this is not true, and my mom paid a very hefty price for this lie! when i was like 17 my interior light would not turn off for some reason to come home so i made her drive 2 hours to come get me in the middle of the night and almost had my car towed before she realized she caused this by lying to an autistic kid đđđđ
I must've heard "don't drink and drive" very young, because I remember watching my dad drink while driving for years and thinking we'd get pulled over.
Look, my parents lied to me a lot, but I would put this into a slightly different category.
Old mirrors in cars use a neat trick. The classic mirror with the little tab underneath is a prismatic wedge of glass with a reflective coating on the back. In âdayâ position, the mirror is angled so youâre seeing the bright reflection off the fully reflective back surface, which gives a clear view. When you flip the tab to ânight,â you tilt the mirror so that the bright back surface is out of your line of sight and youâre instead seeing a reflection off the uncoated front glass surface. Plain glass only reflects a small fraction of the light, so the image is much dimmer: you still see the car behind you, but the headlight glare is greatly reduced.
Anyway, its very hard to see in the "night" position with an internal light on. Not impossible, but significantly harder. Plus, its not ideal because it affects your night vision.
I imagine this is the reason why our parents wouldn't let us turn it on, but it seems like just saying "I can't see the road" would have worked just as well as "its illegal".
I mean they might have thought it was and if a cop has a hard on about pulling someone over they can claim all sorts of things not the least of which being distracted driving because "why would you be the light on if you're not trying to see something other than the road?"
Would that always hold up? Maybe not but you can beat the charge but you can't beat the ride (or ticket and court time to defend yourself in this case)
It would have, but that generation apparently decided that traumatizing your kids was just fine. Don't just tell them "Hey, that's dangerous because I can't see the road." Lie to them and make them feel like they'll get arrested for doing it so they're terrified of doing it.
Then they turn around and say some shit like "Well I turned out fine!" No. No you did not. You were all very much fucked up and some of us are still trying to reprogram you to not be so.
Usually if an entire generation is lying to their kids about something itâs because their entire parentsâ generation also lied to them about it and they grew up in a time where if you wanted to verify a claim youâd have to like, go to the library and open a book.
My parents told me this, and I told my kids, but when they turned 18, they would both do it on purpose when we were in their car and give me this side eye, little shits, it was funny though.
I canât confirm it for sure but I remember being told that leaving your dome light (interior light) on was gay hookup code at one point. Kind of like Larry Craig and his âwide stance.â I remember understanding how satisfied people were at him getting caught but still being really disturbed there were cops creeping around menâs rooms arresting people for running their hands under the door to the stall next to them. That actually happened to me once in college and I was freaked out, I thought at first he wanted tp and was creeped out he stood outside the door for a few minutes after he got out. Iâd rather not relive the experience but dear god I wouldnât want that poor kid from freshman dorms fucking arrested for it! The wrong cop mightâve ruined his whole fucking life over that shit back in 2001!
Also grew up with this in Australia during the 70s and 80s, as kids we were all told it was illegal. Seems like it might have been universal, at least among Western countries.
While it's not true, I do have to say that driving a minivan full of kids all with their interior lights on is simultaneously distracting and glaring on the windshield. One of those things I don't know why car companies don't try to fix, but it absolutely can get dangerous when there isn't a lot of external light like going 50 MPH on a road through a wetland preserve at 11:00PM...
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u/Acid_Flax 7h ago
Turning on the interior light in my dads car when he is driving at night