One of the odd quirks of driving early in the morning is the ability to recognize the frequency of unaddressed problems with headlights (and, to a lesser extent, taillights) in cars on the road. As someone who at least attempts to be observant to the wider world around me, I frequently notice that my fellow drivers are missing lights while driving on the road in the darkness. Indeed, in one of my own nerve-wracking moments while driving in the evening from work about half a year ago, I was given a warning by a Washington County sheriff’s deputy [1] about my own taillight being out, which was very promptly replaced. Apparently such warnings are not very common, though.

It is somewhat puzzling to me why headlights and taillights are so problematic for vehicles. These are not exactly new features of vehicles, as the earliest headlights (they are called headlamps by other countries, for some reason) were used starting in the 1880’s [2], so it is puzzling why the lights fail so often. In the slightly more than a year that I have owned my car, for example, I have twice had to replace lights, as they seem to be very sensitive to electrical problems. Thankfully, at least none of my taillights have been filled up with water as was frequent in a previous car I owned (I’m not quite sure how that ended up happening either). Car lighting is just one of the areas where I have quirky electrical problems, and not surprisingly as well the issue is the source of a great deal of international conflict between those who support different standards with different tradeoffs and concerns [3].

I tend to view the shortage of headlights as being a sign of two distinct but possibly related problems. One of them is shoddy engineering practices, given that the problem of ensuring reliable lighting, as a problem that has been worked on for nearly 130 years, should not be a difficult task in vehicles. We are not exactly dealing with a cutting edge technology that is going through growing pains, but rather with a mature technology that should be able to work reliably. The fact that a driver may not be able to tell whether their lights are working (I know I was unable to see when my lights were not working) is one sort of failure, and the fact that the lights fail with such regularity is another failure. Both of these failures are somewhat hard to explain, as it is the driver (and other drivers on the road) who have to bear the burden of not seeing cars very well or finding their intentions more difficult to understand because of lighting failure.

There is a related problem as well, and that is the way that cars with frequent lighting problem and abandoned cars on the side of the road are a rough but telling measure of economic distress. The ability to afford emergency upkeep on a vehicle is related to the general economic health of a given area. The Portland area is like Tampa and Cincinnati in that there are a lot of cars on the side of the road. Sometimes one can see different colored stickers showing how long the car has been abandoned, and sometimes one can see efforts made to change a tire, for example, that have not yet been completed. Of all of the places I have lived, only Los Angeles has had a situation where I have not seen many cars on the side of the road, possibly because an abandoned car would likely be gone in 60 seconds to be sold for scrap by some Nicholas Cage-like fellow. Here in Oregon, that is less likely to take place, so the cars just sit at the side of the road for days at a time.

Where these two problems may be related is with regards to infrastructure. The state of machinery (like vehicles) and the state of roads and the upkeep of cars so that they are found on roadside derelict by other drivers is a matter of resources and priorities. For many people individually, it is the first, in that as resources are scarce, there is not always a great deal of buffer in the case of inevitable difficulties. Some people struggle enough on a day-to-day basis that the prospect of sudden damages or problems, even for something as minor as car lighting, is a matter of severe difficulty. For the manufacturers or those responsible for providing repair and service, it is a matter of priority. To build machinery that lasts only profits for a moment. Building obsolete parts that must be repaired over and over again pays over and over again, at the cost of waste on several different levels.

If this waste is taken merely at surface level, it can (like the famous “Economics In One Lesson” [4]) be seen as a net gain to the economy, since money that is spent on car parts will circulate through the economy with various feedback loops. Yet, if we look at the matter of opportunity costs, we will see no such boon, but rather a shortfall, as money that is spent on repairing parts that breakdown often because of engineering failure and general incompetence on the part of manufacturers and installers is money that is diverted from either other necessary (or desirable) expenditures, or from actual investment in a better future. When we cannot build a better future because we are wasting money on preserving a less desirable present, we are all impoverished in mind as well as in economics, as it robs us of hope and encouragement and resources that should be designated for better matters. Instead, an early drive reveals the struggles of motorists and a shortage of light. This world needs all the light it can get on dark morning; why should we settle for less than the best that can be achieved?

[1] Random encounters with cops are not an enjoyable thing. See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/not-your-lucky-day/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/im-as-jober-as-a-sudge-nanowrimo/

[2] See, for example:

Georgano, G. N. (2002). Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930 (A World of Wheels Series). Mason Crest. ISBN 978-1-59084-491-5.

[3] See, for example, the sarcastic and contemptuous language of pro-European commentators here:

http://www.webcitation.org/5vLTIzlak

[4] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/the-sound-of-things-falling/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/broken-windows/