The dangers of DRLs 4614

On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 18:13:59 -0400, James C. Reeves

Where did I say anything about hyperlinks? I suggest you read paragraphs before commenting on them.

Post an URL and a page number and I will look at it.

Oh my, another poor Microsoft-junkie-clicky-clicky-critter.

I posted an URL, which does work and also an exact page rant.

hyperlink babble snipped

You claimed that you don't hate GM because you had a GM car sometime in the past and because your ancestors bought GM, but that has no bearing on you hating them today. That you do is more than obvious from your rants.

ROTFL, you rant about GM because of automatic headlights and DRLs and then claim all of sudden you like one specific GM product, which has both DRLs and automatic headlights just so you can claim not to hate GM.

Was that a question? Hard to tell with your grammar. In case it was one: I discount them the same way I discount yours. No references to claimed documents, hate rants and tainted observations.

Apparently your reading is even worse than I thought. I didn't discount your observations because of your spelling but your claimsthatcertain documentsexist. You are not even able to comprehend simple everyday text, so what makes you think you are able to comprehend much harder-to-read scientific studies?

So far you have claimed that the NHTSA claims DRLs worthless or even dangerous. Now all of sudden they don't claim anything because your precious 'study' went out the window.

I have shown a document supporting my view (even though I did not constantly claim that the document exists). Now it's your turn. Either reference your 'material' or stop making unfounded claims. Btw, who cares whether 'some' of the thousands of comments that supposedly are there, support your view? You will people supporting just about any opinion somewhere if you dig long enough. If the vast majority would support your view it would be different, but even you don't go so far to claim that a majority supports you.

Put up or shut up.

Around here the system works, and everywhere else I went (and I have been travelling a lot) it works too. Admittedly I probably haven't been in your little hellhole and don't really desire to go there either, but with your extreme bias it is practically certain that they work well where you live, too.

They would notice that the instrument panel lighting turns off, for example. Of course that requires a minimum of attention, which explains why you have problems with it.

Bright enough to obscure the dash lights and snowing at the same time is very rare in my experience and I love snow sports. I snowboard, ride snowmobiles and I have logged enough miles in wintery conditions to know that if it is bright enough that the dash light gets obscured the visibility almost invariably is good enough that the headlights are not needed.

A second ago it was bright and snowy-foggy, so there is no way the DRLs are reflecting back. If it is dark enough that the DRLs would be visible on the road surface the automatic system already has switched on the headlights.

I have no idea what 'most all cars' are, but in all the DRL-auto headlight cars I have driven to date I was able to see the dash lighting when lights were warranted. Maybe your eyes are bad, maybe you are just too unobservant to safely drive a car, in any case you are a hazard for others.

You were the one, who repeatedly claimed that bright sunlight makes impossible for you to see the dash light needed because of the snowfall. Thanks for admitting that one of your claimed 'auto headlight doesn't work' situations is just nonsense.

Rest of your superiority rant snipped to spare you the embarrbuttment

Except for the NHTSA study I quoted and very likely much more material inside the NHTSA website, which explains your refusal to reference the material you claim to have.

Because they have the same agenda you do. It is cool nowadays to hate GM and everything they do. Plus some of them (specifically one DS) still bear a grudge (you should have seen the email DS sent me a few years ago...). Not a good base for a discussion.

His business is selling lamps. I have searched for the research you claim he did for the NHTSA and came up empty (what surprise!). I don't go to the lamp store around the corner to learn the virtues of 220V electrical systems and I don't deem a lamp salesman more trustworthy than the NHTSA - the NHTSA, that clearly says 'DRLs reduce baneities' contrary to your claims that it finds DRLs unsafe.

In case of ATs, that very often guess wrong, one certainly should have the option. And in your car you also have the option, that's what the light switch is for. That the automatic system switches on headlights when it shouldn't almost never happens, which is why the light switch doesn't need an 'off' position. It has an 'on' position though, which enables you to switch on the headlights in your claimed brightly lit fog or your torrential rain from sunny skies.

You have that wannabe-chemist with his ratty old Audi...

They shift wrong for just about any style of driving. Some people notice that, others don't. Your claim, that it shifts right in 999 of 1000 situations is preposterous either way.

You were the one who claimed snow and bright sunlight as a situation, where he can't see the dashboard lighting. I merely stated that this situation practically never happens. Please don't try to pin your mistakes on me.

Again, that may or may not be true for your area but it is a very rare phenomenon.

I understand you very well. Somehow you feel the need to prove at any cost that DRLs and auto-headlights are dangerous and you don't care to use every dirty trick in the book to support your whacky ideas.

Maybe you really have lived in your foggy hellhole all life. I doubt it but it certainly is possible. In this case be advised that there is a world beyond the horizon seen from your place. If not you know as well as I do that your brightly lit fog is a very rare phenomenon. And if you find a phenomenon like that nothing is easier than just turning the switch and turning on the headlights manually. That's what your 'choice' of manual override is for.

Even if you didn't mean it, this is very likely the truth.

I said 'the norm', not 'occurring in some places'. And again for these rarely occurring conditions, the override switch is to the left of your wheel.

Sure, and the moon was shining brightly at the same time...

I have been through many rainstorms (around here we have a lengthy rainy season) and my headlights almost always turn on automatically as the first few other other cars turn theirs on.

superiority babble snipped

The general population has less problems with a switch that says 'on' and 'auto' than with a switch, that says 'on', 'auto' and 'off'.

It means that aside from rare brightly lit foggy conditions the car is going to do a very good job to determine, whether the lights should be on or off. A much better job than the average driving bozo.

Yes, it is. Because the average bloke doesn't become philosophical about a system, that almost always guesses right and in addition to that leaves you a way to override it when you really need to.

