# Lighting annoyances



## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

I know I'll probably get blasted for some of this as it's a negative and we all don't like our babies being called ugly. So to start with...I love my model 3, it's so great. But like all things, it can't be perfect.
I'm a little irritated by the way the lights work.

1) Brake lights ; 
When you drive up to a queue of traffic, in a car you should slow down to a stop and when the car behind has stopped, put the parking brake or handbrake on and take your foot off the brake. This has been taught to me (in UK), when I first started driving and in advanced driving too. A couple of reasons, a) you stop blinding the person behind with your brake lights, b) if someone bumps you from 3 cars behind, you don't do the same and bump into the car in front, because the first thing that happens when you get bumped from behind is your foot comes off the pedal. That's physics. But by far the most annoying part is people parked up in traffic with their foot planted hard on the pedal.
I notice my tesla graphic on my screen shows the brakes on when I'm parked up in traffic with my foot off the brake pedal. Does this mean the brake is on all the time? Surely it should time out. Unless I have a failure on the car of some kind. I do hope the design is not to blind everyone.

2)Headlight adjustment;
I've owned a lot of cars and in more recent years they came with a way to lower or raise your headlights on the fly. My last car, (smart electric drive), had a lovely 3 position thumb wheel that you could quickly adjust your lights, so when in heavy traffic, I could lower them a bit because I'm not blind...I can see the friking car 20 meters in front of me and I'm pretty sure he can see me. But when I'm in a country lane with very little traffic, I can raise it a little to make my life easier. But no, not with my Tesla. I have to pull up and go into a menu setting to change each light individually. Such a pain in the arse this is. Too many people drive with their lights up too high, yes, it is nice to see everything on the road but when you have to seek a professional to adjust the lights I think 'devolution complete'. Maybe I'm just more practical than the average person, but I wish it had an option on the quick menu to lower them when in well lit places.

3) Sidelights
This is a minor one. When you drive down a lit 30mph residential road (in UK), you should drive with sidelights. I must admit, most people don't know this and I've even had people flashing me and telling me my lights were off! But you should, it's in the driving manual that nobody reads, it's polite that's all. And as said before, I'm not blind, I can see the cars coming.
I just wish the Tesla had an option to quickly switch the lights. As I said, a small one this, as you can change the lights through several presses, but would be nice if that was on the quick menu.


OK, number 3 is a preference and I don't want to be slammed by that, but it's a little irritant that's all. But 1 &2 come down to driving good behaviours, bit like checking conditions of tyres ect... many people don't check their lights until an MOT (vehicle test in UK each year). Then they get told something is wrong. This includes, chunks of rubber missing from their tyres, lights all over the place, most people say, 'I thought they were automatic'. They are, to a point. Don't take long to check though does it? And don't get me started on fog lights....this morning, I used my fog lights for 2 miles, because it was damned foggy and I was travelling at speed for a while...I'm sure the majority hear the weather report of 'fog', and leave their fog lights on for a week, just in case. (sorry, I started on fog lights).


Anyhoo, a few annoyances that's all. Maybe they'll get heard and the software will get tweaked. That's one thing I love about this car, it's constantly evolving to suit everyone's needs.

Cheers
Si


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## Nom (Oct 30, 2018)

#2 sounds like the difference between normal headlights and high beams. That is controlled on the blinker stalk - pull toward you or away. Or are you wanting different controls?

#1 interesting life experience with brake lights. Car behaves like normal to me. But our normals are different. If you are stopped on a road and not in park, brake lights should be on to help those driving up on you know there is a stopped or braking car up ahead and they need to be on alert.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Nom said:


> #2 sounds like the difference between normal headlights and high beams. That is controlled on the blinker stalk - pull toward you or away. Or are you wanting different controls?


No, he's talking about an actual adjustment for headlight aiming. It affects both low and high beams.
My Nissan Leaf had this control too.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

Nom said:


> #2 sounds like the difference between normal headlights and high beams. That is controlled on the blinker stalk - pull toward you or away. Or are you wanting different controls?
> 
> #1 interesting life experience with brake lights. Car behaves like normal to me. But our normals are different. If you are stopped on a road and not in park, brake lights should be on to help those driving up on you know there is a stopped or braking car up ahead and they need to be on alert.


