My 2001 Saturn L300 uses the highbeam part of the headlights at 50% power. Since I live in a city, and almost never use the highbeam, I can’t imagine it’s going to cost me anything in headlight life. It also saves me having to remember to turn them on at dusk, when things really get dangerous. Though I do have to remember to turn them on between dusk and dark! Why can’t I see?
What REALLY irked me about DRLs is the old-style Saturn had them very close together, so a car off in the medium distance in below-average visibility looked farther away than you expected.
I used to work with someone who complained about how weak the headlights were on her Saturn. It was finally pointed out to her that those were the DRLs, you had to turn the real headlights on, and she’d been driving around all this tiome with no taillights at night.
No, she wasn’t blonde, but she did go to the “Saturn homecoming”…
Capn
(not a big fan of Saturn)
Daytime Running Lights have been mandatory on all vehicles built for the Canadian market since 1990. At the same time there was also a public campaign to get people to turn on their lights in older cars which worked quite well (we’re pretty sensible people after all). The primary reason is to increase visibility for vehicles and reduce accidents. By all studies, it works, at very little cost, even to the consumer. It’s harder to find vehicles here without them now.
I think daytime lights are stupid. I drive Ford Motor Co products and they must agree with me for they don’t use them in the good old USA.
That list is not entirely correct. Corvette’s sold in the US either don’t have them or they’re easily turned off, I forget which. Anyway, a portion of the battle is detailed in the book All Corvettes Are Red, with the final outcome being that the owner of a new Corvette would not have to ride around with those things on, if he didn’t want to.
That’s interesting. My 2000 Forrester doesn’t have them.
Actually we just got used (1999?) Chevy Prizm, which is the first car I have ever driven regularly that has them.
My gf has a 1999 Toyota Corolla, and her car works the same way. If it is night, you cannot turn them off without turning off the ignition. For most people, this is not a problem. But in our city, we have several naval stations and 1 marine station where you are asked to turn off your headlights as you approach the guard at the check entry point.
I am sure that enough people driving without their lights on at night probably prompted auto headlights on certain cars.
As for my gf’s car, I installed momentary pushbuttons that allow her to override her auto parking lights and auto headlights when she needs to do so.
My 2001 VW has them. I like DRLs, I always thought they were safer. There are so many people who don’t turn on their lights when it is foggy/rainy in the daytime and those cars are very hard to see. Since so many drivers don’t pay attention, I like having the added feature of lights on all the time.
I have those – mine is a '97 SL2. It’s served me very well, actually, I couldn’t be happier with my car. Unless it was a Miata.
If the bulbs burned out, I’d probably never notice, unless I was parked in front of a wall at night and started the car, not having automatic headlights. I’ve never noticed any benefit to having them, but no harm either.
Most cars will turn off the DRLs when you pull up the parking brake one notch. Not an ideal solution, but it does work if you want to drive a short distance with your lights completely off.
IIRC, Corvettes some with DRLs standard, but you can pull a fuse to turn them off. You can probably turn them off on any car out there with a little effort.