The locations of signaling and lighting equipment on passenger vehicles sold in the U.S.

Abstract

This report presents detailed data regarding the locations of signaling and lighting equipment for the 15 best-selling cars and 15 best-selling light trucks, constituting approximately 48% of model year 2002 vehicles in the U.S. Actual vehicle measurements and descriptions were recorded for the three-dimensional locations of 14 items of signaling and lighting equipment. This information was then weighted by the current sales data to derive sales-weighted mean locations. The location data were analyzed in two subgroups: cars and light trucks (15 vehicles each). Descriptive summaries are presented for the entire sample of 30 vehicles. The summaries contain information about headlamp locations that can be compared to a previous, similarly market-weighted summary (UMTRI-96-36). The data in this report can be used to evaluate the expected locations of the various external signaling and lighting functions on current cars and light trucks in the U.S. This information can also be used when investigating the geometric visibility of these various functions.