Andy Monty said:

makes you wonder if this guy saw the car a fraction earlier due to the headlights been on

YouTube- Near miss head on


(know you like these vids jon )

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Allow me to retort

DRLs no defense against a retard...

I find this discussion a little puzzling, I'm from Norway and we have to have front and rear lights on at all times, that means thet I have to drive with dipped beams and normal rears. Because you can't have DRLs and rears on at the same time in the 500. Most cars in Norway is set up that way, and a few just use DRLs + rears, most cars have the dipped headlighst + rear lights on at all times. The sidelights in Norway is used for parking only, if you are parked by the side of the road they are meant to be on. (Not in a place were emergency flashers are meant to be used of course)

I just don't get the resistance against driving with DRLs on, It is a safety measure, like seatbelts and it doesn't look chavvish or stupid when everyone uses them..

I think it is a big plus when it comes to visibility, also in the daytime, both for oncoming traffic and for the rearview when planning a lane change etc. The eyes just react faster to the lights than just the car with no lights. I guess there has been studies done that is the reason for more countries adapting this as law.

Cyberdog

A couple of things, Where has the £160 come from to run DRL's ?
I get an impression that the value on a life on here not worth even a penny, with people saying ' I wouldnt have them on as it doesnt save lives and costs me more money '
I suspect there are 2 scandinavian countries who have stats to prove that DRL's can save lives, alongside the costs for the ambulance, Police, and hospital bills incurred where someone was killed or injured.

My 500 has DRL's which are on all the time, and having looked at the setup, it appears that these are the same brightness as the dipped beam lights, only located lower down the car. When the main beam lights are switched on, the light where the DRL is dims to the equivalent of parking light/ side light, & the main lights come on. It is really good with the 500 that you cant drive with parking lights( side lights to some people) only on.
DRL's are particularly useful for the middle lane hogs on the motorway who never look in their rear view mirror, as it attracts the attention to actually use it.
Since having the 500, I have been surprised by the number of people who actually look twice because of the DRL's and have not just pulled out of a junction without looking properly.

LONG LIVE DRL's, if anyone wants to drive without them that has them, then thats called choice. Me i am 99% certain that since having them on there has been occasions where it has saved a crunch.

StevenRB45 said:

You could drive along with flashing strobes playing a jaunty tune at 120DB and people would still pull out on you, because the basic fact of the matter is no one drives at 100% concentration and ability all the time. Back when I had a silver grey punto I had headlamps on whenever it was even mildly overcast or dark as I figured it blended pretty well with a grey sky. Yet I still remember very clearly following a car with no lights on down alongside a traffic queue in the rain. A car indicating to pull into my lane then allowed the car running with no lights ahead to pass before pulling straight into my lane no more than 15ft ahead.

Daylight running lights will not solve the basic fact that many people drive without using mirrors, with a bare minimum of observation or awareness of their surroundings. But if you want no option other than to pay extra for a what amounts to a redundant set of sidelights that go off when you turn the proper sidelights on that's your choice, except of course it isn't as the choice has already been made.

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On the Punto EVO the DRL's stay on with sidelights as you can see in the picture below, and on the Fiat 500 it's either DRL's or dipped beam with sidelights no sidelight alone option (unless ofcourse you diactivated the DRL's through the cars computer, which I must admit is really silly if it's going to be UK law soon) ... so umm, yeah, kinda don't get your point about this?

When your buying a new car worth 10k plus the price of the DRL's is included in that price making the price of them tivial.

If sidelights were as bright as DRL's are all along are you saying that would be ok, because I don't think a 5w sidelight has a patch on a 27w DRL in terms of light output and noticability. In normal daylight front sidelights are practically un-noticable.

I do think the DRL's should turn on the rear lights aswell though.

MrBoney said:

On the Punto EVO the DRL's stay on with sidelights as you can see in the picture below, and on the Fiat 500 it's either DRL's or dipped beam with sidelights no sidelight alone option (unless ofcourse you diactivated the DRL's through the cars computer, which I must admit is really silly if it's going to be UK law soon) ... so umm, yeah, kinda don't get your point about this?

Would it not have been just as easy if not easier to make sidelights a little brighter and have them on all the time a vehicle is running?

When your buying a new car worth 10k plus the price of the DRL's is included in that price making the price of them tivial.

Money always comes from somewhere if its not out of your pocket they make something else cheaper to compensate especially in a low budget car where everything is costed to the last penny

If sidelights were as bright as DRL's are all along are you saying that would be ok, because I don't think a 5w sidelight has a patch on a 27w DRL in terms of light output and noticability. In normal daylight front sidelights are practically un-noticable.

The car they are attached to is noticeable in normal daylight conditions

I do think the DRL's should turn on the rear lights aswell though.

We agree on this point but then they'd just be like normal lights and we go back to the whole reduncancy thing

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Some responses in bold

On my Marea, I leave the sidelights on permanently. That way, they come on with the ignition. On previous cars, I have always rewired the lights so that they can't work without the ignition (and added an override switch for parking lights) for this reason, and to avoid leaving lights on when parked up.
I'm a huge fan of DRL's since so many modern cars have auto lights and the drivers seem incapable of making a reasoned decision to override this.

Pedestrians should be forced to wear DRLs to save themselves from being mowed down.

fenton_jd said:

Pedestrians should be forced to wear DRLs to save themselves from being mowed down.

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fenton_jd said:

Pedestrians should be forced to wear DRLs to save themselves from being mowed down.

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You forgot indicators and brake lights...

