solder in electronics?) but demand that new ones constantly integrate new tech.

From what I’ve seen, the >17yr old imports aren’t to save money, but your chance to finally drive something exotic that wasn’t (or wouldn’t) be approved for sale here. E.g. RHD, Kei cars, Nissan Skylines

As someone passively enthusiast about cars, I think that's in general a good thing. People buying classic/old cars generally know it's not going to have current safety regulations, but may still appreciate it and take the risks.

I'm font on retro/rust-mods where they're updated with modern engines, controls, etc... others prefer completely stock/original as possible. In the end, it's not so different from being able to maintain a listed building in England or other heritage or historical works, other than it rolls down the roads.

> This has been a five-year fight over the color of a piece of plastic.

In the EU the turn signals is mandated to be amber. In the US/CA, the turn signal can be either amber or red, but must be of a certain area. Other jurisdictions do not have an area regulation.

So OEMs simply make brake lights double as turn signals when they import vehicles.

If the non-US OEMs 'just' made bigger turn signals they wouldn't have to do this.

Daytime lights are obligatory in Poland since it joined EU - so for like 15 years. The standard is the same for whole EU.

If your car does not have those weak daytime lights (small lamps that basically dont do anything) then you are supposed to use the low/dipped beam. And most drivers use low beam all the time.

Using DRL during the day (i.e. normal visibility) is not mandatory in Austria. You may use them, or dipped beam, if you choose so.

There is one more difference between DRL in EU and NA: in EU, the parking lights must be off, while DRL is on. This is a problem with some older cars, which technically do have DRL, but keep the parking lights on (i.e. pre-F series BMW; the angel eyes are parking light). This is non compliant in EU.