I took my Audi A3 into the dealership for scheduled service the other day. I usually request a loaner, not because I need it (I work and home and have a fleet of cars), but for the opportunity it gives me to check out what’s new. This time they tossed me the keys for a 2021 Q3, and the first thing I noticed right away is that it has no headlight switch, or at least not a traditional knob. Instead, it has a single button pictured above (pay no attention to the two knockout blanks to the right), which has limited functionality based on the speed of the vehicle.
Like wipers, brakes, throttle, and steering before, technology is further encroaching in on a task that has historically been managed by the driver. Is this good or bad?
This switch seems primarily designed to reduce the number of choices to the driver, and eliminate the possibility of driving after dark with the headlights off, which as we shall see is a growing problem. When the vehicle is in motion, this switch toggles between exactly two settings: “Auto” (switched on after dark using the ambient light sensor) and “low beams” as shown above. There is no “Off” setting available, nor is there a parking light-only mode. Essentially if it is dark out, your headlights will be on.
At first, I thought that this was all this switch did – toggle between Auto and On. But if the vehicle is stopped, you get two more choices to toggle between – “Off” and “Parking Lights” as shown in the photo above. However, (and this is key), if you select Off or Parking Lights, the setting will switch to “Auto” once the vehicle starts moving, so again no driving in the dark with no headlights. Lastly, the headlight setting defaults to “Auto” every time the vehicle is started, regardless of the previously chosen setting.
So I this a good thing or not? I’m sure I will find out in the comments, and I have a hunch how the comments on this post are going to break. But before you start pounding our your response, hear me out:
I see more and more people driving after dark with their headlights off. It’s not that people are more stupid (well, mostly), it is just that there are fewer cues to turn on your lights anymore. When I (and most of us) started driving, there were three ways to know if you were driving after dark without your headlights on:
- You couldn’t see ahead of you.
- You couldn’t see your gauges.
- If all else failed, some kind person would flash their brights to let you know you are being a knucklehead driving with your lights off.
Unfortunately, we can no longer rely on any of these safeguards. Firstly, the rise of LED daytime running lamps means that you are now casting light forward even if your headlights are off, making it harder to discern that your headlights are on or off. Ditto for brighter LED street lighting. Over the past 15 or so years, most cars have moved to continuously illuminated instruments, and obviously, digital LCD instruments are constantly backlit, so you no longer have that visual clue to tell you you need to turn on your headlights. And strangers seem to be less kind anymore, especially if they are being bedazzled by your DRLs.
Lastly, I blame the inconsistent availability of automatic headlights for this phenomenon: Some cars have them and some don’t. Even I sometimes make the assumption that the headlights will turn themselves on when driving a car without them.
So for that reason, I for one welcome our robotic overlords and let them force motorists to turn on their damn headlights after dark. What do you think about this moving of your cheese?
An interesting design choice by Audi, and an excellent job of describing the issues that led to it.
Regarding my thoughts on the subject- While I prefer full control over vehicle systems, I’ve seen an incredible rise in “Ghost cars” over the past ten years. This tells me drivers can’t be counted on to check their headlight settings, so I now prefer that manufacturers build headlight systems that illuminate all lights in the dark.
Daytime running lights were mandated in Canada in 1989 and for good reason. Much of the year is grey and dark, with all kinds of rotten weather tossed in. Before DRLs, I remember the problem of getting motorists to turn their headlights on.
This has led to a problem: in a modern car, the dash lights are illuminated, leading many drivers to believe their full lighting system is on when it is dark. Often it is not. For this reason, automatic headlights are mandated in Canada as of Sept 2021.
My Golf has the traditional German rotary dial to the left and it has automatic lights. I put the switch on automatic and leave it there. It can also be programed turn the lights on when the wipers start. I am so used to this I forgot to turn the lights on in my sister’s Honda Fit, which I was driving at night!
DRL on my 1999 Silverado constantly burned out. Eventually I just didn’t replace them.
The parts store catalogues listed the wrong bulb (3157 or 4157) for those DRLs: same fit, same output, but very much shorter life. Using the correct ultralong-life bulb (4114K) made the burnouts much less frequent.
Yea I found out about the bulb change after wards and then my lights filled up with water and I wasn’t about to spend any money to fix them.
I occasionally use my parking lights when moving my vehicle at night in certain situations, like a campground or other location with people I don’t want to annoy. So the lack of control would bother me. But I’ve become spoiled by the auto lights on our Ford and Toyota, and I notice my wife has the light switch on her VW set to “on” all the time; since they go off when you remove the key and open the door, it’s effectively an auto light setup. Her previous 2001 VW did not turn off the lights automatically, and it was easy to ignore the pleasant warning chime and leave them on when leaving the car. Our new Ford has some kind of rain-sensing wipers but even after almost a year I haven’t figured out the algorithm … somehow controlled by the variable wiper setting. I tend to adjust (override) it frequently as needed based on speed and rain intensity. By the way, my unscientific observation is that one of the vehicles I see most often unlighted after dark is the Honda Odyssey.
The Buick has a simple knob for off-auto-parking-on, and I think I’ve used it 3 or 4 times in 3 years, mainly to turn the full lights on when it’s raining but not dark enough to kick the auto lights on. I’d be totally fine with the Audi control.
Your Buick switch works the same as on my Camry Hybrid (described in more detail below), except GM wisely makes OFF spring-loaded, so you have to deliberately choose that mode for your current driving cycle.
You know… I don’t know if I’ve ever actually turned them off.
That sounds like the the exact same knob that I have in my Cadillac.
In my car though, if I turn on the wipers during the day, the full headlamps will turn on automatically also after the wipers make a certain number of sweeps (I forget exactly how many).
I’ll wager that your car does the same. Try it next time!
Put me on the leave-set-it-on-auto camp. I get so frustrated with drivers in heavy rain with no lights. Not to mention the aforementioned after dark drivers with lights out.
No drive-in movies for that Audi! It’s worth it, though. I see many, many unlit cars driving through the evening hours. Their DRLs are not illuminated, as your photos show, so that may be less of a factor. I’d also blame the high level of night lighting in urban areas, where the road is lit so well as you start a drive from a city street or condo driveway, then drive into dark territory. This is a real problem, seemingly more dangerous than some recall flaws.
Why no drive-in movies…? Do people really have the engine running for the duration of the movie, with the car in gear and the parking brake released?
Because you aren’t supposed to drive to or from your space with your headlights on.
That sounds completely unimportant, so…oh well, I guess that ‘rule’ is going to have to change. Or not; either way, it’s nullified by the way cars are built. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is a good reason for the policy, to allow others to see the movie if you come in late or have to leave early.
Of course the number of drive ins has been dwindling for years and the last time I went to the last one in my area it didn’t exactly draw the newest cars.
I immediately thought of those poor drive-in theatres too. Another new-car feature that is driving them berzerk, just as with door lock/unlock chirps.
How many Drive In Movie theaters are left in North America? Less than 500 is my guess.
There’s that. Also, the convenience of the approximately twelve people who still go to drive-in movies is less important than traffic safety for everyone in the entire country.
It’s common courtesy and very helpful to turn off headlamps in many situations.
