>And I do notice a lot of amber turn signals on American cars that are very
>close to the headlight, and at 300 feet it can be hard to see the turn
>signal flashing right next to the bright headlight, especially in the day
>time.

It's not just American cars. It's the moden idea of light-clusters.
It works fine in taillights, because no one light overwhelms the
others.

But front clusters have been bugging me for many years... it's an
esthetic and economic thing. A cluster is cheaper to produce than
separate lights, and looks neater. Of course when one is crunched,
the cheap production ends behind the parts counter!!

It is a serious safety issue, and one I have written to car magazines
recantly, asking WHY they never test front indicator visibility.

Even with headlights OFF many cars have dim front indicators (Holden
Commodores of the 70s & 80s are particularly bad; these are modified
Opels and the direct forerunners of the Commodores recently sold in
the US as Pontiac GTO & ?G8). It doesn't help if the plastic has
oxidized and become dull or even lost transparency, as some do.

It definitely wouldn't hurt to install brighter bulbs in front indicators.

I'll be doing that with the blue indicators for my T3 (if I can find
higher-wattage orange bulbs).
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut
� Opinions stated are mine, not those of Otago University
"There is water at the bottom of the ocean"  - Talking Heads