when we got the disco ready for our trip there was one addition we decided to give a miss: driving lights or spotties as us aussies like call them. there were a few reasons: we really didn’t want to be on the road after dark. no matter what lights you have, the roo that you are going to hit is the one you didn’t see (in time). they have this stupid habit of hitting cars in the side.
most importantly spotties are not really cheap, it’s easy to spend in excess of $1.000 for a pair. yes, they sell them separately.
as always plans are the first thing out of the window when the battle starts. and while we generally managed to get to our next stop in time on a few occasions we did not.
sometimes you actually really want to hang around until sunset, mostly when taking photographs of something special, because that’s when the light is best.
as a consequence you’re then driving in the dark. this is exactly how we hit our last roo, driving home from remarkable rocks on kanagroo island after taking photos of the rocks at sunset.
so when i came across these spotties at a bargain price in perth i decided to give them a go. sure, they are not going to be as good as branded items but as long as they light up the way we’ll be better off and safer than without them.
mounting them on the bar was easy, connecting the electrics was not quite as much fun. i needed to splice in a connection to the high beam wire behind the lights and there was barely enough room there for my hands – which might be a bit bigger than donald’s but still not massive.
they also have a ‘daytime running light’ strip in the middle. cool. we have not tried them in anger but they do seem to burn a hole in the dark.
so far so good. let’s hope now that we have them we won’t ever need them. isn’t that how it works?