Including:
Negotiating parking lot or tight alley.
When a vehicle is backing and driver needs good mirror view.
When a vehicle is backing and is front-to-front with another vehicle that’s moving forward. If the forward moving vehicle leaves lamps on the backing vehicle’s driver is blinded.
When trucks are being loaded by wheeled machine, if all headlamps in the area are turned off except for the loading machine’s it’s typically a much safer operation. Once an equipment cab of glass it “lit up” operator’s vision goes to almost nothing, takes time to recover. Typically operator will stop until an odd clueless lights-on one figures it out. That includes the pickup or passenger vehicle that occasionally needs to be at the site.
So even for “civilian” vehicles it’s better to give the driver lamp control.
Not everybody drives only in the Primrose Lane environment that some designers and regulators seem to want to singularly spec for.
My 08 Honda has an auto setting, which I don’t use. The ‘auto’ will often switch on the lights when you don’t expect it, and simultaneously dim the sat-nav screen – for short periods. Alternating in some conditions between on and off. My wife’s 2016 Honda has a switch that looks the same, but you cannot select ‘off’, so the lights do go on or off at will – for example if there are a few trees overhanging the road. If you had left the switch on main beam the night before, then you can end-up flashing oncoming drivers without realising it.
I prefer control over my vehicle, so I’m in the give me a switch camp, but as you have noted it seems like I see more and more people driving without their lights on when they should be on.
A common one that I see in my area is during foggy conditions or a daytime snow squall. Drivers should have their lights on but at least 25% don’t and I’m going to blame it on the fact that they are used to their lights being automatic and not thinking about turning them on during inclement weather when it’s too bright out for the sensor to turn them on automatically.
I guess my vote ends up in the category of: give me a switch, but also give me the option of automatic lights that have some kind of intelligence behind them to sense out of the ordinary weather to make the road an overall safer place.
We do police work with automobiles, so sometimes we don’t want the headlights announcing our presence. We’re also Americans, so we don’t have to be police to make that determination. We also know when we want headlights on and when we want them off. This is more technological nonsense; additional maintenance that’s not needed.
Don’t police vehicles already have a “stealth mode” that not only turns off headlights, but interior lights as well?
Yes.
More and more of “us” are incapable of determining if or should our lights be on. I’m all for auto headlights.
I was never a DRL fan, but when I got the Saab convertible you have no choice – headlights and all exterior lights are always on when the car is running. Apparently it’s a safety feature. And yes I’ve annoyed people pulling in to my spot at the drive-in, and even during the Christmas light slow cruises. I have no choice whether they’re on, so they’ll get over it.
Is this, like, the “royal we”?
To further complicate the issue at least here in California you must turn on your headlights when you turn on your wipers.
One of my pet peeves is people who drive with their parking lights on and headlights off.
Automakers spend millions of $$ on compliance with our emissions standards (which by the way I fully support). So why don’t they configure our headlights to come on with the wipers?? None of our cars, all built since this has been the law in California, have that feature. It’s got to be a trivial circuit if not just SW. It can include a delay so you’re not flashing your lights every time you swipe or wash the windshield. Grrr ….
Most Ford products built in the last ten years or so with automatic headlamps will automatically illuminate when the wipers are on. On those with automatic wipers, they come on after the wipers have been on for 30 to 60 seconds. I’ve heard of other makes doing the same.
Our 2013 and 2016 Peugeots do the same; as did the recently-departed 2006 Pug.
It actually started 20 years ago as our 2001 Grand Marquis had lights with wipers.
The Korean built Buick Encore that was my last rental had a delay that turned the headlights on with the wipers, but a few quick swipes did not trigger it. Even with the headlights not in auto this feature still worked.
This shift away from olde-tyme switching setups is being driven by a requirement in the UN (formerly “European”) Regulations that apply to vehicles and equipment pretty much everywhere except the American regulatory island. You are exactly right about the causes and effects involved in the problem.
For many years, all of the vehicle’s visibility systems were controlled directly or indirectly by the driver, who switched the headlamps on and off (and the instrument panel, licence plate, front and rear position, and sidemarker lights along with them), selected high or low beam, and activated the windshield wipers and washers as necessary. Those kinds of tasks have been automated over the years, to varying degree—and that variance has grown large enough to make problems. Some cars do and some don’t automatically switch on the headlamps or change from DRLs to full lamps with the rear and side conspicuity lights when it gets dark out.
That used to be a self-solving problem; drivers in cars without automatic lights would sooner or later find themselves driving in the dark: no instrument lights, no pool of light on the road ahead, and sometimes opposing or following drivers would flash their lights. All of that was usually enough to jog any but the the most oblivious driver’s attention and they’d hit the light switch and drive on, properly lit. If not, they were probably drunk or otherwise impaired, and eventually the unlit car would attract a police officer’s attention.
But today’s mix of automation and infotainment has thrown sand in those gears. For one thing, as you note, there’s nothing such as a dark dashboard any more. Most cars have instrument panels and consoles, touchscreens, and a panorama of other controls and displays illuminated whenever the car’s running. So, subtract that from the toolbox for indicating to the driver that he’s dark after dark (and let’s be realistic: telltales don’t work. Drivers do not know, care, or think about what a little green pictogram of a light on their dashboard might mean).
Most cars have daytime running lights, too—whether dedicated LED items or modified operation of the headlamps—so the driver sees his lights reflected in the vehicle in front on the road, or in the wall or window in front of the parking space: remove that from the toolbox, too. And really, how many drivers can reasonably be expected to go, “Hey, this oncoming car has its DRLs lit, not its nighttime headlamps; I’ll blink my lights at them to let them know!”? Remove that last tool from the box.
So now the toolbox is empty, and the result is cars driving round after dark with inadequate, unsafe lighting.
UN Regulation № 48—which, again, is applicable pretty much everywhere except North America—now requires one of the following (the same pick-one-of-these-three requirement has been added to Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standard № 108, but not to the US regulation):
• Fully-automatic light management wherein the vehicle switches from DRLs to full headlamps with position lights (parking/tail/etc) at a certain ambient light threshold, or
• Have the tail lights lit with the DRLs, or
• Not illuminate the dashboard unless the headlights are on.
The first one is a good solution; the other two are not. Here’s why: the always-lit dashboard is not likely to go away any time soon; today’s instrument panels are far too integral to the vehicle’s general controls (HVAC, sound system, etc) to render them invisible until the driver switches on the lights. Besides, this would aggravate a problem that’s existed for decades: faced with a dark dashboard, thoughtless drivers slap at the headlight switch until the dashboard lights up. That’s the position (park/tail) lights and sidemarkers, not the headlamps. Unfortunately, North American regulations are written such that the dashboard must illuminate when the position lights are lit, and the DRLs must not extinguish unless the headlamps are switched on. So the driver gropes at the headlight switch to light the dashboard, giving position lights plus DRLs. Better than total darkness to sides and rear, but still inadequate for the driver (and the pedestrians on the route) and dangerously glaring to other drivers.
