A Brief History Of A Popular, But Useless "Safety" Feature
December 5th, 2007 Posted in Daytime Running Lights
One of the pervasive urban myths plaguing our highways and byways is the belief that daytime use of headlights reduces motor vehicle accidents.
It all started with a Greyhound Bus Company public relations gimmick to promote its “safety image.”
There was an apparent reduction in bus accidents and the conclusion was made that the daytime headlight use must be the reason. There was a burst of publicity and daytime headlight use was christened as a great highway safety strategy.
Subsequent studies, slightly more thorough, determined that daytime headlight use on busses had no effect on accident frequency. Those studies have never received nearly as much attention.
Think about this; if you can’t see a bus during the daytime, because it doesn’t have its headlights on, there is a greater problem at play here than “visibility.”
Next, there were mandates of daytime headlight use in a few tundra-laden Scandinavian countries. Subsequent government sponsored studies proved the government was inspired in its mandating of daytime headlight use.
Again, subsequent review of these favorable DRL studies indicated the high probability that factors, other than daytime headlight use, were responsible for any reduction in accident frequency.
The same scenario was subsequently repeated in Canada—the government mandates vehicles be equipped with automatic daytime running lights (DRLs) and low and behold government studies find that DRLs may be responsible for saving the human race from roadway annihilation.
Auto manufacturers, never loath to exploit a fad, climbed on the DRL bandwagon and hyped the safety benefits of irritating other drivers by shining headlights in their eyes, during daylight hours. General Motors was the most aggressive on this front.
While seldom admitted, the primary motivation for putting DRLs on American market cars is that it saves money.
Rather than building one lighting system for Canada, where DRLs are mandated, and a different system for the US market, GM decided to save a few bucks by just installing the DRL equipped system on both the US and Canadian models.
The first, last and only large scale U.S. study that has been completed and published on the effects of DRLs as safety devices, was conducted by the insurance industry Highway Loss Data Institute. The results; vehicles equipped with DRLs were involved in more accidents than similar vehicles without DRLs. The difference was minimal, but the meaning was straight forward.
DRLs aggravate other motorists, obscure directional lights, waste fuel, “mask” other road users that don’t have headlights on, or don’t have headlights period (pedestrians and bicyclists) and their net effect on accident reduction is zero or worse.
Because DRLs negatively effect other motorists, they should be omitted from all new cars by government mandate. Furthermore, all states should explore legislation that limits daytime headlight use to low beam or parking lights.
The government, in concert with various corporate interests has sold the driving public a bill of goods that doesn’t live up to its advertised claims. It seems only fair that the government and the same corporate interests undo the damage they have done.
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20 Responses to “A Brief History Of A Popular, But Useless "Safety" Feature”
By Dave Dragon on Dec 5, 2007
Running your headlights as well as other forward facing lights make Motorcycles up to 200% more visible according to the Blue Knights, an organization of Law Enforcement Motorcyclist that tested Head Light Modulators on motorcycles.
Anything one can do to increase their conspicuity while on a motorcycle is a positive safety step.
-Dave Dragon
Ride it like you stole it
By Hubcap on Dec 5, 2007
A subject near and dear to my retinas!
Those lights just irritate the hell out of me and DRLs seem to give encouragement to the more-is-better crowd who like to compete with the sun by turning on their brights or for the truly phallic-impaired, foglamps.
I would go as far as to say that even at night in most urban driving situations headlamps are completely unnecessary. There is generally enough ambient light that you can’t even tell if your headlights are on.
Now in California we have a very silly law which requires one to have their headlamps on whenever the wipers are on. This leads me to two questions: What if my wipers are set to intermittent; do I have to divert my attention from that rain-slick highway to synchronize the headlamps with every stroke of the wipers? And the second question is for the DMV. If you don’t trust me to know how and when to operate the equipment in my vehicle, why the hell did you give me a license?!
By Hubcap on Dec 5, 2007
Dave, you are absolutely correct. Headlamps do radically increase a bike’s visibilty. And one of the big problems with DRLs is they dilute that, making motorcycles once again blend in with the rest of the traffic.
