Turning off day-time driving headlights

taoshum said:

The OP has reasons to ask and probably wants an answer if there is one.  An easy one, probably.

I guess the OP could find the hot wire to the DRL and put a switch in series with the bulb...?  Maybe that would be too easy.

:-\ As long as the subject has been changed to DRL safety... I've always been curious, since GM started building DRLs several decades ago, if every vehicle had DRLs, they would all "look" the same.  Then, would DRLs still show a safety "advantage?"  Or, put another way, if two thirty watt bulbs help, would two sixty watt bulbs help more?

There is a cost to all this as well.  In the two countries, the US and Canada, there are probably 200 Million vehicles... if there were (at least) 2 thirty watt bulbs on each one for DRL, that equals 12 billion watts of electricity coming straight out of the fuel tanks.  In energy terms that equals 12 mega watts and if the lights were on for 2 hours/day, it's 24,000 kilowatt hours/day.

Over a year, say 200 days..., it's about 5 million kilowatt-hrs, or, if my math is correct, about 170,000 gallons of fuel/year... about 3% of it was turned into light for DRL, the rest was turned into hot air.

Maybe it's worth it, who knows?  FWIW.    ???  :-X

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If DRL's help prevent accidents, why wouldn't a strobe LED light be even more noticeable and prevent even more accidents? 

Police cars on the side of the road turn on flashing blue , white and red lights.  Why not mount strobe lights on the top of every car, and we can all blink and glitter as we move down the road.  Why do police turn on lights?  To draw attention to special conditions. 

Point is, at some point this can clearly be seen as a distraction, grabbing to much attention, and there by removing attention from other things a driver might need to be paying attention to. 

Perhaps this is why accidents actually increased when DRL's were made mandatory in some countries? 

With out further study it is my conclusion that special attention should be drawn to special circumstances.  If nothing special is going on that a driver needs to be told about, such as a police car stopped on the side of the road, an accident ahead you might want to slow down for, or other hazardous conditions that one needs to pay special attention to, I see no reason to create special attention. 

If ordinary conditions receive special attention , then how do we distinguish ordinary conditions from hazardous conditions?  Like the boy who cried wolf one to many times, no one then will pay attention.

Lets say there is an accident in the road ahead, and you want to warn on coming traffic.  Before DRL's you could turn on your head lights, or flash your head lights.  But if they are on all the time, you can't choose to turn them on, or flash them off and on.  Thus a way to draw attention to special hazardous conditions has been removed.

The government once told us that eating fat wil make you fat.  It turned out not to be true.  But for a decade or so, probably 80% of the population believed it was true.  It is my guess that after additional study, mostly by private concerns such as insurance companies, we are going to find that DRL's were not all they were cracked up to be. 

I have stayed out of this conversation since it started. Now I feel the need to agree that DHL's really work! I have been on State roads in Arizona where they run straight for 20 miles. Under normal conditions it is very easy not to see a vehicle, especially dark ones,, until they are extremely close to you. At speeds of 60mph on such roads, another vehicle behind one coming towards you, could very easily not see you coming due to atmospheric conditions! That alone could easily lead to an accident. At those speeds, it most likely would be fatal to someone. Do you want it to be you, or your family???

There are many roads in this country that suggest you use headlights when driving. There's a sane reason for it and I just don't see the wisdom of someone who wishes to ignore the warnings. We all want to survive every trip we take. Why not help by turning on your headlights or leaving the DHL's alone??? Many trucking outfits have their drivers running with headlights on for safety.

As previous posters have said, DRLs are mandatory in Canada & I also are a firm believer in their use.

For the majority of later model vehicles the DRL is actually the High Beam circuit (so as to be more visible) but voltage reduced by approx 50% to increase longevity.

In addition for most of the later model vehicles the DRLs are activated by software and once activated this cannot be undone.

I spent many hours with my 2008 SRT8 charger trying to shut off the DRL function on the high beams so that under car show conditions with tinted covers over the headlights it would look better, what I did find was that for the US models it was an option the dealers could turn on (using the starscan tool for the dodge) at the consumers request, the consumer even had the option of using the high beams or the fog lights, but once again, once done and it could no be undone.