LOL, (I assume that was saarcasm for #2)
#1 indeed, you should not take your foot off until car behind has pulled up to a stop. UK law anyway. That's how I put it, the annoyance is people who sit there for 5 mins with their foot on the brake. (Tesla may have made me one of them)


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

garsh said:


> No, he's talking about an actual adjustment for headlight aiming. It affects both low and high beams.
> My Nissan Leaf had this control too.


OH, he was serious then. 
In that case, yes, what garsh said.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

Be nice to be able to adjust both at the same time on the fly. As I said, sometimes it's nice to have lights slightly high, but when driving in heavy traffic, pointless having them up there.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

styleruk said:


> 1) Brake lights ;
> When you drive up to a queue of traffic, in a car you should slow down to a stop and when the car behind has stopped, put the parking brake or handbrake on and take your foot off the brake. This has been taught to me (in UK), when I first started driving and in advanced driving too. A couple of reasons, a) you stop blinding the person behind with your brake lights, b) if someone bumps you from 3 cars behind, you don't do the same and bump into the car in front, because the first thing that happens when you get bumped from behind is your foot comes off the pedal. That's physics. But by far the most annoying part is people parked up in traffic with their foot planted hard on the pedal.
> I notice my tesla graphic on my screen shows the brakes on when I'm parked up in traffic with my foot off the brake pedal. Does this mean the brake is on all the time? Surely it should time out. Unless I have a failure on the car of some kind. I do hope the design is not to blind everyone.


Interesting. This was never taught in North America, but it makes sense. Especially when you watch dash-cam footage on YouTube of people getting rear-ended, and then having their hit car continue drifting forward until it hits something else because their foot came off the brake pedal.

The good news is that if you have your Tesla in "one pedal driving" mode, the car itself will hold the brake for you when you're stopped.

But yes, the brake lights remain on the whole time. I guess it's a North American thing. And I guess it's not actually a law in the UK that this be done, otherwise the behavior would have probably been changed for that market.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

1) Tesla has a feature called "Hold Mode" which will keep the brakes on for you after you stop. It's about the equivalent of putting the parking brake on and taking your foot off the brake pedal, except it keeps the brake lights on to comply with U.S. rules. It's probably safer that way considering the number of people who will be texting, and will hit their accelerator behind you the second they see the brake lights turn off _without looking up_.

2 & 3) The Model 3 headlights are pretty wide angle and have a lot of scatter to them. They don't light directly to the sides, but they have a pretty decent sized halo. I drive around my fairly badly lit neighborhood at night without even turning the high beams on.



garsh said:


> Interesting. This was never taught in North America, but it makes sense. Especially when you watch dash-cam footage on YouTube of people getting rear-ended, and then having their hit car continue drifting forward until it hits something else because their foot came off the brake pedal.


What I'd like to know about this crashes on youtube is, why, when there is a fairly minor crash, one of the drivers always lets go of the brake and steering and lets their car run away and crash into several other things.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

No reason for anyone to blast you, it's about learning and sharing for all of us, but as @garsh notes the items you describe are different in the US. I've never heard of or had anyone ever mention using the parking/emergency brake at a stop light (we call it an emerfency brake for a reason I guess). I understand what you say about physics, but it doesn't seem practicle. It also prevents you from being the first one off the line when the light changes.  With the 3 in Hold mode, it applies the brake and holds you as Garsh notes. The key here is why do you care if it is the normal brake or the emergency brake doing the holding for you. The cool part about this is you don't have your foot on the pedal if you are rear ended which was your main point I believe. So drive with hold mode and you're good. Plus you can always be prepared for the green light and beat everyone else off the line, the 3 is just begging to lead and very good at it.

As for the headlight adjustment, I wasn't aware any car make it that easy, but I'm VERY thankful most don't. Do you know how many people would adjust them up and then never do the proper thing and adjust them back down. Everyone would be blinded most of the time. Mine have been just perfect from the factory, but if you need slight adjustment you might do so once, but what you are looking for should be taken care of primariy by your brights. We have to make a little compromise as they may not light the whole world in fron tof us, but should be good for most driving. Please don't let us catch you putting a full LED light bar across the top. We might have to intevene at that time.