By George on Dec 5, 2007
“Light off for safety”
It almost works, in that drivers know to avoid people who drive around with the DRLs activated, at high noon, on the summer solstice.
I figure they don’t know how to disable the DRLs, or they actually believe that they work as advertised.
I don’t like the fact that motorcyclists have to resort to headlight modulators to be seen.
There is lighting anarchy, and FMVSS108 needs to be addressed.
By Bill on Dec 5, 2007
I agree that the headlight on law is a good safety feature for a motorcycle in an urban environment, having been riding bikes since before that law. It is reasonable that 4 wheel vehicle headlights on in the daytime might dilute the safety margin provided for motorcyclists but I don’t believe it.
The modulated headlights on motorcycles are annoying but are the logical reaction to the escalation of the DRL situation that we have now and they certainly do draw attention but I’d like to see the modulating headlights either gone or at least their intensity reduced.
By George on Dec 6, 2007
or at least do not allow modulated high beam.
http://www.webbikeworld.com/Motorcycle-technical-articles/Modulator-regs.htm
or maybe a compound cycle. high-low-high-low. (unless that too closely resembles police wig-wags)
By Greg on Dec 7, 2007
I still don’t understand how this could’ve eve r saved money?! I knew since day 1 this was a joke I grew up in New York and remember all the car’s from Canada when this first started lol!
By Al on Dec 7, 2007
I have to disagree with the premise of this article. I drive a lot under a variety of conditions and there are MANY times when a car approaching is made much more conspicious by the presence of DRLs. Granted they might not ALWAYS increase visibility under all conditions all the time but the times that they do work they are worth while. Anyone who rides a motorcycle realizes the advantages of having the headlight on so why it wouldn’t make a car more conspicious is beyond my comprehension. Whether it makes a motorcycle “blend in” with the cars with DRL’s is totally irrelevant….if they are BOTH more conspicious then it is a good thing. I would rather have you mistake my motorcycle for a car if you are thinking about pullingo out in front of me, in fact…
By Paul Cocklin on Dec 7, 2007
I totally disagree with this article. I think DRL make it much easier to detect other vehicles in many kinds of situations where headlights would usually not be turned on by most motorists…. these include, the periods between dusk and dawn, fog, heavy cloud cover, rain, snowstorms, etc. I would not purchase a vehicle without DRL.
By George on Dec 7, 2007
The problem with some motorcycles having the ‘headlight on for safety’ is that ECE headlights are allowed [legally] for single track vehicles.
ECE headlighs have something that SAE headlights do not, and that is glare control. [beam definition]
If you drive at night, and a vehicle with ECE headlights is approaching, you almost don’t see the beam. That is glare control!
Even a simple H4 bulb dual beam system has it. Thank the Graves shield. http://72.215.196.56/hummers/headlights/hella_ecode_pattern_only.jpg
http://www.ratwell.com/technical/BoschH4/H4Lowbeam.jpg
http://www.ratwell.com/technical/BoschH4/H4Highbeam.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/2005_winter_road_dipped_beam.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/2005_winter_road_full_beam.jpg
So the reason motorcycle headlight [used to] improved visibility is that the higher mounted headlight (typically 3 feet) is high enough to put light into car drivers’ eyes. But now plenty of vehicles operators sit above the tradtional car height.
By saddlesore on Dec 10, 2007
As a professional driver with over 4 million miles under my butt.. the use of headlights when the wipers are being used is just good common sense.
with the road spray near an 18 wheeler, we as truckers CANNOT SEE cars next to us or slightly behind and to the side of us.. the use of headlights at least give us an idea that someone is “hiding” in our problem areas/ blind spots.
Unlike cars/pickups & some RV’s the 18 wheelers only have outside mirrors which accumulate water/road spray.. making rear vision a challenge at best.
By Kooba on Dec 10, 2007
The headlight switch should be removed from all vehicles. The lights should come on when the vehicle is started. I am tired of seeing people driving around with just their front markers on at night, nevermind in the daytime. As to having them on when using the wipers, Duh! you should have them on whenever the weather is dull or rainy, you just can’t see most other cars when the rain is streaming past the car.
