Design Development for Automobiles: Develop Corner-Lights on Cars for Safe Night-Driving At Turnings under Poor Visibility

                      

© Harish Jharia

Driving cars in India is a real troublesome job because of the bad condition of roads, crowded traffic, inadequate street lighting and poor traffic sense among drivers and pedestrians. It becomes dangerous and even fatal when we need to drive in pitch dark nights in a congested locality and turn the car at 90 degree angles.

Deficiency in the Present Design:

On turnings at right or left in pitch-dark nights we need to almost stop the car at the turnings because our headlights illuminate the road straight in the front. We are not able to see the road, beyond the turning, where we are about to turn. There are possibilities of some pedestrian walking on the dark road. There might also be a bicycle rider or a rickshaw moving on the dark road. There might be anything beyond our imagination and something against which you may bang your car if you keep driving carelessly.

Design Development Suggestion:

I think we should have some additional corner lights at both the right and left front corners in addition to the present headlights. Corner-lights may have specifications approximately as suggested in the following points, subject to suitability to the overall design of the automobile:

1. The corner-lights may be installed as parts of the headlights or be installed separately at the outer sides of the headlights or right under them.
2. The corner-lights may also be installed in place of the fog-lights, replacing them.
3. The axis of the corner-lights may be kept somewhere between 15 to 30 degrees outwards from that of the respective headlights.
4. The luminosity of corner-lights should be sufficient to illuminate about 25 feet in the direction of its axis.
5. The reflector of corner-lights may be designed in order to achieve its requirements
6. The corner-lights are also required to be at the ‘low beam’ angle
7. In standing position and during straight driving the corner-lights will remain switched-off.
8. While turning the vehicle at right or left, the respective corner-light may be operated with the help of the side-indicator lever.
9. The particular corner-light will be turned-on when the side-indicator lever is turned towards that side.
10. Eventually, the side-indicator and the respective corner-light will glow together.

Alternate designs already in vogue:

               Xenon Adaptive Headlight

An alternate system called Adaptive headlights is already being used on some specific models of super-luxury cars like BMW and Audi. Nevertheless, their technology is too advanced for Indian cars manufacturers to adapt and exorbitantly expensive for the customers to afford.

Click here:

How Adaptive Headlights Work: 

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