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this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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They're not supposed to be rear-facing headlights. You don't even have to have 2 of them (1 is acceptable as long as it's visible enough). And unlike every other light, there's no restriction on where it goes. It's almost like it was an afterthought when they were writing the regulations.
Blindly backing up in the dark is how you hit/run over things. Back up lights are supposed to provide enough light so you can see where you're going.
Well, I will concede. I was certain I read a NHTSA interpretation denying this purpose, but the definition in FMVSS specifically states the purpose to "illuminate the road to the rear".
But, there's nothing in the regulation specifying how this is supposed to work (except the brightness of the lamp), and there's no maximum height for the mounting location like the other lamps.
Exactly, we left it mostly up to the manufacturers and they've kind of abused that freedom and made them kind of shit for their intended purpose.
Now in the modern era, with backup cameras being standard equipment on new cars, you can maybe make an argument for them being a little redundant since most if not all backup cameras have some night vision capabilities, but a little redundancy isn't a bad thing, if your camera gets fucked up you still probably want to see where you're going when you're backing out of your driveway to get it fixed.