By Bill C on Dec 11, 2007
It so happens that on a gray drizzly day in Feb at 3pm I lost a great vehicle because a dumb blond was driving with out head lights and was not visable at all and she plowed into my rear quarter panel as I was leaving a stop sign. If she had the lights on she would have been visiable and would never have moved from that stop sign. DUH
By pete on Dec 11, 2007
I like the idea of removing the headlight switch and having the headlights on when the motor is running. It would hinder the back seat romancing on a cold night, though.
By Don on Dec 11, 2007
All that bunk above against headlight use is exactly that, a bunch of bunk by people who can’t find anything else to do except complain about something. As for parking lights, they are for parking, not for running use. I asked a guy once why he drove around with his parking lights on. He said “So others can see me better.” I suggested that they might see him even better if his headlights were on. One thing they could do that would improve things would be to enforce the headlight aiming rules to include fog lights. A guy switches to low beam headlights as he approaches but his fog lights blind the heck out of you.
By mot250 on Dec 12, 2007
Headlight on proponents always cite motorcycle safety, dusk, dawn, fog, grey drizzly conditions or the stupid few who forget to turn on their lights at night as reasons why everyone should always drive with their headlights on. The artical above was not addressing these less-than-perfect visability conditions. These conditions call for headlights-on as common sense but they should not be included as a stop-gap measure mandating DRLs just because it can’t be illegal here in the USA to be stupid. What’s next, mandating battery powered strobe lights for pedestrians, pets, bicycles and wild-life? Uh-oh, I hit a mailbox…it’s the home owner’s fault because there was no light on the mailbox…
Under normal daylight conditions, the artical above is dead on but neglected to mention one more fact…DRLs are also bad for the environment. Running with lights when not required during normal daylight conditions wastes fuel. It also contributes to more landfill waste as headlight bulbs are consumed and discarded more frequently (sure, headlight bulbs are not that big but you need to also concider the plastic and paperboard used in the packaging of the bulbs, as well as the fuel used to ship these bulbs all over the US). Maybe the fuel milage issue is not enough for you or I to notice but it is enough that GM and other auto manufactures petitioned the US government (and won) to disable the DRLs for fuel milage testing in order to meet Federal CAFE requirements. On a National scale, this would be a huge MPG savings and reduce the US dependancy on fossil fuel.
Bill, I’m sorry for your loss but with your limited account of your accident, I don’t think it was the “dumb blond” who was solely at fault. If you could not be sure you had clearance to pull out due to weather, you should have stayed put at that stop sign. You took a chance and lost. Sounds to me like you got lazy or impatient and were just looking for “headlights” because that is what you expected. If there is more to the story, maybe I’ll reconsider…
By Doug on Dec 12, 2007
As a paramedic for 26 years I can tell you that DRL do make vehicles more visible. A big part of the problem is that you cannot legislate commmon sense. Yes, in those times of less than perfect visibility or at dusk/dawn you should put your lights on. Many don’t. If DRL’s can prevent one needless tragedy than I’m all for it. Who knows it might be you.
By Phenom-Anon on Jan 7, 2008
I work in a flight line and DRLs are a nuisance there. Cars equipped with daytime-running lights actually pose a danger to aircraft, but I digress. DRLs is a safety feature that is unnecessary. A shiny vehicle in broad daylight reflects enough light to be seen. The glare from the sun is a natural daytime-running light that lets people know you exist.
By Fred Crookes on Jan 16, 2008
Amazing the stupidity of some people when they get a bee in their underwear. Get real, DRLs making it hard to see? Get off the road, bozos, your eyesight isn’t good enough to allow operation of roller skates, much less a car! I am tired of trying to spot a grey car against a grey sky on a grey road on a dull morning because people like you are too lazy and idiotic to have some lights on to make themselves visible. You are probably the same people too stupid to clean headlights and tail lights when you wash your windows as well. It’s the old “I can see you, so obviously you can see me” line, in it’s most dangerous form.
By Harry B on May 9, 2008
So Saddle sore if the semi truck is generating so much road spray from the wheels why are semi trucks not required to have fenders which supress the problem? Similarly why are semi’s not required to have wipers on their mirrors if the overspray obscures a clear rear view on the mirrors?