Having the tail and sidemarker lights lit with the DRLs amounts to the same thing but without the driver’s lackadaisical sweeps at the headlight switch: a perfect recipe for a sharp increase in cars driving round at night with tail and sidemarker lights (good) and DRLs (bad), and even stronger false signal to the driver that the car has “automatic lights” (bad).
One might object in principle to the notion of figuratively wiping the driver’s butt, assuming that anyone enough of an adult to earn a driving licence should be expected to operate a motorcar correctly. That’s a fair point when made by those who also insist they should get to manually switch on the brake lights every time they go to slow down or stop (and switch them off again every time they’re done with the brakes), and manually switch the turn blinkers on-off, on-off-, on-off, on-off as long as necessary, every time. That said, I am far too familiar with the resentment and hatred provoked by getting in a losing battle with a car that’s been (badly) programmed to think it knows best what I really want (that’s high on the long list of reasons I don’t like my 2007 Accord, but my objection is to the implementation, not the concept; I’d be fine if the car weren’t wrong so often and in so many dumb ways).
Appropriate user interface design calls for making correct operation of the machine as intuitive as possible—the path of least resistance, requiring less thought and effort to get right than to get wrong. Drivers get the lights wrong too often, so the right way to solve the problem without creating new ones is to remove the driver completely from the task. The car activates daytime lights in the daytime, nighttime lights after dark. The technology to do this is simple, cheap, and reliable; we’ve had it for many years. All that stands in the way is automaker desire to monetise every last little bit of the car that isn’t strictly required by law. That is a simple fact of automakers’ fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders, and that is why mandatory automatic lights are the only reasonable, rational, realistic solution.
Special circumstances can be catered for as needed—for example, even in Europe and Canada where automatic DRLs are required, there’s a provision in the reg allowing automakers to let the driver switch off the DRLs, provided they come back on once the vehicle has travelled 100 metres or its speed exceeds 10 km/h (I think are the figures), whichever comes first. That allows for the likes of military bases with turn-lights-off-when-approaching-guard-booth requirements, if automakers choose to provide this switch-off capability.
And for the matter of that, the highly reputable team at Rensselaer Polytechnic’s Lighting Research Center have shown a clear benefit (fewer crashes) of “headlamps on when wipers are on” laws. With the reduced visibility and increased light scatter caused by rain and snow, low beams are the appropriate front lights; DRLs are inappropriate, and side and rear lighting is crucial. Therefore, it ought to be required that automakers add one or two lines of code (at most) to their body control modules such that the full lights, on low beam, come on if the windshield wipers are activated for more than a short duration. This, like automatic day and night lighting, is inexpensive, low-hanging fruit for reducing the frequency and severity of traffic crashes.
(So are amber rear turn signals, though, and those aren’t mandatory in the States despite a mountain of data supporting them, so there’s that.)
Thanks for taking the time to type this out Daniel. It’s an excellent read. I agree with you on the three options fro UN Regulation № 48. The other two options besides the auto lights make no sense. As much as I still like the good old fashion mechanical pull out headlight switch that I can control, on modern cars these automatic lights make a lot of sense. I also think programing the headlights to come on with wipers should be standard across the board.
Somewhat related, I remember when I learned to drive, my parents always taught us to drive with our headlights on on the highway for improved visibility. I also recall my Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon had automatic headlights. It had a light sensor on the dash pad that would turn the lights on in the low light situations. When it got older, the light sensor fell inside the dash, so the headlights stayed on anytime the car was running.
…in accord with Scripture.
What I most miss from the mechanical pull-out headlamp knob it that you could twist it to the side to turn on the interior dome lamp. The big knob on the dash was always easy to feel around for and find; not so the tiny switch on the roof that controls that function nowadays.
Amen, hallelujah, PREACH!
+2
+1
Audi is ahead of the curve. I would imagine that, sooner or later, a default auto-headlight setting will be regulated into existance, due to the increase in people driving around with their headlights off in the dark because of the reasons stated in the text, and it will be accelerated by a few after-dark fatalities that can be directly linked to someone’s headlights not being on. The logic is sound.
With that said, I sure hope they never make auto high-beams mandatory. That one’s a real PIA and I waste no time in turning it off.
I’ll second your dislike of the auto high-beams. My rental Fusion had them, and a terrible sense of timing. Turning onto a darkened road with distant traffic approaching confused the system into blinding oncoming drivers. Definitely not a well-implemented design.
I like auto lights. In my current car, although my gauges are dimly lit all the time, they get brighter when the lights come on and the illumination around other minor controls comes on, too, so I can tell if my headlights have come on (I have daytime running lights on all the rest of the time, as I’m in the UK).
My auto lights don’t necessarily come on if it’s raining, but you can select an option in the control system menu to have the lights come on when the wipers are active, which I’ve done. It all works well.
I heard somewhere that daytime running lights may be brighter than headlights, as DRLs have to be seen in daylight. In other words, they can be inappropriately bright at night, so there’s an extra reason for auto headlights being beneficial.
When I started driving (nearly fotty year ago) I used to use the speedometer to judge when it was dark. The Beetle I learnt to drive in had some of the best headlights I’ve ever experienced.
We’re getting automatic speed limiting in the UK, soon, but no one’s realized, yet. I can’t wait for the fun to begin.
It does seem to pander to idiocy or sloth not to require a driver to make that onerous reach and heaving effort to turn a knob, but truth is, it’s a perfectly good idea.
Humans are prone to error: totally distracted by, say, bad personal news, even a perfectly conscientious driver can still drive off through lit suburban streets having forgot to light up till it’s too late. As the post here says, most modern vehicles have 11 screens including two movies and a videophone next to the Los Vegas lightshow of instruments shining away as soon as you hit the outside doorhandle, so the forgetting can simply be by way of distraction.
Every single person I know who got a new-ish car with auto lights of varying kinds found them a bit silly for the first day or so – and all have never turned it to off ever since. The Audi job described is just adapting further to that reality.
Humans are indeed prone to error – as are modern cars. Switching on headlamps briefly when something blocks out the sun – opening all the windows when your back is turned – applying the brakes automatically when the driver doesn’t expect it.
Too much is controlled by chips, and they have a mind of their own.
Personally I don’t like daytme running lights as they can make indicators harder to see.
Doen’t happen with all designs of course, but some. But that may be the one that knocks you down.
There’s a ready solution for that, which many carmakers now incorporate: Extinguish the DRL on the side where the indicators are activated. Some people hate this for some reason, so with LEDs, even they can be satisfied: Amber flashing lights replace the steady white lights in the same housing when the turn signal on that side is activated.
*Raises hand*
To this day when I’m facing these cars at a light my eye is drawn to the super bright solid light white LEDs rather than the extinguished side with the instant on/off flashing amber, this system would work better with a decay so the signal side takes visual prominence. It always makes me think one of their LEDs broke rather than they’re signaling for a turn.
I largely blame Audi for the problem in the first place, they the the first to use the ugly DRL eyeliner strips that cast a light that literally every automaker has since shamelessly copied. To me this should be far more scandalous to the non-issue of unintended acceleration in 1000s.
