Are flashers required for in-roadway emergencies?

[Brian556]

I've noticed on local traffic coverage that on many occasions drivers involved in accidents or whose vehicles are disabled (broke down) fail to put on their flashers when stopped in the traffic lane of a freeway.

Today, when it snowed, the news crew was filming a two-vehicle accident from the air. Neither vehicle put on their flashers, despite being In the left center lane of a freeway. Another vehicle came along and hit them.

Several months ago, someone abandoned a broke-down vehicle in the center lane of a freeway, and just walked off and left it there without the flashers on.

Is there no law about this?

If we don't have a law about this, surely Germany does. They seem to be better about stuff like this.

I say if there is no law about this there should be.
I also say if a drivers stops In a traffic lane for "non-traffic reasons", and fails to put on their flashers, they should be fined. If another motorist hits them due to this failure, they should be held responsible for the accident.

The law should say:
Vehicles stopped on the traveled portion of the roadway for non-traffic reasons must put on their emergency flashers.
*"Traffic Reasons" include; but may not be limited to, Stop Sign, Traffic Signal, Congestion, Waiting to turn left, ect.

[corco]

Agreed. To add to that, because it can be scary at night- DO NOT put on your flashers if you are safely out of the traffic lane on the shoulder. That is why your car has parking lights. I hate coming around a corner on a snowy mountain road at night and seeing flashers because that tells me i need to come to an emergency stop because you are in the middle of the road. Then I see you're ten feet off the road.

Use lights, for sure, but use your parking lights not your hazards. If what you are trying to convey to other cars is "hey, just a heads up, there's a car on the shoulder," parking lights are fine. If you're trying to say "hey, you need to slow down or somebody will die because I'm in the lane/the shoulder is narrow and I'm changing a tire/whatever" then use your flashers.

[Brian556]

Speaking of at night; flashers should be required to be amber. This is because amber stands out way better at night due to the color contrast with all the red taillights. Also it forces them to be in a different sections than the taillight, which makes the flash more visible than if it were coming from a light that is already illuminated.

Story about how important color difference is: Back when I was a teenager, I was driving on a freeway at night. Up ahead, I noticed a police car on the shoulder. I thought to myself: "why does he only have a two-rotator blue minbar?" As I got closer, I realized that he had a standard red/blue full-length rotator bar. Despite the red part rotating and creating flashes, it blended in with the taillights so much that it really wasn't that visible.

[corco]

Agreed- that is where the Europeans have their shit together- they require turn signals/hazard lights/parking lights to be amber.

They also require rear fog lights, which Americans are probably too stupid to use but would be really neat in low visibility situations.

This does complicate the back end of a C5 Corvette (among other vehicles), but whatever.

[realjd]

Similarly, turning on your flashers just because it's raining or foggy is illegal and dangerous. Stop that shit. I'll bet the same people who do that are the same people not turning them on when they're actually stopped.

[Pete from Boston]

I don't actually know anyone that uses parking lights.  In fact, even years ago in driver's ed, they never instructed us to use them.

[vdeane]

Use lights, for sure, but use your parking lights not your hazards. If what you are trying to convey to other cars is "hey, just a heads up, there's a car on the shoulder," parking lights are fine. If you're trying to say "hey, you need to slow down or somebody will die because I'm in the lane/the shoulder is narrow and I'm changing a tire/whatever" then use your flashers.

Using non-flasher lights at night is actually a REALLY BAD idea for the reason you mentioned for not using flashers: people will assume you're in the travel lane.  Unlike the flashers, people will assume you're moving, and plow right into your car.

[corco]

Use lights, for sure, but use your parking lights not your hazards. If what you are trying to convey to other cars is "hey, just a heads up, there's a car on the shoulder," parking lights are fine. If you're trying to say "hey, you need to slow down or somebody will die because I'm in the lane/the shoulder is narrow and I'm changing a tire/whatever" then use your flashers.

Using non-flasher lights at night is actually a REALLY BAD idea for the reason you mentioned for not using flashers: people will assume you're in the travel lane.  Unlike the flashers, people will assume you're moving, and plow right into your car.

