Turn Off Your Lights, It's Daytime!

Daytime running lights originated in Texas in 1961 as a campaign to operate motor vehicles with headlights on in the daytime as a signal of the intention to comply with a Texas governor's request to drive safely. However, in the early '60s an investigator studying the effects of this was quoted as saying "It seems that no one can conceive of an automobile or a Greyhound Bus being invisible on a bright clear day."

They later became widely used in parts of Europe. But when word of a study abroad that concluded using daytime running lights reduced accidents was published in the United States people started turning on their headlights in the daytime. It wasn't long before domestic automakers would see it as a way of promoting their vehicles as safer than others without daytime running lights. Now all GM cars come with them, as well as some Fords and Chryslers. The problem with this study is that it was conducted in countries with significantly different weather patterns than the United States and much less natural illumination.

If you're unable to see another car on the road on a sunny day without it having its headlights on then you shouldn't be driving. It's just a basic part of driving.

Additionally, many people find them to be very irritating. It is particularly annoying to be driving in the daytime and see the car coming towards you in the other lane with its headlights on, likewise having a car following you with its lights glaring in your rearview mirror is quite distracting. I am now forced to drive with my daytime/nighttime rearview mirror always switched to the nighttime setting.

Not only is it annoying to look at, but it's bad for the environment too! Turning on an electrically accessory, such as headlights or daytime running lights, puts an additional load on the alternator. The alternator is a generator, powered by the engine of your car, that keeps the battery charged. The more current that is drained from the battery the more current the alternator has to produce, and the more current that has to be produced the greater the physical resistance in the turning of the alternator is, meaning that the engine has to use more fuel and thereby emits more pollution into the air.

So what do you do if you buy a car that happens to have daytime running lights? You can bring it to the dealer to have it disabled or you can search the internet for a way of disabling it yourself. You do not have to be stuck with this bothersome feature.

For many more reasons why daytime running lights and turning on your headlights in the daytime should be outlawed visit the following links:

LightsOut.Org

How Stuff Works

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