I have no problem making autolamp mandatory in cars, my Cougar has it and it being my first car I’ve basically never not used it. Taking away the ability to override it is bullshit though. The no lights on at night problem isn’t deliberate, it’s from obliviousness facilitated by fashionably lit dashboards and running lights, there’s no reason to take away user ability to control headlights. Why not just mandate a warning chime and flashing light to signal drivers to turn on the headlights on if the car senses it’s dark, ala seatbelts? The sensor(s) are already there for the auto climate control and autolamps to share the task.
I’ve given a lot of thought to the optimal headlight switch, though of course not as much as Daniel! I agree with what he’s written above.
I think Audi has pretty much come up with the ideal solution, except for possibly adding a provision for turning off the lights entirely (or going to parking lights only) for driving short distances at low speed (the guard booth, drive-in, or campground situations).
Also, if VW/Audi haven’t already done it, add the automatic activation of low beams plus all position lights whenever the wipers are activated for more than a few seconds. This last provision should effectively eliminate the possibility of having only DRLs on when it rains or snows with high ambient light.
Needless to say, humans are fallible — I can think of a few occasions where I was driving with no lights (this was before DRLs): during sudden but brief thunderstorms when the weather had been bright and sunny, and into evening twilight 20 minutes after sunset (clear skies) when I THOUGHT I had turned my lights on at the beginning of the drive.
Yeah, including the ones who design and configure cars. When Toyota chose to equip the new 2014 Corolla with very good LED low beams as standard equipment, that was an enormous industry-first milestone. Good for them, but they carelessly fumbled the headlamp switch configuration in a manner practically guaranteed to degrade safety. The headlamp switch has positions as follows:
• Off (not present on Canadian-spec cars)
• DRL (reduced-intensity lower beams with no other lights)
• Park (reduced-intensity lower beam DRLs plus parking/tail/side marker/licence lights)
• On (low or high beams at full intensity depending on position of beam selector, plus parking/tail/side marker/licence/instrument panel lights).
The car is not equipped with an ambient-light sensor or any other lighting system automation. It does not have a DRL telltale on the instrument cluster, or any other way of discerning DRL-with-ancillaries from low beam-with-ancillaries, except if you’re one of perhaps a few dozen lighting experts who pay attention and happen to notice the intensity difference between DRL and ON modes.
This means the average driver, when it gets dark, will fiddle with the switch until the instrument cluster lights up…and that means they’ve got reduced-intensity headlamps compared to their intended power in the “ON” position, which means the driver has less seeing light than they should. Given the many pedestrian deaths that result from inadequate seeing distance provided by even high-performance low beams, it was irresponsible of Toyota to make it so easy to misuse the lights in this manner.
If Toyota believed some American customers want the option to disable the vehicle’s DRLs bcuz freedom or something, a more thoughtful choice that wouldn’t have cost any more to implement would have been to configure the headlamp switch positions like this:
• Off (same)
• DRL (DRLs only – dashboard not lit)
• Park (parking/tail/side marker/licence/dashboard lights—no DRLs)
• On (low or high beams at full intensity depending on position of beam selector, plus parking/tail/side marker/licence/dashboard lights).
That wasn’t Toyota’s only controls fuckup on that car, either; one of the others could easily have got me shot, if I were a different colour, when I was stopped by a police officer in Minnesota while driving a rental ’15 Corolla.
I’m surprised about that Corolla rental. On all my newer Toyotas, including a former Prius and current Camry Hybrid, both equipped with auto headlights, the switch functions are as follows:
• Off (except instrument panel lights on)
• AUTO (dedicated DRLs plus IP lights with no other lights in daylight, but same as ON in darkness)
• Park (dedicated DRLs plus IP lights with parking/tail/side marker/licence lights)
• ON (low or high beams at full intensity depending on position of beam selector, plus all in the Park position)
The big problem here is the full OFF position — if Toyota must provide “freedom,” then at least make OFF spring-loaded, as GM does, so you have to deliberately choose OFF for that driving cycle; the spring moves the switch back to AUTO, which is the default for the next time the ignition is activated.
Basically, modern lighting regulations are not fit for purpose. I see Audis with wonderful “designer” brake lights – and pathetic tiny rear indicators that you’re not going to notice because you’re busy admiring the brake lights. Many cars have front indicators tucked in by the dipped beams where you hardly see them.
As for the variety of overly-bright “designer” front DRLs, mixed with other DRLs with dim short-lived tungsten bulbs (entry level VWs), and the habit of many UK & Irish drivers of using fog lights 24/7 . . .
You’re absolutely right that the regs (both the American regs and the international UN/”European” regs used everywhere else) are severely deficient in exactly the way you mention: American rear indicators are allowed to be nothing more than the brake light flashing on and off. If they’re separate, they can still be red (or yellow, at the automaker’s preference), and they can be as small and dim as the reg allows, even if the brake light is much bigger and brighter.
In the rest of the world, the rear indicators have to be yellow, but they’re allowed to be much smaller and dimmer than in America—down to invisibly small and/or dim if it’s even a moderately bright day out.
Front indicators mounted within a certain distance of the low beams, front fog lamps, or DRLs have to be brighter than indicators not so close to those lamps, which is the right spirit, but the actual requirement doesn’t go far enough; you’re right there, too.
Front fog lamps are basically useless except as primary glare providers (and bling to sell cars with).
Great, another sensor to fail. I’d rather see daytime headlights at the default with a manual “off” switch that can be overridden by a sensor if it gets too dark outside. And why do we still have parking lights? I’ve never seen a car use them to park; I only see people use them at dusk or during rain and snow when they should be using their regular headlights.
Parking light is an American term for what are formally called front position lights. They have never been “used to park”; they have always been for advertising the presence of a car near—but not in—traffic. Until 1967, on most vehicles they switched off when the headlamps came on; for 1968 the parkers were required to remain lit with the headlamps so a vehicle with a burned-out headlamp would not be mistaken for a (much narrower) motorcycle. That is their chief function today.
They’re never appropriate as the only lights lit while driving, though, you’re right.
Way back when before front position lights were a thing they were used for parking in parking lots and they were white for that reason. My F-1 had them and they did do a good job of illuminating the area immediately in front of the truck.
Folk history is fun, but they were white not to help you park your truck in parking lots—they were never intended to provide seeing light—but because colour convention of that time held sway: white = front, red = rear. Amber was added as a permissible colour for them when the auto industry adopted amber front turn signals on US-market vehicles for 1963.
How will you turn your headlights on for funeral processions?
I wish my auto-dimming mirrors had an override switch so I could dim the tailgating pickup’s headlights before dark.
Two decades ago, I followed another Olds Intrigue out of the Baltimore Tunnel, and our auto lights shut off at the exact same spot. That shouldn’t have surprised me enough to remember.
Lights-on-for-funeral hasn’t been a thing in many years, not since DRLs came in.
Living not too far from a cemetery I assure you headlights on for a funeral procession is still a thing. It is done for a reason and that is so the escort knows which car is the last in the line and when they can remount and make their way to the next intersection where they need to stop traffic. Yes DRLs make it a little harder for them but it is still done.
Here they use coreplast “FUNERAL” placards secured between hood and left fender. Been that way for years.
One more issue – cars that have auto high beams won’t allow you to flash your high beams at oncoming drivers. So if they are blinding you with their highs you can’t return the favor. Also, if they only have their DRLs on, the high beams can’t signal them to turn on their lights.