Except...you're not in the travel lane so they won't do that. Obviously, yeah, you don't stop in the traffic lane with your parking lights on, that would be insane. Do you think they put parking lights on cars for fun? Especially if you have amber turn signal lights...your lights will be amber and not mistaken for tail lights.

I just...if I'm on a snowy road, and I see flashing around a corner, I feel like "shit, I need to stop" and that's dangerous, especially if you're safely off the road. If the concern is that your lights will make cars plow into you, turn off your lights- that's safer than using flashers if you're safely off the road.

[Brian556]

Yeah, I do wish it were illegal to drive with flashers on just because it's raining heavily or snowing. Driving with flashers on should only be allowed when the vehicle is traveling significantly slower that the prevailing speed of traffic due to a tire or mechanical problem.

[corco]

I'll flip mine on when moving sometimes to indicate a hazard, but only for a second- typically this is once again in windy mountain roads. If I just came around a corner that has a rockslide or something I know the oncoming driver can't see but probably wants to know is there, I'll flip them on.

I'll also do it on urban freeways if I have to come to a sudden, unexpected stop, to alert vehicles behind me that this isn't going to be ordinary traffic braking (usually due to an upcoming wreck), but again, they're only on for 5 seconds or so.

[1995hoo]

Regarding a rear fog light, my mom had a 1988 Volvo 740 GLE that had one. You flipped a rocker switch and it illuminated a single very bright red light to the right of the driver's side taillights. She had that car from 1988 to 1995 and I don't think she ever used that light at all. I don't ever recall any other car any of my relatives has had with that feature (including her subsequent two Volvos). Always seemed like a good idea, though, because in heavy rain or snow it'd help make you visible.

[Duke87]

Agreed. To add to that, because it can be scary at night- DO NOT put on your flashers if you are safely out of the traffic lane on the shoulder. That is why your car has parking lights. I hate coming around a corner on a snowy mountain road at night and seeing flashers because that tells me i need to come to an emergency stop because you are in the middle of the road. Then I see you're ten feet off the road.

This is contrary to what I was taught in drivers' ed. They told us to use our flashers whenever stopped by the side of the road. The version I had was older but the current CT drivers manual still clearly instructs you to do this (page 39 in the book, page 41 in the pdf). This is also what everyone does, so I would not take seeing it to imply that the vehicle is in the traffic lane.

[rickmastfan67]

Yeah, I do wish it were illegal to drive with flashers on just because it's raining heavily or snowing.

I have no problem with that as long as they are on an freeway and going below or around the posted "minimum" speed limit.  An example would be on I-77 going up-hill from NC into VA on that really long hill.  That hill can get really bad fog sometimes where you could only see ~1-3 car lengths in-front of you.

[corco]

Agreed. To add to that, because it can be scary at night- DO NOT put on your flashers if you are safely out of the traffic lane on the shoulder. That is why your car has parking lights. I hate coming around a corner on a snowy mountain road at night and seeing flashers because that tells me i need to come to an emergency stop because you are in the middle of the road. Then I see you're ten feet off the road.

This is contrary to what I was taught in drivers' ed. They told us to use our flashers whenever stopped by the side of the road. The version I had was older but the current CT drivers manual still clearly instructs you to do this (page 39 in the book, page 41 in the pdf). This is also what everyone does, so I would not take seeing it to imply that the vehicle is in the traffic lane.

This might again be a regional variation, but the time I find this to piss me off the most often is when I'm on US 12 between Idaho and Montana. I drive this road in the dark a lot, and it's typically snowy. The sky is totally clear out there, so I can see flashing in the sky before I see the car as I come around a blind corner. When the road is bad, I think, "oh shit, I'm going to come around this corner and there will be an accident" so I start to brake, sometimes abruptly, which is dangerous in snow as you know, and then I see it's some guy 10 feet off the road taking a piss who nobody would have hit anyway.

I may also be referring to broader shoulders than you guys are- more like pullouts than shoulders. Certainly if you seem like you could be a hazard on the road you need to have your flashers on, but if you're several feet off the road but in the right of way, it seems totally unnecessary. Especially in the dark, hazard lights to me mean "I need to slow down for what is ahead," which is tolerable if you're parked right off the road, but if your car is ten feet off the road and you're pissing into a snowbank, I don't need or want to slow down for that. I don't think it's unreasonable to interpret flashers in the distance as being a potential hazard in the roadway, since people are likely to use their hazards when there is an actual hazard.

