Easily explained away in several episodes, the most notable being the DS9 episode when Quark and his brother and nephew end up flying through a temporal rift and end up as the Roswell aliens of days gone by. Long story short the universal translators installed behind their ears suffered due to the nuclear radiation from the weapons of the time period.

As for the running lights, those are mentioned more than once in space dock and could even be used to prevent collisions with shuttle craft flying in formation, even at warp speeds.







God I miss not having my wife around to keep me from doing this crap.