I’ve never been good at persuading folks who state, up front, that the research is bullshit, or that I’m an idiot. So this is addressed to the rest of you.
If you ask an insurance adjustor, she’ll tell you that many accident reports include, “I didn’t see the other vehicle.” If you drive with your lights on, you’ll look less like rocks and trees than if you drive with no lights. Rocks and trees, you see, don’t have lights.
My wife’s previous car was white (supposedly a high vis color,) and no DRL. She was hit in 4 low-speed accidents and one high-speed crash (1992-96.) All 5 drivers said they did not see that big white car. The last crash totalled the car. The new one is the same model, but dark green, and it has DRL. After 6 years of driving, she has not been hit once. Statistically, that’s meaningless (too small a sample.) Still, it illustrates my point. If I didn’t think those under-car neon lights look really dippy, I’d consider putting some on my truck. It’s hard to be near one of those and say, “I didn’t see it.”
When I used to travel to Canada via the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, signs were posted advising drivers to turn their lights off . The tunnel is lined with white tiles and well-lit, so I suppose having headlights on would be a bit much.
In this case, of course, a lot of drivers took to the streets of Windsor or Detroit at night with lights off rather than on.
It’s been a number of years since I took the tunnel, so the signs may be gone. However, the strength of governmental inertia being what it is, I’d think the signs are likely still there.
Actually, white is not high on the list of high-visability colors. Some years ago, an auto manufacturer (Daimler-Benz, if memory serves) did a study and found that a light, bright green is the color most likely to be seen in most situations. This explains the ugly green fire trucks in many municipalities.
DRLs do work, as studies have shown. However, driving with lights on is not 100% guaranteed to get one noticed, as you might guess. Back in the Seventies, a motorcycle cop was rushing to a call, lights flashing, siren wailing. A little old lady began to pull out to make a left turn onto the four-lane road the cop was on. She looked at the onrushing constable - made eye contact - and then proceeded to pull out right in front of him. He jumped up off the footboards as his bike slammed into the car’s fender and skipped down the road a ways, ending up in the hospital for about six months.
Said the lady, “I didn’t see him.”
The theory in this case is that some people don’t see motorcycles because they aren’t looking for motorcycles. They’re looking for cars and trucks. A bike doesn’t even register.
So what’s the theory on how this works (for reducing accidents)? Just people see you better? If so, and we all do it, does the theory still hold? Or is it that lights make you more visible or defined, even in daytime, from further away or something else? I just don’t get how this helps. Thanks.
Daytime running lights are less bright than headlights.
I learned this when I went to Canada rented a car and thought my headlights were on all the time and wondered why it was so damn dark on the highways there.
Then I turned on my headlights.
I apologize to the good people of Sydney, Nova Scotia for being a traffic hazard back in 1992.
I tell you one thing, after 15 years or so of seeing people driving with daytime lights on (and 11 years of driving under that) you don’t notice cars that drive with their headlights off (pre 1990 makes) as much.
Of course it’s not foolproof, but it’s an additional visual trigger.
I remember reading a report several years ago that white is the highest-visibility colour for aircraft.
I also remember hearing about “light camouflage”. A vehicle on a ridge with the sun behind it is a silhouette. But with lights on, pointed toward the down-sun observer, it was less visible because its brightness more closely matched the light sky.
I always thought that “headlights on in daytime” was a lot of crap. If you can’t see another car unless it has lights on, then you shouldn’t be driving. In Maryland, it’s “wipers on, headlights on,” with which I agree. When visibility is down (night, fog, rain), headlights make sense, but otherwise, no. Then there is the funeral issue. I was at a red light, and when it turned green, cars on the intersecting road continued through: headlights on, but I didn’t recognize it as a funeral because so many cars have their headlights on. I waited while three or four cars went through a red light and I tried to figure out what was going on. I still don’t know if it was a funeral or what. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: signs about headlights on in daytime is just another EASY way to try to convince people that the “state” is trying to help us drive safely. In my experience, it’s a lack of using turn signals that causes the most confusion and potential for accidents. I found out from my s.o., who is a cop, that not using turn signals isn’t against the law! I can see a car coming from the opposite direction; I can’t read another driver’s mind as to which direction or lane he intends to move into. (Sorry – not using turn signals is my personal peeve; I’ve seen it work beautifully, but too many people don’t use their turn signals and I’ve had too many close calls because I didn’t know what someone else wanted to do.)
