Just deserts

[fazersharp]

Yep I pulled up next to a ethnic minority woman in a car with no lights on (i was also in my car) at the traffic lights and was trying to tell her, ---- but just a blank face, and she just didn't even understand my gesticulations to wind the window down to speak, She drove off in the dark.

[rustyrider]

It can be more common than you think.  A lot of cars up until very recently, had the sidelight circuit fused separately to the headlight circuit.  A mate once drove around for weeks thinking that just his dash lights weren't working but it turned out that the sidelight circuit fuse had blown so when he put his lights on he only had headlights and no rear lights at all.  More modern ones fuse the left and right sidelight circuits separately so you'll at least still have sidelights on one side.

My experience in France is that although the law says you must carry a spare set of bulbs, from the number of cars I've seen with lights out I assume that nowhere does it say you must fit a new one if a bulb blows.  In fact, if you did fit a new one then you are breaking the law as you are no longer carrying a full set of spare bulbs, just part of a set......