I'm not sure I understand number 3 at all. Some US cars have "turning lights" that come on near the front bumper to the side when your blinker is on, but they go off after you make your turn. Sounds like you are describing a similar light that you could turn on at low speeds. Interesting concept, but it isn't a requirement on US cars.

If you aren't aware, the US cars also have red blinkers on the tail lights. Many have complained and wish they were amber. It does make a nice different distinction, but amber isn't required in the US. However on exported cars the blinker is amber. So just another small change in the light system.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

GDN said:


> The key here is why do you care if it is the normal brake or the emergency brake doing the holding for you.


I think you missed his main point. He doesn't care how the holding is performed - he wants the brake lights to turn off as they would if the parking brake were on instead of the brake pedal being pressed.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

GDN said:


> I'm not sure I understand number 3 at all.


Here, he's talking about what we call "parking lights". Basically, he wants to be able to drive (in well-lit areas) with the parking lights on, but with headlights off. And I believe you can do that, but it's a bit of a pain to go into the menus to turn off the headlights.

It can be controlled from the Quick Controls menu, so it's not too much effort to change them.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

garsh said:


> Here, he's talking about what we call "parking lights". Basically, he wants to be able to drive (in well-lit areas) with the parking lights on, but with headlights off. And I believe you can do that, but it's a bit of a pain to go into the menus to turn off the headlights.


I actually want more light in the neighborhood because of kids darting in and out and playing in the streets. So it isn't on the main screen, but it is on the very first screen - the light shortcuts. Hit the car icon and light controls are at the very top. Not super easy, but about as easy as it can get in this car.


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## TomT (Apr 1, 2019)

Unfortunately, on my Leaf, the settings were low, lower, and really low... I always left it on the highest setting...



garsh said:


> No, he's talking about an actual adjustment for headlight aiming. It affects both low and high beams.
> My Nissan Leaf had this control too.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

garsh said:


> I think you missed his main point. He doesn't care how the holding is performed - he wants the brake lights to turn off as they would if the parking brake were on instead of the brake pedal being pressed.


I say thats dangerous. If a car is slowing or stopped on a public road the brake lights need to be on in my opinion even if another car is stopped behind me. I guess it is all about the laws and what we grow up being accustomed to.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

garsh said:


> Interesting. This was never taught in North America, but it makes sense. Especially when you watch dash-cam footage on YouTube of people getting rear-ended, and then having their hit car continue drifting forward until it hits something else because their foot came off the brake pedal.
> 
> The good news is that if you have your Tesla in "one pedal driving" mode, the car itself will hold the brake for you when you're stopped.
> 
> But yes, the brake lights remain on the whole time. I guess it's a North American thing. And I guess it's not actually a law in the UK that this be done, otherwise the behavior would have probably been changed for that market.


In theory you could get pulled for sitting there with your brake light on in stationary traffic as the rules claim 'you must', which means it's a legal requirement, however, I can't ever think this has been used and most people just can't be bothered to put the parking brake on.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

GDN said:


> I say thats dangerous. If a car is slowing or stopped on a public road the brake lights need to be on in my opinion even if another car is stopped behind me. I guess it is all about the laws and what we grow up being accustomed to.


I think you mis-understand or I have not made it clear, quote below. Highlighted in bold. But then as you say 'even with a car behind'. You still risk rolling forward if someone slams into you. But the glare, think about the glare on dark winter evenings. What about the glare man! 