You also can’t turn off your lights – which is my go to for people driving without lights – to alert people because, as you stated, there is no off when in motion.
I have long noted that the car most commonly seen without headlights on when they should be are Priuses. And I suspect it’s intentional, that people are trying to get as much MPG as possible. Though I could be convinced Prius drivers are more clueless than average.
Cars with auto high beams still have working manual high/low beam selector switches—that is a legal requirement.
Why not make the lights come on at start up and provide a manual shutoff should the need arise? With every car illuminated, insurance rates should go down, but maybe the insurance companies like things the way they are.
I’ve had automatic spark advance on all my cars and now I am used to all the forward gears having syncromesh. Anything more is needless. Recall the days of hand choke and throttle controls on some postwar cars, especially Chevrolets. Actually owned a 1960 Renault that could be started with a crank and also had a primer lever on the fuel pump, just in case. Never had to use the crank even with a dead battery though since I lived on a hill. Started it that way everyday for a couple of weeks. Those were the days. Even the too-expensive “gasoline” doesn’t last long these days. Didn’t drive much last winter. Stalling now. Back in the day, I could have “finessed” it. The CVT doesn’t like to slip either, hard to keep the idle speed up.
I have mixed feelings on this. As one with two cars with two different lighting characteristics (one with a dash lit all the time, one not) I have made the mistake of driving at night without my lights on. However, in my experience all automatic systems are designed to deal with MOST situations. No system can deal with ALL situations, and so there will inevitably be problems with the auto systems.
I would like the idea of an override that would be effective until the car is shut down and restarted. But alas, we get more and more nannies whether we want/need them or not.
I used the auto system on the Fords of the 80s-90s I had that were so equipped, but it would fail to turn the lights on for cloudy rainy days.
There is a lot of merit to this kind of setup. It’s now required for rear fog lamps in UN Reg № 48 (rest-of-world except North America): the rear fog lamps, once switched on, must switch off when the park/tail lights are switched off—that is, we’re done with the lights because the trip is over and we’re about to get out of the car—and the rear fogs must then remain switched off until they are deliberately activated again. The alternative is an audiovisual warning if the ignition key is removed and the driver’s door opened with the rear fogs switched on.
I would argue this is a good start, but doesn’t go far enough. It should apply to front and rear fog lamps. The front ones should also switch off automatically above 35 mph, which is about 10 mph faster than the maximum even arguably-useful speed for these lamps.
Some newer Fords do cycle the fog lights off with ignition cycles.
Driving is a lot less fun these days and too expensive. Drivers ought to be driving automobiles, not automobiles driving drivers. Much of the modern safety and conservation stuff on cars is good. Some not good.
Cars have never been cheaper.
My Eos has an auto position on the light switch. I leave it in auto and the headlights (and dash lights) go on when ambient light dims – very useful when going through tunnels. Oddly, whenever I get it back from service, it is always switched to manual. I must ask them why. Anyway, it’s a great feature.
My wife’s Evoque is even better. It has auto high beams and they seem to work very well – i. e. nobody flashes to indicate the high beams are on. The system seems to be set to go on and off at just the right moment.
“whenever I get it back from service, it is always switched to manual” is because when they drive your car into a dark garage, the auto lights turn on. And they stay on the entire time they’re working on your car with the engine running and stay on for a brief moment after they turn the engine off. Most annoying, It’d be like Gul Madred asking you how many lights there are.
That puts me in the mood for some live Tuspa.
There are FOUR lights!
I like to drive with both front and rear lights on, even during the day. When we got our 1998 Subaru Outback Sport I was very pleased that the lights were switched through the ignition, so they went out when you turned the car off. Very good for someone like me with a history of leaving lights on, so no more flat batteries. It did have a separate switch on the top of the steering column (behind the wheel) that was only for the parking lights, and was not linked to the ignition. It was something I had no use for and almost forgot it was there, until one day the dust got too thick on the instruments and I cleaned the display. Inadvertently I also hit the switch for the parking lights, resulting in a flat battery the next morning. You can’t save people from themselves.
The devil’s in the details, and there are a lot of devillish details in this what you write. It seems logical that having the front and rear lights on all the time must be a good thing, but one of the things the world’s not very good at is operating according to what we like to think of as ‘common sense’. In daylight, having the taillights on reduces the brake lights’ on/off contrast, particularly in systems with the same lit area (just brighter/dimmer) for the brake and tail light functions. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re more likely to be hit that way, just that we can’t assume lights on necessarily means less crash risk.
Also, that switching arrangement on Subarus like yours surely seems convenient—just leave the headlamp switch on and have the full lights go on and off with the ignition—but this drove Subaru to use long-life headlight bulbs, which give significantly poorer seeing distance and width than standard bulbs even when new, and last (i.e., keep lighting up to some degree) long enough to lose a giant proportion of their original output. Long-life brake/tail bulbs, too, which also last long enough to grow very dim relative to their original, intended output. H’mm, now the safety effect isn’t quite so clearly or necessarily beneficial as it seemed at first, eh! Moreover, having the light circuits energised all the time hammers the filaments hard; there’s a spike on the line every time the engine is started or stopped. So you’re more likely to have a burned out bulb than if the lights are switched on after the engine is started, and switched off before the engine is stopped. Oops, now we’re exerting less-than-obvious influences on safety again!
Zooming out from Subarus in particular to cars in general: you say you like to drive with full lights on during the day. Keep in mind that DRLs do a better job than low beam headlamps of making your car adequately conspicuous to relevant others. Yes, low beams are still legal as DRLs (in North America), but their safety performance as DRLs is quite inferior to that of dedicated DRLs or turn signal DRLs.
Nothing is simple is it. I was aware of degradation in lenses and reflectors, but I never thought about the output of bulbs decreasing with age. Once DRL came in, my concern was more to have the rear lights on during the day so I continued using full lights all the time. Maybe I should reconsider.
Carmakers like long-life bulbs, particularly in the American market, because they keep people from demanding new bulbs under the new-vehicle warranty. That’s about their only advantage. The filament configuration required to make a long-life bulb tends to reduce the luminance and beam focus, which shortens seeing distance and makes the light browner. The opposite filament changes are made to create high-luminance “Plus” (+30, +50, +80, +90, +100, +120…) types of bulbs: Lifespan is shorter, but the beam focus is better so seeing distance is longer and beam coverage is wider. Light color is whiter and less brown. And practically the lifespan difference is less stark than it might seem, because the long-life bulbs not only start out dimmer, but they last (i.e., keep lighting up) long enough to lose, as I say, quite a bit of their original output. The higher-performing bulbs burn out before they drop much of any intensity. So it’s a question of how we define the bulb’s (useful) lifespan.
The attached page from a Hella technical paper goes into some detail on the performance difference between a standard bulb and a “plus” bulb. When it was written in 1997, the state of the art was +30, so this is a comparison between a standard and a +30 bulb. Additional research and development has brought us to the present where we have both longer-life and higher-luminance bulbs than could be had 24 years ago, making the beam-coverage difference much bigger.
