AFAIK these are not required by law in the U.S., and they bug me. And sometimes ya wanna tiptoe away without showing any lights–when lights would shine into an RV housing a sleeping mother-in-law in the driveway, or when sneaking out of a school function early without drawing overt attention to the fact that someone’s leaving. Or when stargazing or owl-spotting or night fishing or other night-time nature activities.
The owner’s manual has nothing about how to disable them. Suggestions?
They’re probably not meant to be disabled since they’re a safety feature. I’d hazard that any tinkering is likely to shut off something else as well.
I don’t know if it will work on your vehicle, but I’ve heard that putting the parking brake on just one click will turn off the lights without putting any drag on the wheels. I wouldn’t drive around like that, but if your parking brake does turn off the DRLs, it would be a good solution for making your getaway.
Are you sure your U.S. Taurus has DRL? In any case, the owners manual was no help of course. A quick search reveals this thread which ought to provide several options for you.
BB Gun
This is sort of true for my 2000 Oldsmobile Alero. Except pulling on the emergency brake while the car is running will not turn them off; rather you can START the car up and the lights won’t turn on with it if the emergency brake is on.
There may a fuse that controls the DRLs. Check the wiring diagram.
Um, yeah? Because when we start it up and release the parking brake, like, the lights go on? Unless it’s little elves in there turning them on, we kinda assumed it was DRL. 
It was a rental car which we got a good deal on, used. Many fleet cars have apparently been equipped with DRL.
Yeah, thanks, I found that one myself earlier. If it gets down to messing with fuses and modules, I think we’ll let the dealer do that, as it’s still under warranty. I was hoping the Dope would have a quick-trick-fix.
Right, the problem is that the lights only go on as soon as you release the parking brake, so as long as the parking brake is on, the lights are off–but then you have to release the parking brake in order to back the car out of the driveway containing the RV in which a mother-in-law is sleeping.
As someone mentioned above, have you tried putting the parking brake on to just the first notch and then starting the engine? If that temporarily disables the DRL you could drive that way until you were out of sight, then release the brake completely.
Went outside and tried this just now. Didn’t work. Lights came on just the same. But thanks. 
Give the hard job to the lazy guy he will find the easy way to do it.
how about backing into the driveway?
There’s usually a fuse that can be pulled from your fuse panel. It may cause other things to stop working.
Really? It works that way on my last two cars that had DRLs. Perhaps you didn’t pull up the handbrake far enough?
On automatics the DRLs are often activated by the transmission coming out of park. I had thought it was only on standards where there was a parking brake switch.
It’s a foot pedal handbrake, and I just barely nudged it into the slightest “brake set” position with my toe, very delicately.
And…on cars that have a hand-powered handbrake, pulling the brake up what you describe as “far enough” would tend to put the brake “all the way ON”, which is contrary to the advice being given here. The advice, as I understand it, would be to pull the handbrake up, very carefully, just one notch, which would be the opposite of “pulling it up far”. You’d just pull it up one click, not up all the way. Are you saying that on your cars that had DRL, you were able to pull the handbrake up all the way and thereby disable the DRL?
Isn’t the answer here?
Okay, I went out there and experimented just now. It’s an automatic transmission, FTR.
With the parking brake NOT set, and the transmission in “Park”, I turn the key in the ignition–and the lights come on. IOW, if the parking brake is not set, the lights come on as soon as you start the car.
With the parking brake SET, and the transmission in “Park”, I turn the key in the ignition–and the lights do NOT come on. I reach in through the open driver’s door and release the parking brake–and the lights come on.
Clearly the thought process here is that a car with its parking brake set is, by definition, a car that is not in need of running lights, being “parked”.
Nope, just one notch up, applying very little brake. I could easily drive the car like that with no side affects.
The automatic/park seems to be the right answer. All my cars had manual transmissions.
The idea is to move the parking brake activator (lever, pedal) just enough to trip its switch. Normally this will turn on some sort of parking brake warning light, and tell the computer that the parking brake is on. And on most, if not all, cars, this will happen with minimal motion of the activator and will not enage the brake enough to affect driving for a short distance. Whether that minimal motion is one click, or two, or whatever may vary.
Well, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the parking brake, now that I’ve been out there in the driveway experimenting with it. I guess we’ll have the dealer look at it. Thanks, everyone.