Cheers,

Geoff

Our legal system is notoriously quick to assign blame to anything that might possibly contribute to an accident, no matter how inconsequential, if there are deep pockets involved.

Seems to me that disabling a safety device like manufacturer-provided DRLs could easily be shown to be a contributing factor to an accident, increasing your exposure even if you were otherwise completely not at fault.

To me, that risk is not worth possibly saving a few bucks a year.

I like them.  I think they're safer.  I feel certain that under many conditions I can see a vehicle coming toward me much easier when they have DRL.  It only takes a few minutes to replace the bulbs in my truck, which I have only had to do once in 100,000 miles. 

RobertR said:

All the reports that say DRL's reduce accidents that I have seen are government studies.  All the private studies I have seen say either no noticeable effect, or the reverse.  i.e. they increase accidents.

I am a bit puzzled as to how "scientific studies" can produce opposite conclusions depending on who commissioned them, the governments or private concerns. 

Most of the studies commissioned by non-government entities were done by insurance companies, and one would think that insurance companies have a vested interest in reducing the numbers of accidents. 

Example:  In Poland when DRL's were made mandatory day time accidents increased by 6%, in Bulgaria by 8%.  Austria tried them concluded they were a bad idea, and repealed the law.

http://www.dadrl.org.uk/whatsnew.html

http://www.dadrl.org.uk/docs/Volvo%20DaDRL%20detailed%20cover%2002Oct2007.pdf

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Being a retired accountant, I was always told "figures don't lie but liers can figure".  Most surveys can be weighed any way the person taking the survey wants it to, as most politician can attest to.  Some time back in the 50's Camels
advertised 4 out of 5 doctors smoked Camels.  I understood later that survey was taken at a doctor's convention where they were handed a small pack of Camels as they entered the meeting place, then later asked what they were smoking.

Lou Schneider said:

Our legal system is notoriously quick to assign blame to anything that might possibly contribute to an accident, no matter how inconsequential, if there are deep pockets involved.

Seems to me that disabling a safety device like manufacturer-provided DRLs could easily be shown to be a contributing factor to an accident, increasing your exposure even if you were otherwise completely not at fault.

To me, that risk is not worth possibly saving a few bucks a year.

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Guess what, it's a few bucks for you, and several hundred million other people... the total is probably $500Million or way more world wide.  How much is one wreck worth?  We kill 11 teenagers every day in car wrecks, 4,000 every year.  How much are we spending to fix that? 

Wagonmaster2 said:

Being a retired accountant, I was always told "figures don't lie but liers can figure".  Most surveys can be weighed any way the person taking the survey wants it to, as most politician can attest to.  Some time back in the 50's Camels
advertised 4 out of 5 doctors smoked Camels.  I understood later that survey was taken at a doctor's convention where they were handed a small pack of Camels as they entered the meeting place, then later asked what they were smoking.

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Yes, I was a math / Physics major, I know how the game is played.

Guess it's time for me to comment,our 09' Bounder has DRL's and I like them. I have been trying to find out how to get them on my 2011 Kia Sorento now for two years. We go to Canada every summer and there they are mandatory. The Kia dealers up there say they cannot be installed as the vehicles built for the US market are not wired for them and the dealers in Florida look at me when I ask with a blank stare and ask me  why I would want to install them. they also tell me that the whole wiring system would have to be changed out. I don't know if they prevent accidents or not but if even one life was saved by them they are well worth having . Thanks, Alan

There is no reason you can't turn your headlights on in the daytime if you don't have true DRL.

It's worthwhile to note that only GM of the big automakers have signed onto the DRL bandwagon. To the best of my knowledge none of the others make them standard equipment in the USA.  They all do it for Canada, though, since they cannot sell cars there without DRL.