This won’t continue forever; there are certain hard physical limits of the technology. And a bigger plus-number doesn’t necessarily mean a better bulb overall; many of the +130 and +150 bulbs have more and deeper blue tint on the bulb glass, especially in the area surrounding the high beam filament. Any amount of blue filtration sharply reduces the amount of light reaching the road in exchange for no benefit at all except a bogus appeal to fashion.
But wait, more devillary details: not all blue tint on bulb capsules reduces the driver’s seeing light; sometimes it increases it. How? Well, some of the best of the high-luminance halogen bulbs (+120, etc) have a blue ring just below the tip. The marketers point to it and babble about making a fashion statement with your headlamps, but it’s really there for a stealthier reason: to cut the total spherical output of the bulb down to legal levels as tested in an integrating sphere (the machine used to measure light output from a bulb to determine if it falls within the legally required range). The blue ring filters a part of the bulb that has nothing to do with beam formation because it’s not located between the filament and the reflector. So it cuts down on the total light output from the bulb when all directions are considered, as in the sphere, without reducing the light output in the relevant directions as in the headlamp. In other words, the filament is pumping mad lumens through the uncoloured glass where the reflector is looking. Clever trick that works!
I don’t understand why automakers are still using incandescent bulbs in 2021 rather than LEDs. Well, maybe I do… although my experience with residential LED light bulbs is that while they don’t inherently “burn out” after a given time as do incandescent bulbs, they do often fail over time. Just last week I came home to a front porch LED bulb that was blinking on and off. LEDs are electronic devices that light up, and like other electronics, they sometimes break.
Automakers are still using incandescent bulbs because LEDs still cost more.
My 2018 Subaru Forester has excellent adaptive LED headlights which are very effective when driving in rural areas. The light switch has 4 positions, OFF, PARK, AUTO and ON. Being in Canada it has DRL, but the rear lights are not on unless the headlights are on. Because of this I do not use the AUTO setting during the day, but instead use the ON position. This dims the instruments, so I have to adjust them to the maximum brightness. Then when it gets dark I have to set the instrument lighting back to the lower level and also switch to AUTO, as the adaptive function of the headlights does not function in the ON position. This is a lot of futzing about just to get the rear lights on during daylight.
Rear lights on in daylight isn’t necessarily better/safer; see above and maybe decide to do less futzing 🤓
Yep. Both my Crown Vic and “my” Great Dane trailer have the (to me infuriating) Red American Confusion Lights, so, especially in the truck, I try not to put the lights on unless strictly necessary. The Freightliner pulling the trailer has unswitchoffable front position lights anyway.
I hate driving at night and somebody signals and brakes at the same time and there’s a second or so before I can establish what their intentions actually are.
The regulators know, they just refuse to do their job about it. “Well, we’d get pushback from industry” one of them said to my face. Oh, sorry, silly me, here I thought you were the regulator and they were the regulatee. 🤬🤯
The biggest fail I have seen on auto light systems is not coming in the rain, mist and fog. If they could be linked to wiper use, may be that would be reduced. Or may be the sensitivity needs recalibrating?
All my cars have had manual lights (and wipers). Frankly, it seems the easiest solution, linked to some driver education.
“Not illuminate the dashboard (ie speedo) unless the headlights are on” should work, along with cannot drive on park lights//side lights (the quaint UK term or them).
Whenever I’ve used them, auto wipers have either gone faster than seemed necessary or left me wondering if they were going to wipe at all. Speaking personally, I’ve never found wiping and washing a screen a great chore or something I’d forget to do.
And if I’d paid Audi money for a Q3, I’d not expect to blank switches by the headlight control.
I love rain sensing wipers and I won’t buy a car without them again. In my cars with them they have worked perfectly. Sometimes when it is pouring I do have to drop the wiper stalk down into ultra speed, Because they seem reluctant to do that. But 90% of the time they work great. When I drive a car with manual wipers, I am constantly adjusting the intermittent speed and turning the wipers on and off manually it drives me crazy. VS. just dropping the stalk to Auto and letting the sensor do all the work for me. Especially in Memphis where it can be pouring one minute and then sprinkling the next minute and go back to pouring again.
I am surprised no one has mentioned that in most cars as in the case of my 2010 Lexus. When you have the light switch in the off position at night. The gauge cluster and the infotainment screen are illuminated in “Daytime Mode” which is extremely bright and distracting to overcome sunlight, Much brighter than nighttime mode. I don’t know how drivers can stand this and not know something is amiss. Also, the other buttons and knobs in the car are not lit so it should be obvious the lights are not on.
Now that that rant is over. I don’t have any problems with Audi’s system. I think it’s good that it still allows you to turn on your low beam lights manually.
My Lexus has auto lights but I still turn them on manually when it’s raining or when the sun is setting, So people can see my taillights against the sunset. IMO they dont turn on until it is dark. And it is not easy to adjust the sensitivity of the Auto lights. (It requires techstream and its a hassle)
That brings me to my next point. I see many Japanese cars in the rain without their lights on. Toyota and Lexus seem to be the biggest offenders here. Because they don’t have wiper activated headlights. And the driver just assumes that because they have Automatic headlights that they never need to touch the headlight switch again! And that the lights will always be on when they need to be on. Or they just say that their DRLs are sufficient for rain driving and taillights aren’t necessary. Which is stupid.
I have noticed that most American cars have wiper activated headlights. And I know that the 1998-2003 Cadillac Seville, in particular that had a warning message that popped up on the info display that said something like “HEADLIGHTS SUGGESTED” when a driver drove in the dark with the headlights off. What a brilliant idea!
I still think that Volvo had the best system on my 2007 XC90. The low beams and taillights were on all the time. Even with the knob in the “0” (off) position. The only way to turn the low beams off was to switch to the parking lights. So no matter what you could not turn the taillights off when driving.
Not all cars have the Lexus daytime ultra-bright gauge lighting. My 2007 VW dash is the same brightness in off/DRL mode as it is when the headlights are on.
I have no issue with auto lights. Actually I love them and dislike when a car doesn’t have them. What I do dislike is a tactile knob or stalk being replaced by a button. You can no longer ‘feel’ your way around an unfamiliar car. Now you have to take your eyes off if the road to find basic controls. Same reason I prefer an ‘idrive’-style knob to a touch screen.
Touch screens are an inherently shit UI. By their nature, you must commit to an input before you can confirm that it’s the correct one. They suck on laptops and mobile devices, and are insanity in a moving vehicle. It’s darkly hilarious how rapidly they transistioned from “never ever ever under any circumstances touch this while moving” to “hey, let’s run most of the controls through this, and force people to park and wade through drill down menus to do things that used to be simple and easy to do without having to look, while driving.” But of course they don’t park. They zig zag down the road doing 10 under the flow of traffic while they squint and poke at the screen.
And that’s actually trivial compared to the “you don’t own the car you bought, you only paid for the opportunity to use it until we arbitrarily revoke it” extortion scheme which is having critical controls operated through software. Which you are forbidden to even see, let alone repair when it breaks.