... and leads to cars driving around in town at night without headlights, because it simply didn't occur to the driver, that the orange streetlights are no replacement for daylight.

... even when they should be off, because the driver just forgot to turn them off and the dashboard lights were obscured because of the glare ...

... even when they should be on because the driver simply forgot to turn them on or doesn't know that they should be on in the given situation.

No, just much more potential to have them on or off at the wrong time.

I don't think there is a driver out there, who has never forgotten the headlights in any situation, including you.

The term 'anal' indeed came to mind, just not in reference on the subject.

I disagree. If all cars had automatic headlights the number of headlights being off when they should be on and vice versa would drastically drop.

In my ability? Yes. In yours? Maybe, though I have my doubts. In the ability of the average Joe? Never in a thousand years.

I am not ignoring anything, I just have a pretty good idea why they have the agenda they have and why their observations are just as tainted and useless as yours are.

The issue seems so pervasive that the NHTSA stated in a recent study that between 5% and 25% of baneities, depending on accident type, are prevented by DRLs.

And still rare weather phenomena, limited to a small part of the US and a small part of the day.

I thought your car was newer than mine? So if it triggered even faster than mine you surely never had that problem, that I don't even have.

Btw, on my car (and all other GM cars with automatic headlights) the headlights turn on immediately when the driver starts the engine and the sensor doesn't get enough light to make driving without lights feasible, which is the case even under a seemingly brightly lit gas station canopy. Thus your gas station scenario is simply nonsense. But of course, having had a GM car, you knew that.

I very rarely have false cycling. For a bridge a 2-3s delay is sufficient, even no delay at all would work, as underneath most bridges the light intensity still is much higher than even on a well lit street at night.

Indeed you are right. I see cars without headlights several times a night. The drivers are fooled by the comparative brightness of the streetlights and simply forget to turn on their lights. A dangerous situation, especially when the same drivers try to turn onto a non-lit sidestreet. All these situations would be prevented with automatic headlights.

No, they just seem more stupid to you because of your hatred.

If your headlighs are clearly visible in the car in front of you in torrential rain or brightly lit fog, you are following too close, considering near-flooded or slick streets.

What a pity. Maybe you need reading glbuttes...

Not really.

For someone, who claims experience in fog you have remarkably little knowledge about the minimal visibility of regular taillights in foggy conditions. This is why in Europe cars have rear foglights, that are as bright as brakelights.

Taillights help very little in fog. Proper speed and distance help a lot.

Then why are you whining?

Actually they do. Orangeish-yellowish lenses improve visibility in fog. I know that quite well from snowboarding. If the weather is bad and visibility is low I wear Oakleys with a bright orange lens and it indeed improves contrast very significantly. Much more than a dim taillight on your average car.

If you need the added visibility you are too fast for conditions. And given the fact that taillights are quite ineffective in fog, you don't even have this added visibility in real life conditions.

What you see, are brakelights, which usually are lit when the car in front of you is slowing down significantly.

Please reread my paragraph, specifically 'too high a rate of speed for conditions'.

No. Adjusting speed to conditions helps.

Also pileups practically never occur on two-lane roads, where overtaking is a problem. Pileups of the size you claim almost exclusively happen on freeways, with dozens or even hundreds of bzos thinking they are safe because everyone is moving in the same direction and thus going too fast for conditions and not keeping the proper distance.

Improper speed and distance.

Did I mention improper speed and distance?

In fog taillights are next to useless, the only thing that helps is a rear foglight because it penetrates the fog much farther than standard taillights.

No. And it is kinda frightening that people like you, who have no idea that it is their responsibility to adjust their speed and distance to conditions, which include visibility, made it through the driving test.

Indeed you doing some research in that area would help your understanding of pileups tremendously.

Most drivers know that their speed has to be adjusted to conditions, even though the brainwashing 'if I drive the speed limit I am safe' has reached some specimens, you being one of them.

Sure I have. ABS has never been a problem. How do you think you can trigger a controlled skid without ABS where you can't trigger it with ABS? A controlled is properly triggered by either the handbrake or the right pedal (not in your FWD boat of course).

This sentence doesn't make any sense.

... because some bozos thinking ABS makes them invincible and causing huge damages and dead bodies ruin the statistic. Fortunately for the rest of us ABS works and works well.

No. Enough people make it that far with luck. Unfortunately luck tends to run out one day.

I know several drivers, who have had wrecks before and who I still rather would have in the left seat than a whole bunch of 'I have never had an accident in 35 years' grandpas, who in reality bumble along with their guardian angel holding on to their headrest for dear life.

Let me see. Bumped into a parked car at age 18 with a new driver's license. Was rear ended at a dead stop by some bozo somewhere north of San Francisco. Lowsided my bike on an almost dried coolant spill, probably from some oblivious '35 years without accident' gramps. And was blown off the freeway on black ice in 50mph gusty crosswind with truck and trailer.

Fortunately I have learned a lot from my experiences and don't blather about 'oh, if the guy in front of me had his taillights on I would have seen him'.

The definition is not ridiculous but simply true. Thats what automatic systems do: Take external parameters to influence the system in a certain predetermined way.

For these people, who coincidentally also are too stupid to turn on their lights at the proper time an automatic system is all the more important.

Better forget about the control of the lights and just miss one in a few hundred or thousand situations than drive around with the wrong setting half of the time.

No, I am not giving him any technical credit...

... which is why your buttumption that the system fails is wrong. You take your rare fog situation and weigh it against hundreds of thousands of people, who drive around with their lights off in town at night and think you come out on top. Fortunately you are wrong.

As they do work reliably except in extremely few situations the only thing that is funny here is how much your hatred is clouding your observation and deduction capabilities.

There is no REM122 here, just a rem223. Again your powers of observation totally fail you.

Chris