"Parking Lights" + DRL Visibility Under Street Lights

[Signhere]

... is not so good:

 

[reverend]

A few people around here drive around with just those on - I don't know how they survive if they can't notice they haven't got headlights on at night!

 

[Gibson99]

most vehicles here the DRLs are actually the high beam headlights run at 70% power. even still they cause annoying glare at night because the high beams are focused higher than normal low beams. i would have thought that if a car uses the brights as DRLs they should also have a daylight sensor to automaticaly switch on the low beams when it gets dark, so you don't blind everyone else, but apparently not. our last 2008 toyota sienna (LE) didn't have that - it had high beams DRLs but no auto lights. our current 2008 toyota sienna (XLE) doesn't have DRLs at all but DOES have auto lights. go figure.

 

[Error7]

I don't see anything wrong with driving on sidelights or low level DRL's. The roads would be much safer if everybody switched their headlights off when they don't help to see where you're going.

 

[reverend]

Yeah that's if everyone else had them off mate I agree - unfortunately the people I usually see are driving along in traffic with hardly any lights on! Glare from oncoming cars at night when you've been in darkness for a while is a pain sometimes for sure.

I've got uprated xenons and hate driving cards with low quality halogen bulbs - decent halogens can be great but it's amazing how you can still buy a £25k car these days with useless headlights!

 

[Bungus]

I had a 2000 Dodge Caravan with DRL as required in Canada. Dash light stays off and will only turn on when lights are turned on. It's a great feature to tell driver to turn lights on at night.

 

[Error7]

Dash light stays off and will only turn on when lights are turned on.

I thought that had always been the case.

 

[Gibson99]

I thought that had always been the case.

not in every car. a lot of toyotas and lexus (lexi?) have backlit gauges that are completely black when the car's off, then lit when you turn the key, and they actually get darker when you turn on your parking lights to help preserve your night vision. our van is that way.

 

[M---]

a lot of toyotas and lexus (lexi?) have backlit gauges that are completely black when the car's off

Yep, that's the case with my Lexus RX400h. Gauges are completely dark; you have to shine a light directly on them to see them. So whenever you turn the car on, it lights up the backlights. I've forgotten about my headlights a couple of times as a result. I've got auto-headlights, but I don't use them since I park in a garage-- every time I pull in/out of the garage, the lights would flick on, and I don't want to burn my HIDs out earlier than I need to.

That said, both my headlights were replaced after my crash last November. So even if I turn the headlights to auto-on, they'll probably outlast my ownership of the car...

In Canada, everything bought or imported since 1992 requires DRL. It's a great safety feature-- results in a huge reduction in the number of head-on and T-bone crashes during daylight hours.