As for the topic; there are 3 stone wall dealbreakers for me in any vehicle. Seatbelts that automatically wrap themselves around me, ACC, and lighting circuits which cannot be turned off. All 3 are compromises forced into the market to accommodate people too stupid or lazy to acquire basic proficiency, and too selfish to grasp that their personal convenience is not pertinent. At all. Personal convenience always comes last on any checklist of “what to do in this situation in the presence of other traffic”. The more automation we build into vehicles, the more opportunities we give those people to shirk their responsibility to pay attention and drive cooperatively. They’re already clueless assholes blundering through traffic without a flicker of awarenesss that they might have any obligation beyond not plowing into whatever is directly in front of them. All of the current push toward automation is to make it ever easier for them to pay less and less attention to their surroundings, traffic, and how what they do affects other people.
Automation can give thinking drivers more of their attention dollar to spend on traffic and planning. Trouble is, it gives the stupid, clueless, selfish, and heedless disruptive drivers both the permission and the ability to be even more stupid, more clueless, more selfish, and pay less heed than they do already, while insulating them from any negative consequences whatsoever from their disruptive actions. Until they plow head on into a center divide barrier because they were busy playing video games and had the automation “driving” the car. Or a parked firetruck with all lights flashing in broad daylight in the middle of a wide straight flat stretch of freeway. Or under a semi-trailer because they just had too danged many other more important things to do than watch where they were going at [checks notes] 100 feet per second.
If adding automation to lighting has created a problem (which it most certainly has), the solution is not “even more automation”. It’s “figure out how to inform the driver of the problem”.
On the bright side, I’m old enough that I’ll probably die or be incapacitated before the market runs out of used cars without all this useless grimcrackery shoveled into them. When I was young, I always wanted the top of the line cars, with AC, power windows, and cruise control. Now when I look at the market, the only ones I’d ever want are the basest stripper models. All they have is AC, CC, and power windows.
All cars should be required to have Automatic Headlights. The switch should be as follows Off, Auto, Parking Light & On. Off should be spring-loaded to return the switch to the Auto Position. This provides an option to turn the lights on or off, but the Auto position is the default. When the wipers are turned on, all lights must turn on automatically.
As several others have pointed out, it’s the lack of consistency between cars that causes confusion. This should be regulated just as PRNDL was regulated for automatic transmissions.
“…This should be regulated just as PRNDL was regulated for automatic transmissions.”
Don’t say that. Last thing we need is a lighting version of PRND
PRND has been a huge flop overshadowed only by its cover-up.
PRND brought us decades of unintended Park-to-Reverse shifts. More accurately unintended shifts from Not-actually-engaged-Park, to-Reverse. Still today some manufacturers are plagued with the malfunction.
Along with the obvious serious problems, billions have been spent on PRND legal costs. One single incident rang the bell with a 50+ million dollar judgement.
The common sense design choice of placing Neutral adjacent to Park would’ve prevented a vast majority of disastrous malfunctions.
My Citroen responds to lo light conditions by turning the headlights on you then cant switch them off with the engine running the go off with the ignition switch or can be turned on manually with the normal rotary stalk switch it predates DRLs and I usually turn the lights on manually for highway driving the car is roadgrime grey in colour so doesnt stand out well
My VW Alltrack S has only ordinary lights, although I can leave them on,and they will turn off automatically when I shut the car off.
As it gets dark, the main gauges will darken along with the ambient light, alerting you to use headlights.
When the car is running in place, pulling the emergency brake turns out the DRL’s for drive-ins or creepy stalker surveillance.
I prefer direct controls, or else automatic systems that I can override myself. I’m in agreement that Toyota product seems the worst.
So is it all on their designs, or is it saying something more about Toyota owners? Are they less drivers and more appliance operators?
Both of my cars have an “Auto” setting for the lighting systems. I leave them in that Auto position all the time. DRL during the day, full lighting at night. No lights on ringer when I exit the car, because the Auto setting is recognized in that it will shut off the lights itself.
Curiously, when I go in for service to some garages, I find the lights set to “Off” upon return of the car. What I don’t understand is, when they are working on my car, with the engine off, the lights go out on their own in something like 30 seconds. If the engine is on, then the daytime running lights would illuminate.
So what’s the big deal the mechanics are trying to solve?
I don’t get it.
Not having them, I polled my sister’s household. So between various Chevy, Ram, Ford and Jeep vehicles, all automatic lights are in “off” when returned to them.
Give me a plunger-type 3-position switch with an integral rotary rheostat dimmer.
I don’t need modules to interface with my lighting needs. In fact, not even a relay is fine, thank you.
When I “off” the lamps or slam the door I want off. If I still see lamps I don’t want to have to hang around to wonder if it’s time-delay, or malfunction that’s going to lead to a dead battery when I return.
That’s why mechanics are “offing” lamps. They don’t want to guess how a myriad of different systems work, and on their watch end up with a dead battery and related memory loss issues.
I might make an exception to desire one frivolous feature; a lamp override switch for a work truck that sees its doors left open. The rest is all BS. Got over Guidematic and Twilight Sentinel decades ago. lol
I am not going to go crazy on the switch issue as that is a new car deal and I much prefer my antiquated transport. What drives me nuts is how many cars I see with a failed bulb or two. Both incandescent brake lights not working with the LED CHMSL half failed and the other half barely flickering is fairly common. Had a couple recently with no brake lights whatsoever. One can almost count on a GM truck having at least one failed DRL. Saw 3 in a row Fri. on the way home from work. All were the right side also. BTW the lower wattage replacement doesn’t work, did it on the Wife’s truck and the new sockets still melted. 2 more sockets and a pair of LEDs solved it. When did you last check all of your lights?
Lower-wattage bulbs were never a right answer to this. And be careful; the overwhelming majority of “LED bulbs” are fraudulent, unsafe, illegal junk—even if they light up and spur a “looks good to me!” reaction.
Thanks for pointing this out. So much LED junk on the road. LED sealed beam headlight replacements are particularly bad due to poor/nonexistant hi/lo beam pattern to annoy oncoming drivers while not illuminating road and reflective signs for the driver.
Actually, the proportion of legitimate LED retrofits is highest in the sealed beam replacement category. There’s a variety of decent-to-excellent ones, aside from the mountain of junk. In “LED bulbs” for cars, it’s very nearly 100 per cent fraudulent, unsafe, illegal trinkets.
My Dodge Challenger has auto headlights that also come on if you turn your wipers on, even the lowest intermittent setting. (It won’t turn the lights on for just a quick swipe or wash.). It’s a 2010, so this isn’t hard to solve. The only improvement it could use is having the OFF setting be spring-loaded – I only use it in car washes. I will admit to use parking light for driving in very limited circumstances- mostly parking garages and campgrounds, but the parking lights are quite large and bright compared to most other cars.
If I got a dollar for each modern car that has passed me during heavy rain, fog or other severe conditions only using its automatic day lights here in Europe (no taillights are lit) I’d be able to retire to the south of France
Problem is people are less and less occupied with driving, them info-tainment systems however are shattered all over the car’s dashboards and steering wheel.
But important driving issues are forgotton, I hate automated cruise control or wipers that start to wipe like hell when 3 raindrops are making your bone dry windshield ‘wet’ .