Major RV manufacturers, however, do seem to have joined the DRL club.

hpykmpr said:

We go to Canada every summer and there they are mandatory. The Kia dealers up there say they cannot be installed as the vehicles built for the US market are not wired for them and the dealers in Florida look at me when I ask with a blank stare and ask me

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Only mandatory in Canada for vehicles registered in Canada.  If you were to import your Kia to Canada, then the vehicle would need to be equipped with DLR either with an OEM or aftermarket solution.

I find they help a lot as dusk and dawn, also in really hot days where the heat waves coming off the pavement distort the view.  Also after rain followed by sun and causing steam as the rainwater evaporates.  In fog, it's a no brainer.

It seems that a lot if drivers only turn on their headlights at night and don't bother during the day in reduced visibility conditions. 

Gary RV Roamer said:

It's worthwhile to note that only GM of the big automakers have signed onto the DRL bandwagon. To the best of my knowledge none of the others make them standard equipment in the USA.  They all do it for Canada, though, since they cannot sell cars there without DRL.

Major RV manufacturers, however, do seem to have joined the DRL club.

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Probably easier for the assembly line to make them all the same.

On 1997 Endeavor has DRL factory installed, so some RVs have had them for a long time.

Ned said:

There is no reason you can't turn your headlights on in the daytime if you don't have true DRL.

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There are also many stretches of road where that is required.

If DRL's help prevent accidents, why wouldn't a strobe LED light be even more noticeable and prevent even more accidents? 

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I'm trying to visualize the 101 freeway from San Jose to San Francisco during rush hour... 12-14 lanes wide, bumper to bumper, thousands upon thousands of vehicles, all going about 60 mph with lights on compared to strobe lights.  Maybe they could synchronize the strobes using Blue Tooth radios so that the entire freeway would pulse with flashing lights, or do graphics with waves of flashing lights running up and down the freeway like downtown Vegas.  This is a great idea, let's do it.  We could have a national organization, the Automobile Strobe Society, to set standards for the system.

If you're really intent of turning them off, just activate your parking brake one click.  It might work.  Used to do it all the time when DRL's were first introduced here.  One click on the parking brake is very little braking, if any.

If anyone were serious about strobe lights on vehicles, they should taken lessons from the aerospace and shipping industries. Implement as modified and described at:

• Right-of-way lights - On cars, ships, aircraft and piloted spacecraft, a red light will be mounted on the left or port side of the craft and a green on the right or starboard side. These help two craft on a collision course determine who has right-of-way. When two vessels have crossing paths, each will see a red or green running light. The one on the port side of the other, which must yield right of way, will see red, while the one on the starboard side of the other, which has right of way, will see green.​
• Strobe lights  - On cars, and aircraft primarily, strobe lights flash a high-intensity burst of white light, to help other pilots recognize the craft's position in low-visibility conditions.​

diehard said:

If you're really intent of turning them off, just activate your parking brake one click.  It might work.  Used to do it all the time when DRL's were first introduced here.  One click on the parking brake is very little braking, if any.

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This won't work on DPs, the air/spring activated emergency brake is either completely on or completely off, no inbetween.

If I could look forward to changing both bulbs while the coffee pot warms up like I can on my Chev PU I'd have no problem with the DRL.  However, visualizing standing on a small step stool, leaning through a 2'X3' generator hood opening, reaching to one side blindly with one hand since there's no room for head and arm at the same time, trying to get my hand into a 3" opening where the bulb holder is positioned in the back of the headlight with enough grip to turn the holder, and imagining all the skin I'm going to loose off my knuckles is the main enticement to make the bulbs last as long as possible.

Has anyone ever changed their headlight bulbs on a DP or watched a tech do it.  I do know some of those techs do seem to be double-jointed and get paid for all the skin they loose.

Appreciate all the ideas and suggestions, it sounds like I'll have to give up the idea turning them off.

Wagonmaster2

Ned said:

There is no reason you can't turn your headlights on in the daytime if you don't have true DRL.

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Oh, I agree and that is what I do ,only thing is I don't always think about doing that .I have never been stopped by the police or anything like that and I don't know if there is a fine or not. I think they see the Florida plate and assume we are a couple of old fogies who don't know any better .:=) thanks, Alan