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Someone in the comments pointed out that not only is this terrible, you can only open the glove box while stationary.

I thought GM had jumped the shark when they started leaving the reverse lights on when you park, just to make sure people or cars nearby don’t know whether it’s safe to pass you in the parking lot. This is a whole new level of stupidity.



I hate the reverse light thing so hard. If I see a GM with reverse lights on I completely ignore it and never stop. Thanks GM for ruining something nice.


what?? this one is stupid but the reverse lights is dangerously stupid


How is that even legal in fact? Doesn't legislation specify that those lights should only be on when the car is in reverse gear?


Likely not, some pickup trucks can "force" the backup lights on as "bed lights" it seems. When parked, the car doesn't have tons of requirements vis-a-vis the lighting (the laws are usually worded like "when in reverse gear, two rear-facing white-burning lights must be visible with a power of X lumens" or something).


Um, what truck bed can be lit by using the reverse lights? The only way I can see this working is if there's another truck behind you so that your reverse lights are pointed at the other truck. Truck bed lights have always been behind the cab. I've never seen reverse lights considered as bed lights.


All pickups I've seen have reverse lights built into the third brake light which is behind the cab above the bed.

And with that it makes sense as a safety feature - if the only way to turn those on is go into reverse, people would be tempted to throw the truck in reverse and leave the parking brake on while they jump in the back to look for something. Unfortunately it seems not all of them are locked out as I've seen trucks driving on the freeway with the reverse lights on.


I think you may be confusing things. There is a separate switch for turning on the bed lights which has typically been above the rear window in the center. The reverse lights are part of the rear brake lights. It is absolutely possible to leave the bed lights on while driving.

The concept you propose is absolutely preposterous to the point I feel I'm feeding a troll


https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/vdirsnet/Own...

> Include Reverse Lamps This setting turns the reverse lamps on when you switch the rear lighting zone on. Switch this setting off if you have a backup alarm installed to prevent the reverse lamps from turning on and sounding the alarm when using zone lighting.


Probably a variation of the "headlights stay on for a minute or two so you can get to your door" feature.


Holy shit, is that why I see this more often now?


Yep. GM sells a ton of cars, and of course it’s not the driver who’s inconvenienced, so people never turn the feature off.


I disliked tesla's automatic brake lights, but this seems next-level ridiculous.

(telsa's brake lights are triggered based on deceleration so they constantly flicker when you're just using regen a bit)


>(telsa's brake lights are triggered based on deceleration so they constantly flicker when you're just using regen a bit)

Thank the SAE (the de-facto regulators of this space since many laws are just pointers to their specs) for that. There's a spec for triggering brake lights based on how fast the car is decelerating. Depending on your regen setting you're probably right at the threshold.




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