> Exactly right! But the snow storms and rain do happen, don't they?
> Seeing cars in broad daylight is not why these things exist. I'll look
> at the things all day if it means that everyone, even the UNintelligent
> ones, will have their lights on when it counts.
Personally, I'm more in favor of teaching proper headlight use and enforcing
it. But then again, I'm in favor of making driver training more like pilot
training. It won't happen, since it would mean reassigning law enforcement
from their more important speedtrap duties. :)
> BTW, I've been in snow storms in broad daylight. Drive around on a
> cold, sunny and very windy Wisconsin day just after a snow storm. You
> drive through miniature snow storms created by snow blowing and drifting
> off the empty corn fields. These can reach white-out conditions for
> many hundreds of yards at a time. Here is a case where having your
> lights on during a sunny day makes sense.
You know where DRLs come from? The Scandinavian countries. I believe Volvo
and Saab were among the first to have DRLs. Why? Because for much of the
year, much of their countries are in relative darkness, even in the middle
of the day, due to their northern latitudes. And since there's snow there
(duh), DRLs are useful for exactly the situation you describe, the surprise
blinding snowdrift in the middle of a sunny day. They make sense there,
because the intelligent driver would be using their headlights all the time
anyway.
But in most of the rest of the world, there's plenty of sunlight during the
day, year round. Your Wisconsin scenario is a point well taken - I've had
it happen occasionally in my travels around New England, where I live. But
how often does this happen in Florida? Texas? Arizona? Wipers on, lights
on is a good rule. I'd much rather see a system that automatically turned
on your lights when you use your wipers than a dumb full time system like we
have now.
Here's another tangent. Since DRLs came out, I've seen lots of people
forget to actually turn their lights on at night. They can see where
they're going thanks to the DRLs, so they forget to flip the switch,
thinking their lights are already on. But nobody can see them from behind!
A few cars, like VWs and Volvos, turn on ALL the standard lights along with
the DRLs, so this mistake isn't too bad with them. But most DRL equipped
cars only turn on a pair of headlights, fooling a less than attentive driver
into thinking all their lights are on (exactly the same type of driver that
DRLs are designed to save themselves from).
- Justin
95 SC2 "Locutus"
83 320i "Igor"
both DRLless
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