Hell I am from the Citroën DS generation, the generation where you yourself had to switch off your indicator after a manouvre, this because Citroën issued that this was part of the task ( art ) of driving a motor vehicle and not sitting on your mobile phone at 80 MPH
I was convinced that your pet peeve was something unique to the US. Flashing other drivers to turn on their lights is ignored or met with hostility. It amazes me that they fail to understand that you’re trying to help them be visible to other drivers.
“HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO?! I’M AN AMERICAN; I DO WHAT I WANT! SAYS SO RIGHT IN THE CONSTITUTION, YOU GODDAMN COMMIE! GO ON, FLASH ME AGAIN; I’LL STAND MY GROUND AND SHOOT YOU!”
You got it!
…or “OH YEAH?!! WELL, I CAN FLASH MY LIGHTS, TOO, BUB!”
…or “Um, exCUSE you; I’m in the middle of a very important phone call here, could you please not?”
…or “La la la…I like hamsters, they’re cute…I think I’ll have chicken nuggets tonight…what’s that song that goes meow-meow-meow, meow-meow-meow…”
In both the Toyota Auris hybrid and the Tesla Model S, the auto position is always used, and works fine for us. I never even used the other positions in the Tesla, my wife has a habbit of turning the lights off manually in the Toyota, and put them back in auto again after dak, because stalk. The Tesla solution is way better for me.
Imho, more automation is better.
Day time running lights in Canada has been a huge safety improvement since 1989.
I also really like my auto on headlights. My F 150 dead to turn running lights unless it’s in drive which is perfect at the drive in movies…. (Haven’t been there in many many years. Thanks for the reminder!) I really hate auto dimming option thigh. Barely accurate 50% of the time at best on anything I’ve ever driven. Same with adaptive cruise. Thankfully those have been disabled perminently on my vehicles.
what bugs me are the newer kias and hyundais with big rear brake lights but the turn signals are separate smaller lights way down in the bumper and cant be seen if you are stopped close behind at a traffic light.
BMW had a “dumb” way to comply with Transport Canada DRL requirements. I owned a 1992 e36 325i that was grey market from Canada. The headlight switch had the usual off-park-on positions, but the headlights were on at full brightness whenever the ignition switch was on, period. Not only was useful bulb life reduced, but the plastic headlight lenses actually crazed from the inside due to heat.
Somebody hacked your car; Canadian-spec E36 cars, as built, used reduced-intensity high beams as the DRLs—not the all-lights-on-with-ignition setup you describe. Some dillweed of a previous owner did the same hack on my ’07 Accord when they brought it into Canada from the States, which was extra super dumb because the car was factory-equipped with DRLs fully compliant with Canadian regs (same reduced-intensity high beams as your Bimmer). I undid the hack and regained the use of my light switch.
My US Hyundai was equipped from the factory with Canadian-compliant DRLs…but you could turn them off, which of course is an unspeakable no-no north of the border. So the wiring got hacked to ribbons so that the DRLs, front position lights, side markers, and taillights ALL came on with the ignition, switch position be damned!
This particular car gave me a **huge** number of headaches as an émigré. Most of the Canadian Hyundai dealers I dealt with refused to provide any parts or perform modifications on US-spec cars (instead referring me to Crappy Tire, who referred me back to the dealership in an infinite loop), and basically refused to give the time of day. And of course, I didn’t know of any reputable independent shops willing to do the work.
This was a very early production e36, May 1991 build, with an original Transport Canada sticker in the door jamb. BMW did other odd stuff getting first cars into production. Buying parts was sometimes an adventure.
The factory wiring harness, I discovered, is where the DRL system was done for Canada compliance on those first cars. One published wiring diagram showed this. Some pins on the US style headlight switch were simply not used, or the switch had been replaced at some point in the US. The car started in Canada and was privately imported to the US, not the opposite.
For years Cadillac was the only car with auto lights, the delay feature had some utility. One of my current vehicles has auto lights, start and stop, easy driver’s entrance, proximity key set up. I don’t use the auto lights, disabled the start and stop,and easy driver’s entrance. I don’t like the proximity key, it will open the hatch when the button is pushed by stuff that’s in my pocket. It’s happened when I was over fifty feet away from the vehicle. I had to build a rigid case to house the key that prevents that. I may be old and stupid but I know when to turn the damn wipers on! I find the power tailgate to be such a waste, it’s so much quicker to do it manually. Turn down that music and stay off my grass!
I’ll give Cadillac (and some others) credit for one aspect of the early designs.
The “novelty” lighting harness was usually “tapped” into the basic system with a plug-connected “Y,” if you will.
So when it was time to move on, the novelty part of the circuit could be unplugged and the harness reconnected for standard lamp function without it. The tail didn’t wag the dog, the way today an integrated lighting/body control module might.
One of the most elegant implementations of this sort of thing was on a friend’s 1998 Cadillac Seville. It had a blacked out instrument cluster that was illuminated whenever the key was on, as well as DRL’s. Once light levels dropped, if you hadn’t turned on your headlamps, a message appeared on the main information display. It said “Headlamps Suggested”, and it was your job to turn them on. Perfect.
I *think* the car also had Twilight Sentinel (GM speak for auto headlamps), but if it was not turned on, the message would appear to remind you.
I don’t mind automatic helpers, but I also want to be able to toggle them on or off easily, as there are a number of situations where I specifically want to have complete control over my vehicle’s functions… like pulling up to someone’s bedroom window in an apartment complex parking lot at 1am. I’m a bit of a space cadet, but I’ve always been quick thinking behind the wheel, and fully capable of controlling lights, wipers, turn signals, etc. under all conditions. I understand that it’s not everyone’s forte, but still do question whether they should really be driving when proper operation of a car’s functional and safety systems is a challenge. /end rant
I always leave my lights in “Auto”.
My pet peeves are:
1) mechanics who turn it to “OFF” and never put it back to “Auto” after finishing the work on my car;
2) GM vehicles that have their back up lights to turn on in a crowded parking lot when people exit the vehicle.
Best driving advice I ever had was from my uncle – ‘always be the first to put your lights on’
Not a comment about light switch (or absence thereof) but the light unit itself.
I have a 2000 Golf, and this month came up to state inspection…it is otherwise OK but I noticed some of the “lesser” lighting (i.e. other than high or low beam) in my headlamp stopped working. I almost started to try to fix it, but stopped thinking I could cause a bigger issue that might require me to replace the expensive unit. I live in the sunbelt, and all sorts of things like plastic and rubber degrade quickly, and frankly I didn’t want to have to mess with all that and risk not passing inspection (if for instance I disturbed wiring that cause the regular low and high beam not to function).
Seems lighting has gotten quite a bit more complex than it once was (and I have a 21 year old car, so I’m sure it is even more so now).
Apropos to the subject, I am a “manual headlight” kind of guy, and prefer to “do it myself” but I’ve been burned twice when others have left on my lights (during a state inspection) and I didn’t notice they were on and it made my battery go flat. Guess the ding mechanism in my car is no longer functioning for keys out of ignition but light switch turned on. It is so sunny here usually that I don’t notice if the lights are on during the day if someone has left them in a position that I don’t usually (i.e. lights on during non-rainy day).