1) Brake lights ;
When you drive up to a queue of traffic, in a car *you should slow down to a stop and when the car behind has stopped, put the parking brake or handbrake on* and take your foot off the brake. This has been taught to me (in UK), when I first started driving and in advanced driving too. A couple of reasons, a) you stop blinding the person behind with your brake lights, b) if someone bumps you from 3 cars behind, you don't do the same and bump into the car in front, because the first thing that happens when you get bumped from behind is your foot comes off the pedal. That's physics. But by far the most annoying part is people parked up in traffic with their foot planted hard on the pedal.
I notice my tesla graphic on my screen shows the brakes on when I'm parked up in traffic with my foot off the brake pedal. Does this mean the brake is on all the time? Surely it should time out. Unless I have a failure on the car of some kind. I do hope the design is not to blind everyone.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

garsh said:


> Here, he's talking about what we call "parking lights". Basically, he wants to be able to drive (in well-lit areas) with the parking lights on, but with headlights off. And I believe you can do that, but it's a bit of a pain to go into the menus to turn off the headlights.
> 
> It can be controlled from the Quick Controls menu, so it's not too much effort to change them.


This is true, very true. Although, this feature is less of a bug bear. It's more about the adjustment really.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

GDN said:


> I actually want more light in the neighborhood because of kids darting in and out and playing in the streets. So it isn't on the main screen, but it is on the very first screen - the light shortcuts. Hit the car icon and light controls are at the very top. Not super easy, but about as easy as it can get in this car.


I used to live in a cul-de-sac where the houses were kind of close to the road and at street level. As soon as I turned onto the (short) street leading to it, I used to switch off the headlights and drive with just the "parking lights" to avoid annoying or waking up anyone. I'm hoping that's what the OP means, because it would be much more dangerous if he means driving along a road at night without headlights on.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

Fortunately the brake lights on the Model 3 are minimal in size and light output. Unlike most other LED brake lights (versus the previous technology "incandescent lighting") that seem to put out 100,000 candle power that are too brought in sunlight, much more so in darkness.

I agree 100% with OP regarding the extreme difficulty of adjusting the headlights. Must be in ark (and hopefully on a perfectly level surface) AND when trying to make a new adjustment, the car starts all over again - losing the previous settings. I haven't found a way to make minor adjustments to the current setting without starting all over again. Most difficult headlight adjustment system I've ever worked with.

BTW - I had a 1978 Porsche 928 that had an electric switch on the dash to raise/lower the headlights (moved both headlights same amount). To get left-to-right settings there were screw adjusters on each side.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

styleruk said:


> this mean the brake is on all the time? Surely it should time out. Unless I have a failure on the car of some kind. I do hope the design is not to blind everyone.


I have never ever thought about the brake lights in front of me being too bright.
Definitely a foreign concept to me.


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## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

styleruk said:


> I notice my tesla graphic on my screen shows the brakes on when I'm parked up in traffic with my foot off the brake pedal.


Just to be clear, you have the car in Park? I'll have to test that, I've never noticed if the brake lights were on with my foot off the brake in Park.

While I've never seen people applying the parking brake in traffic as you describe, it does seem to me that the brake light should be off in that situation. The scenario most common for me would be if I was parked in a spot waiting to pick someone up. I think other drivers would interpret the brake lights as a sign that I was about to leave.


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

styleruk said:


> This is a minor one. When you drive down a lit 30mph residential road (in UK), you should drive with sidelights. I must admit, most people don't know this and I've even had people flashing me and telling me my lights were off! But you should, it's in the driving manual that nobody reads, it's polite that's all. And as said before, I'm not blind, I can see the cars coming.


The cultural differences on lighting expectations has been an interesting read. Turning any lights off in a moving vehicle for any reason when it is dusk or night is certainly not in any U.S. driving manual I've read. What I've been taught and reinforced from my own experience is that car lights aren't always about what you can see, but about making sure others can see you. If the sidelights you refer to are what we call parking lights, those just aren't adequate. My dad actually gave me a tongue lashing shortly after I got my driver's license when he saw me pull into the driveway with just the parking lights (no headlights) on.


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## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

styleruk said:


> I notice my tesla graphic on my screen shows the brakes on when I'm parked up in traffic with my foot off the brake pedal.





Long Ranger said:


> Just to be clear, you have the car in Park? I'll have to test that, I've never noticed if the brake lights were on with my foot off the brake in Park.