Going off the OP's premise- if the idea is to make sure that flashers have a clear intent, wouldn't it make sense to NOT use them when you're just stopped safely off a roadway? I feel like it's good to have a light that signals "hey, there's something you need to react to urgently on the road," and I thought flashers were those lights. Using them to pull over, and I'm not denying it's common to do so, but it seems to dilute the meaning of those lights to signal "EMERGENCY" when you're safely off the travel lane, and because of that I'm not sure that it's necessarily good that driver's handbooks encourage that behavior.

Going back to Europe, I will note that the UK requires parking lights instead of flashers for cars on the side of the roadway, and their roadways are substantially narrower than ours are in many cases. https://www.gov.uk/waiting-and-parking/parking-at-night-248-to-252

[Duke87]

This might again be a regional variation, but the time I find this to piss me off the most often is when I'm on US 12 between Idaho and Montana. I drive this road in the dark a lot, and it's typically snowy. The sky is totally clear out there, so I can see flashing in the sky before I see the car as I come around a blind corner. When the road is bad, I think, "oh shit, I'm going to come around this corner and there will be an accident" so I start to brake, sometimes abruptly, which is dangerous in snow as you know, and then I see it's some guy 10 feet off the road taking a piss who nobody would have hit anyway.

Yup, definitely a regional variation.

Not only in standard practice but also in the applicability of the scenario you describe. In the northeast you would never see a "flashing light in the sky" from a stopped vehicle, there are too many trees and such. Indeed it would seem to me to require circumstances that are atypical around here for the flashing light from a vehicle's blinkers to be conspicuously visible before the blinkers themselves are. And if you can see the source of the light, you can clearly determine the vehicle's position relative to the road.

[vdeane]

Yeah, I would never assume that flashers are for a car in the travel lane.  I can count on my hands the number of times I've seen people in the travel lanes use flashers at all, actually.  Nobody uses parking lights up here.  I don't think I'd even be able to tell the difference between them and a car's regular lights.

[KEK Inc.]

Emergency flashers are officially called hazard lights, and they should be used when you're a hazard.  This includes when you're off to the side of the road or if you're driving significantly under the speed limit.  Had my car overheat up the Siskiyou summit one summer, and I was crawling up the shoulder at 20 MPH on a 70 MPH zone.  Naturally, I had my hazard lights on.  If you're in a semi truck or pickup carrying a heavy load and you're going more than 30 MPH under the speed limit, you should put your hazard lights on.

I only use my parking lights when I'm in a parking lot backing out of or pulling into a space and I don't want to rudely blind people in buildings in front of my car (particularly businesses or restaurants in strip malls at night).  Unfortunately, this is something most drivers (at least in the West Coast) don't seem to practice. 

[agentsteel53]

I only use my parking lights when I'm in a parking lot backing out of or pulling into a space and I don't want to rudely blind people in buildings in front of my car (particularly businesses or restaurants in strip malls at night).  Unfortunately, this is something most drivers (at least in the West Coast) don't seem to practice.

I don't think low beams are particularly blinding.  either they shine at an angle that is below one's eyes, or they are far enough away that they are faint.  I think the polite thing is to not use high beams in the presence of anyone that can see them (traffic coming the other way, pedestrians, etc) but low beams are kosher to me.

I never use parking lights - I always think of that intermediate setting as a misfeature that can screw with one's muscle memory.  I once got pulled over for a) turning on parking lights instead of headlights by accident, and b) entering the public right of way.  I made it about half of extremely well-lit block before realizing that something wasn't quite right, turned them on ... but that interval was enough for a traffic stop.  can't contest that, and I even got away with a verbal warning ... after an hour of interrogation, searching, and dogs.  yeah, fuck you too Brookings, South Dakota.

[1995hoo]

I've seen signs in a good number of mountain states directing motorists (sometimes just truckers) to use the hazard flashers when travelling slower than a specified speed, often 40 mph–similar principle to what KEK Inc. refers to. Using the same principle, I think it's not a bad idea for any motorist to do the same thing when going inordinately slowly, even if it's not in the mountains–for example, I recall a trip on I-85 in southern Virginia when the rain was so torrential I was going 15 mph in a 65 zone because I simply couldn't see. Damn right I had my flashers going. I was really close to pulling off in McKenney and making an unannounced visit to some people I know who live there, but I didn't because I didn't want to get out of the car in such torrential rain!