This was first started a long time ago. The Indianapolis Star was an early advocate of DRL’s, back in (?) the early 1960’s, and the first ones were just a cheesy looking single lamp mounted on the front of the grill. Tests were run on taxi fleets, and yearly accident totals were compared to the previous, no-light years. Results were promising. After a few years, you’d see bus fleets and trucking firms with “I have my lights on for safety” signs. Critics said the effect would fall off if everybody had the lights, and that was hard to argue with until nearly everybody did have 'em.
Human vision has its flaws. Our binocular vision detects motion better than, say, cats’ vision, but we have our limits. At a quick glance, an object coming straight at us can look stationary and blend into the background. You’ve seen ballplayers lose sight of a ball until it’s too late. I’ll happily accept anything that makes me a little more visible to the other guy. I do everything I can to be alert when I’m driving, and the other guy is my biggest worry.
Motorcyclists can install a gadget that rapidly blips between bright and dim. The headlight appears to flash. It’s irritating as Hell, but I’m cool with it. I know I’ll never run over that guy, and that’s good.
(Thurber said Hell is a proper noun, a place, and should be capitalized.)
Although there are now more sophisticated technologies for determining who will blindly follow directions, the signs asked about in the OP are still useful as a way of identifying drivers who attempt to Subvert The System by refusing to obey signs. In many locations, the signs use a technology similar to Blue Tooth to sense which passing cars have their headlight switches off and then record the United Nations Identifier for that car and automatically transmit that information to the central database. The Black Helicopter on duty for that sector also receives the information so it can conduct a real-time parallel confirmation. As you probably know by now* the newer generation of Black Helicopters now have the capability of beaming Counter-Alpha Instructional Waves into the brain of deviant drivers who are identified in this way.
Due to some problems with low-bid parts in the transmitter beams, some subjects are left with a buzzing sensation. Fortunately, remain ignoratn of the real cause and attribute this to “aliens.”
BTW, silenus, have you looked up in the sky over your house lately? Just a friendly reminder.
You are more visible with DRL’s, especially at longer distances. The point is longer distances, so that you know that soon something is coming at you. Once your on top of each other, then yeah, if you can’t see a car without lights, you shouldn’t be on the road.
The only problems with running headlights all the time is that 1) it makes other objects in the road less noticeable (like pedestrians) and 2) it probably causes long-term eye damage, as staring into any high-intensity lamp will. Don’t believe me? Well then go and turn you car headlights on and then sit and stare into them for a few hours…
Whatever happened to the common-sense rule of waiting to turn your headlights on until you needed them to see the road? Especially considering that many roads in any typical medium-sized town are already lit up (with streetlights) as well as your headlights would do anyway…
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In 2002, Dublin City Council launched such a scheme, called Lights on Daytime (?what?). It was to encourage people to turn their headlights on - there was no legislation to make you do it. About 30% of drivers observed it. I recall some figures about some kind of reduction in accidents, though I am skeptical. I also noticed many police cars not observing the practice, and, like so many Dublin schemes, it just kinda fizzled out after a while.
Personally I always turn the lights on if it’s overcast, raining, foggy, or nighttime.
I have been driving in Italy for several weeks now where people generally (and by law must on the autostrade) drive with their headlights on. After a while I worked out what all the lights meant.
Headlights on… I am invincible and my car indestructable. I am the only one that matters. Blind corners, traffic signals, pedestrians mean nothing to me.
Turning Indicator…I am turning right now- any consequences are your problem not mine.
Hazard lights…My car has an unalienable right guaranteed by the UN to block this road until I have finished chatting with the bar keeper.
Actually I find that Italians drivers are very good in many respects and can handle traffic flows that would give most brits a heart attack, I suppose that natural selection quickly weeds out the poor ones.
