My wife say: "In China, driver not wear seat-belt. Passenger wear seat-belt."
Maybe the driver thinks he can hang onto the steering wheel for protection.
China laws now require that occupants wear seat-belts, but many ignore laws.
At Chinese traffic-signalled intersection:
When your traffic signal displays (<-) (/) (->), opposing traffic has the same!!
Always wondered what would happen in a collision ,when the little pooch that was allowed to ride on the rear shelf went hurtling .
The pooch would probably get killed.
As would little poochie in the driverās lapā¦ I see this way too often. The airbag would kill it. Some people just never learned to use the brains God gave them.
ā¦and the dog that was allowed to hang out on the rear shelf would likely cause some serious injuries to the humans in front of him who were hit by his/her flying body.
Yup! There are a lot of people who canāt seem to see the obvious consequences of their actions.
Very interesting thread and I just found it.
I bought a 1999 Chevy Monte Carlo new and I still drive it. It came with DRLās. In the beginning I wasnāt sure what to think about them but now Iām a believer. Itās the same idea of motorcycles having their lights on and I think it helps you be seen in your car too. Especially nowadays with cellphones stuck to peoples ear, 24 hours a day.
I rarely move the headlight switch out of the āOffā position, the system/sensor works very well in my Monte. About the time the light gets low and I would normally turn on my lights the system does it auto. Once in a great while I might be driving in fog or late in the day with heavy clouds and Iāll just turn the lights on to get all the lights on.
By the way, the GM DRLās are the high beam bulbs that are dimmed down, at least in my model. Over the years GM may have varied exactly what the DRL lights are. I have 217,000 miles and counting and I think I replaced one low beam bulb in 17 years. The high beam bulbs are still the original ones.
To those that are āannoyedā at oncoming cars with their lights on during the day, youāre going to just have to get over it. Just be glad you donāt live in Canada, theyāve required lights on 24 hrs for at least 40 years. I remember in late 1978 driving from Rochester, NY to college in Kalamazoo, MI, shortest way, straight across southern Ontario. Crossing through customs in my 1969 Datsun 510 in Niagara Falls the officer would remind me āLights on for safetyā.
And finally, the electrical draw from my DRLās? I could care less, 5 bucks in 17 years? Maybe?
Say 50 watts each, total 100 watts. If you drive 12k mi. per year, about 240 hours. That makes 24000 watt-hours or 24 kW-hours. That converts to 86 MJ
Gasoline has an energy density of 46 MJ/kg
86 MJ / 46 MJ/kg = 2 kg of gas.
Gasoline has a density of 720 kg/mĀ³
2 kg / 720 kg/mĀ³ = 0.0026 mĀ³ = 0.7 US gallons
Which is about $1.30 at todays prices. That is per year.
$13 for 10 years.
But DDL are probably lower power, so that could be $6 for 10 years.
see below for correction
Bill, interesting analysis! Thanks!
@glasspilot
My Experience With GM DRL/Automatic Headlights On Several GM Cars (The Grand Prix pictured at left is one example.) Over Many Years Has Been As Positive As Your Assessment, If Not More So. I Have Never Had To Touch The Headlight On/Off Switch.
What surprised me from reading a very length report about the estimated lives saved and accidents avoided by GM being pioneers in standardizing DRLs on their cars for over 1 1/2 decades, is one demographic group who benefitted greatly. It was children, pedestrian children!
Apparently, kids are often injured or killed darting out in front of cars, either on foot (proverbial kid chasing ball into a street) or bicycles. Young people are often careless and donāt recognize certain dangers. The DRLs are just enough to catch the attention of some of the inattentive kids and give them pause.
I really miss the GM DRLs when driving other vehicles. My Dodge minivan has the old-fashion non-DRL lights. I often forget to turn lights on and off when desirable.
My hat is off to GM for this safety initiative. I have no idea why when they petitioned the Feds to make this safety feature mandatory in the U.S. they were turned down at that time. The U.S. Government mandates other features that are more costly and less beneficial.