I will sometimes hit my hazard flashers if I'm at the tail end of an ABRUPT slowdown, especially if it's at a time of day when visibility is an issue (example might be right before sunset at this time of year); in those cases, I turn them back off once I see the guy behind me has slowed. I'm probably a little paranoid about getting rear-ended because I've been rear-ended four times over the years.

I've never understood the practice of driving with the parking lights on at dusk. It doesn't help anyone else see you there. If it's dark enough that you need lights, it's dark enough to use your headlights. Of course, I know some of the people who do this don't know or care that lights help other people see you and they're only doing it to illuminate the dashboard.

I can think of two situations where I sometimes use just the parking lights. One is if I need to park for a while on the side of a particularly dark road but I'm far enough off the travel lane that I don't feel hazard lights are needed. Two of our cars are black, so I'm conscious of them being hard to see in that scenario. The other is if I'm waiting for someone (say, picking up my wife at the subway), I'm parked on the curb, and I want to keep listening to the radio. I'll flip to the parking lights so my HID headlights don't shine in someone else's eyes (I HATE IT when SUV drivers keep shining theirs right in your rearview or your sideview), but I'll keep the parking lights on because otherwise my dashboard lights would get quite bright. I've occasionally seen SUV and truck drivers dim to the parking lights while waiting at a red light for similar reasons, and I think it's a nice gesture, but it seems like it's a vanishing gesture. The SUV drivers in particular would rather come to a stop three carlengths in advance so they can rush back to their text-messaging and such.

[hbelkins]

In my area, people have a tendency to put their flashers on if they're in a hurry to get somewhere, say a hospital or doctor's office. They are generally exceeding the speed limit when they do so. Personally, I feel that I am under no obligation to pull over on a two-lane road if a car comes up behind me at a high rate of speed with its flashers on, or to yield to it if it's oncoming. If you're suffering a medical emergency, call 911 and let the paramedics come to you in an ambulance with flashing lights for which you're required to yield to. They'll get to you quicker than you can get yourself or a loved one to a hospital.

[KEK Inc.]

I'm talking about where this pickup is parked:
http://goo.gl/maps/AGIss

My dad always taught me to turn off my lights and switch to parking lights when pulling up into spots like that.  Yes, low beams are rude as well, especially when the lighting at that bar is dim.

[realjd]

Yeah, I do wish it were illegal to drive with flashers on just because it's raining heavily or snowing. Driving with flashers on should only be allowed when the vehicle is traveling significantly slower that the prevailing speed of traffic due to a tire or mechanical problem.

In Florida at least, it is illegal to turn on your flashers unless you're stopped either blocking traffic or on the shoulder.

https://www.lakecountyfl.gov/documents/employee_services/safety_program/driving_in_the_rain.pdf
http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/hazard-lights-in-the-rain-the-law-explained-to-florida-drivers

I'm very surprised to see suggestions here that you shouldn't use hazard lights when parked on the shoulder. That's the entire purpose of the hazard lights. Parking lights are an anachronism and have no use, other than maybe being polite like KEK suggested.

EDIT: found state by state law breakdown on hazard lights http://drivinglaws.aaa.com/laws/hazard-light-use/

[corco]

EDIT: found state by state law breakdown on hazard lights http://drivinglaws.aaa.com/laws/hazard-light-use/

Heh, okay. I learned to drive in Idaho, and I more or less subscribe to the Idaho law:

Hazard light use is not permitted except to indicate the presence of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking or passing.

(I don't feel that a car parked well off the travel lane requires unusual care, if the occupants are in the vehicle or on the side of the vehicle away from traffic. If the car is close to the shoulder edge or somebody is out changing a tire, sure, flashers are fine- basically I only want to see flashers if I have to actively react to something- if all I have to do is note that it's there, that's a usual part of driving and shouldn't warrant the visual pollution associated with flashing lights in the dark)

[vdeane]

Why do some states prohibit the use of hazard lights entirely?