When do you flash your headlights?
a) To say ‘hello’ to another driver you recognise.
b) To thank another road user for a courtesy they have given to you.
c) To let the driver of the artic joining from a slip road or pulling out of a layby know that you have seen them and that they can proceed because you’ll either pull out or slow down for them.
d) To let the artic that is overtaking you know that it’s safe to pull back in, thereby clearing the outside lane more quickly for following traffic.
e) To tell a driver trying to turn out into a slow moving line of traffic that they can do so.
f) To tell the middle lane hogger to move over to the empty inside lane.
g) To warn other road users of your presence.
The correct answer according to the Highway Code is the last one and only the last one. The correct answer in the real world (whether truck driver or car driver) is every one of those and more…EXCEPT for the last one.
For many years I’ve thought that the rule about flashing headlights should be either changed or omitted. I believe that for the Highway Code and driving instructors to stick rigidly to the dogma that headlights should only be flashed to warn other road users of your presence is not only pointless but actually dangerous. There is no point whatsoever in having a rule that is not enforced (and is pretty much unenforceable) and that is very very rarely obeyed by anyone. The fact that there are a few who do abide by the rule actually makes it more dangerous, not less.
When I first started riding bikes I did, occasionally, flash a car I was following to ‘alert them to my presence’ before overtaking them. I soon stopped that. Even if the car didn’t take it as an invitation to pull out, many drivers thought that a flash of headlights before I overtook was an aggressive signal, and reacted accordingly.
Consider another scenario. I was heading down to Kent for a meeting earlier this week (in my car). I was in the outside lane of the dual bit of the M11, ready to overtake two artics. The rear one was going faster than the one in front and although I wasn’t in an over generous mood - since I’d already been held up several times by artics overtaking at 1mph faster than the overtakee - I was prepared for the fact that it might pull out.
I got nearer and nearer, and at the same time the rear artic got nearer and nearer to the one ahead. I was pretty close when the driver finally decided to indicate to pull out. Since there was nothing close behind me I decided to let the artic out, partly so that it wouldn’t have to lose momentum and partly because I wasn’t convinced that the signal was an ‘indication of intent’ rather than a ‘give way because I’m pulling out now whether you like it or not’ type signal.
By that time the rear artic was pretty much up to the back doors of the trailer in front, and I wasn’t a million miles from the rear of the trailer that was signalling. So, it wasn’t just a matter of easing off the accelerator, I actually had to touch the brakes. Just in case it was an ‘indication of intent’, I flashed to let the artic know it could pull out. And it did so, very quickly, so that it didn’t clip the trailer in front and didn’t have to slow down. No, it wasn’t brilliant driving by the overtaking artic driver, but that’s not the point.
The point is that, bearing in mind how close I was, and my concern that the signal might have been an ‘I’m pulling out’ signal, it would have been perfectly in order to flash my headlights to WARN the artic driver I was there. Had I done so, and continued accelerating, things could have become a tad tricky.
I know that, and would not, therefore, flash in such circumstances as a warning. If I had flashed a warning of my presence and been crushed by the artic, it wouldn’t have helped me an awful lot to exclaim, with wounded righteousness, ‘but I signalled in accordance with the Highway Code’.
Take a new-ish car driver, out on the road, with the Highway Code fresh in their mind. Another vehicle flashes to let them out. They don’t go. The other driver has slowed and gets annoyed because their courtesy has been ignored, drives more aggressively as a result and mouths obscenities while vowing ‘never to let another numpty out in future’. Or, conversely, suppose the driver flashes correctly to warn of their presence and the other driver pulls out thinking it’s an ‘I’m letting you out’ signal. If there’s a crash, would the police really accept that the flasher (ooo, Betty) was blameless since they’d signalled correctly in accordance with the Highway Code?
We all know what the rule IS.
We all know that regardless of any rules we have to drive according to our own judgement, and proceed carefully even if someone flashes to let us out.
However, we all know what the reality is, and in my view that makes this rule about headlight flashing not only redundant but, in many cases, actually dangerous.
What do you think?
Cheers…M