CSA
Glasspilot, left out one thing. Important thing. The typical car engine has an efficiency of 30% at best. and you can get perhaps 80% out of the alternator. so revising those numbersā¦
Gasoline has an energy density of 46 MJ/kg
But 75% is lost due to energy in-efficiencies, so that becomes 46x0.25 = 11 MJ/kg
86 MJ / 14 MJ/kg = 7.8 kg of gas.
Gasoline has a density of 720 kg/mĀ³.
7.8 kg / 720 kg/mĀ³ = 0.011 mĀ³ = 2.9 US gallons
Which is about $5.70 at todays prices. That is per year.
$57 for 10 years.
@BillRussell & @glasspilot
Bill & Mr. Pilot, no big deal, but in a practical sense, to me none of that fancy math matters. I still get 30+mpg highway from these large GM cars and have never repaired/replaced an alternator.
My hatās off to GM for that, too!
CSA
Wherever this came from again, Iām not going back to re-read all the pages. My only thing with the DRLs is that the tail lights should go on too. You can set the sensitivity of when your lights turn on but sometimes in snow or fog, they still donāt come on and your back end is invisible. I usually just put a piece of cloth over the sensor in those times so I donāt need to worry about shutting the lights off again.
If you have the electronic dash, sometimes its really hard to know if your lights are on at night or not. Especially on lit freeways. Some cars have icons but some donāt. One rental Impala we were driving in the fog, I actually had to stop and run around the car to see if all the lights were on.
Thatās about all I have to say about lighting, but DRLs are a good thing.
DRLs and auto headlamps are not the same thing, as has already been stated
DRLs use the high beam filament, at lower intensity
DRL does not turn on the taillights, at least not on GM
auto headlamps do also turn on the taillamps. When the sensor detects that the lights need to be on, they come on, headlamps, markers, and taillamps. At regular intensity, using the low beam filament
We have lots of GM in our fleet. Some older ones with DRL, and some newer with auto. I work on them all the time. Not the same thing
As far as DRL being a good thing . . . sure, but no substitute for auto headlamps, or actually turning your headlamp switch to the āonā position
:trollface:
Iāve long said that manufacturers should have just created the circuit such that whenever the engine is running all the lights are on. With an override to intentionally turn them on when desired without the engine running.
DRLs āfoolā many people into not realizing that their lights arenāt on, which means substantially reduced visibility of the vehicle by other drivers in less than optimum conditions, and having all the lights come on automatically would prevent the car NOT having its lights on at dawn, dusk, and in rainy and/or foggy conditions. I continue to believe that DRLs are an incomplete solution to poor visibility when a far better solution is so simple.
Personally, I always turn my headlights on no matter the time of day or weather conditions. Iāll never know how many times that might have prevented me from being in an accident simply by being more visible. Iāve done this for decades, long before I had my current car which automatically shuts them off for me. They come back on when I start the car again, but I use the switch anywayā¦ turning the lights on is a habit that Iād rather not break.
A contrarian view:
Rather when the engine is on, it should be when the engine is on OR the car is moving. If your engine stalls while driving at night, you donāt want the lights to go off.
On my old 1995 Corolla, it was pretty cool . . .
I left the headlights in the āonā position all the time
When I turned off the ignition and and shut the doors, so did all the exterior lights
plenty of visibility at all times, and no worries about forgetting to turn off the lights and having a dead battery in the morning
:lol:
LOL, circuitsmith, I guess thereās loose nuts everywhereā¦ :lol:
Bill, thatād be even better.
db, thatās how my Scion works. The lights go back on again when I start the car, unless I turn the headlight switch to OFF. I use the switch anyway just because I want to retain the habit.
I liked the part about DRLs insulting our intelligence or a better option is to improve drivers-yeah good luck with that one.
One thing you have to be careful with is to not assume just because you donāt see a headlight that there is no car there. Still many cars are on the road without DRL so ya gotta watch for them.