I never really agreed with DLRs, thinking that they waste energy and are unnecessary in bright daylight. I'd still much rather have the option of sidelights which would be visible from the rear as well as illuminating the dashboard, but considering the number of people who have pulled boneheaded moves on me in the past few weeks (far more than ever did with my Rover 420 - maybe they assume small car = slow?), I'm keeping my DLRs on permanently in the hope that it might make me a little more visible to gung-ho idiots.

i dont think i ever drive without either sidelights or dipped beam on... ive always done it.

i used to be a biker (still am at heart) and my light switch was never off it was always either on sides or dipped... when cars used to have their sides or dipped on i always appreciated it i found it easier to spot them and judge their speed i never remember having any issues with not seeing a vehicles lights because of glare but then again i dont ever remember being in such a hurry that i couldnt take an extra 2 or 3 seconds to find out if it was a windows reflection or a fast moving car.

personally im all for DRL's but i think it should be DRL's the scandinavian way (sides and tails) afaik i have never heard of 27w front bulbs so this is all a little new to me but it seems a little stupid to put 27w DRL's on a car that already has a 5w and a 55+w bulb on the front end of it anyway.

richydraper said:

personally im all for DRL's but i think it should be DRL's the scandinavian way (sides and tails) afaik i have never heard of 27w front bulbs so this is all a little new to me but it seems a little stupid to put 27w DRL's on a car that already has a 5w and a 55+w bulb on the front end of it anyway.

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I don't know about other cars but the 500 can't be driven on sidelights alone.

The DRLs are therefore much brighter than sidelights, more than adequate for "DAYTIME" running.

ps. I do agree with the idea of DRLs AND tail lights being combined.

Chris parry said:

My other means of transport is a Yamaha thundercat we keep been told we need to wear luminous vests because other road users have problems seeing motorbikes. Since bikes drive around with headlights on all the time (and people don’t seem to see us) what’s the point in a car having them on all the time. Also I believe it would make bikes less noticeable.

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COMPLETELY agree with this,

drl sound silly, if i need to have lights on in the day by law ill have headlights on all the time. but. as i am a biker myself i agree that bikers will again dissapear due to cars having headlights on all the time, and make them no less noticable. the amount of times people havent seen me with my 100watt bike light on then i dont think two 27watt drls will make a difference one bit.


oh bit i would be for headlights being on all the time on motorways, would make things alot better, for normal road users it wouldnt make a difference but the amount of people in the rain fog ect with no lights on it would cover all of them by law, making it count when its needed. also blindspots wouldnt be as bad with light on all the time, atleast they would catch your eyes.

I just made these for the Uno, partly because of this thread...

Looks interesting

I put them on.. 1 shifted slightly when I drove it, so I`m going to have to take the glass off in situ again to realign it.

Its not as overpowering as it looks in the pics, I cant seem to get an accurate picture in this light, so it just looks like a massive glow...

It's law here in Denmark that you drive with lights on at all times.

I'm not sure however if the DRL are allowed, I guess you still have to use the proper main lights.

It seems to make sense to me, certainly makes traffic much more visible. After 3 years here, it now seems odd not to use them. Can't say it's made much difference to the fuel economy, but it certainly means you'll change bulbs more often.

just read through this thread (should have been revising lol), an interesting read with lots of points of view....I have to disagree with the £160 a year costing...maybe if DRL's were to be wired to dipped beams, or this 27w bulb I’ve never heard of, then maybe u might reach that cost, but if the manufacturers took the sensible option and realised that DRL's if non-configurable would be on 100% of the time, and if configurable then on for 90% of the time (10% of people being bothered to go to the hassle of turning them off) then they should be LED's which would reduce the running costs right down...

I’ve always been a fan of running with lights on, it makes you much more visible, even in bright sunlight a car with sidelights on is more visible than a car with nowt on, also picture this situation:
you are driving down a narrow road you see a string of traffic pulled up behind a parked car allowing you to pass through, you didn’t manage to see which car's were definitely in the queue, your only sure of the first (parked) car and the second (head of queue), this isn’t a fictional situation, its real life, now you need to give way, but you don’t know which of the cars in the queue is parked and which are pulled over....(this might sound a tad silly, but it is a real situation, where I think DRL's would have removed all the confusion)

I know some of you will be thinking if not saying, taking more time would solve the problem or concentrating more...but is it not better to REMOVE the confusion rather than think of ways round it?

for this reason I ALWAYS drive with the side lights on which on the stilo are brilliant (4x5w), and will be purchasing the new DAYLINE headlights with DRL's in as soon as I have the money. Primarily I think there needs to be some sort of indication whether or not a car is "using the road" or "parked up"

i agree with using them if you have them! but still think bikes will be harder to spot again.

mzhussein said:

also picture this situation:
you are driving down a narrow road you see a string of traffic pulled up behind a parked car allowing you to pass through, you didn’t manage to see which car's were definitely in the queue, your only sure of the first (parked) car and the second (head of queue), this isn’t a fictional situation, its real life, now you need to give way, but you don’t know which of the cars in the queue is parked and which are pulled over....(this might sound a tad silly, but it is a real situation, where I think DRL's would have removed all the confusion)

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Actually, I came across almost this very scenario, driving in the rain I came across a line of parked cars, as I pulled out to overtake the nearest, He pulled across me & hurled abuse - seemingly, he was waiting to pull out and had to wait for the cars coming towards him - I pointed out that had he followed the highway code - and turned on his lights, and maybe turned on his indicators, I would have realised what was happening...

I also find that the large mirrors on my bus are sometimes difficult to see through when they are covered in raindrops so even sidelights can be a problem whereas the intense glow of LEDs or dipped lights helps a great deal.

Now autumn is with us & the sun is really low in the morning sky I find it easier to spot cars with lights on when the low sun is facing me or coming through my rear window.
Almost hard to believe it is easier to spot cars but their white lights against the sun's orangy yellow does make quite a difference.