I verified tonight that my brake lights are off with the car in Park and my foot off the brake. Are you just using hold mode and expecting hold mode to turn off the brake lights? The way you apply the parking brake in the Model 3 is to push the Park button. If you are used to applying a hand brake at every stop, it seems even easier to me to push the Park button and then click the stalk to go than setting and releasing a hand brake.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

JasonF said:


> I used to live in a cul-de-sac where the houses were kind of close to the road and at street level. As soon as I turned onto the (short) street leading to it, I used to switch off the headlights and drive with just the "parking lights" to avoid annoying or waking up anyone. I'm hoping that's what the OP means, because it would be much more dangerous if he means driving along a road at night without headlights on.


that's exactly what I mean, the little annoyance of shining your headlights into peoples houses. It's a forgotten rule in the UK highway code.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

Long Ranger said:


> I verified tonight that my brake lights are off with the car in Park and my foot off the brake. Are you just using hold mode and expecting hold mode to turn off the brake lights? The way you apply the parking brake in the Model 3 is to push the Park button. If you are used to applying a hand brake at every stop, it seems even easier to me to push the Park button and then click the stalk to go than setting and releasing a hand brake.


That's interesting. I normally pull up and use the hold function, I guess that leaves the lights on then. (which would make sense). Maybe I should start pressing the little button. Before, when I first got the car (before hold function was added), I used to press the brake pedal hard and that put on the parking brake. Guess that was the same as hold and not actually parking brake mode.
Interesting, thank you 'Long Ranger'.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

styleruk said:


> That's interesting. I normally pull up and use the hold function, I guess that leaves the lights on then. (which would make sense). Maybe I should start pressing the little button. Before, when I first got the car (before hold function was added), I used to press the brake pedal hard and that put on the parking brake. Guess that was the same as hold and not actually parking brake mode.
> Interesting, thank you 'Long Ranger'.


Pressing the brake pedal until "H" engages doesn't turn on the parking brake, it puts on Hold Mode, and also leaves the brake lights on. The "new feature" is auto hold mode, which switches to hold once you've slowed down enough.

I've never actually tried this so I don't know if it works: Maybe you can disable auto-hold, turn on Creep Mode (so Hold mode doesn't work anymore) and after you stop, hold the right stalk button in until a parking brake icon appears on the display.

If you do decide to use Park at stoplights, remember two things: Turn off the automatic door unlock on Park so you don't end up carjacked at a light; and look up if it's illegal to sit at a stoplight with the interior lights on.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

JasonF said:


> Pressing the brake pedal until "H" engages doesn't turn on the parking brake, it puts on Hold Mode, and also leaves the brake lights on. The "new feature" is auto hold mode, which switches to hold once you've slowed down enough.
> 
> I've never actually tried this so I don't know if it works: Maybe you can disable auto-hold, turn on Creep Mode (so Hold mode doesn't work anymore) and after you stop, hold the right stalk button in until a parking brake icon appears on the display.
> 
> If you do decide to use Park at stoplights, remember two things: Turn off the automatic door unlock on Park so you don't end up carjacked at a light; and look up if it's illegal to sit at a stoplight with the interior lights on.


So the option is to have your interior lights on when you don't wan to blind anyone. In theory, this car does not meet UK guidance and maybe law.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

styleruk said:


> So the option is to have your interior lights on when you don't wan to blind anyone. In theory, this car does not meet UK guidance and maybe law.


The UK is pretty strict about products for sale in the market. If that were true, I don't think they would allow the Model 3 to even be sold there.

Though I have seen countries use very specific safety or performance laws on certain products to make sure that only domestic brands are compliant, I don't think that's what the UK is doing at all. Cars are generally designed to comply with larger markets at a time like North America, Europe, Asia, because it would be too expensive to manufacture one version just for one country's compliance needs.


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## Mesprit87 (Oct 29, 2017)

Ed Woodrick said:


> I have never ever thought about the brake lights in front of me being too bright.
> Definitely a foreign concept to me.


Foreign can be good and respectful.
@styleruk, don't come live around my place... people like their fog lights on all year long, lots of big pickup trucks or suv blaring their lights at just the proper height to blind you...
Ha! I also live in the country where running day lights are mandatory. ..making my TT fog lights on at all time and no way to run just the sidelights only of course.
A few things Canada could have kept from the UK... on the fly height adjustment being one of them.


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