Dip changes UK's dim-dip regulations
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• Roads and Traffic Minister Peter Bottomley is to amend the UK dim-dip lighting requirements, so that vehicles will be exempt from the requirement to fit dim-dip systems and side marker lamps if they have been fitted with lighting and light signalling systems which meet EEC directive 76/756.
This requires a light levelling system (automatically or manually adjusted when the vehicle is loaded or unloaded) to avoid dazzling oncoming drivers. The UK dim-dip system simply reduces the beam's intensity. 0 Hauliers using semi-trailers and trailers longer than six metres will soon have to fit them with amber or red-andwhite side lights, according to draft regulations soon to be published by the Department of Transport. A senior DTp official has told Commercial Motor that these trailer lights will become mandatory by April 1990.
Present UK regulations require one side light to be fitted to any semi or full trailer longer than 9.15 metres. No other EEC country has such a requirement.
The new side light regulations would mean that trailers longer than 9.15 metres would have to be fitted with three lights on each side so that no length of trailer longer than three metres would be unlit.