glad someone had the guts to mention this.


Note: I do like Them for safety reasons.

 

When you say delete them, I assume you are referring to staying on all the time?

 

I'm not answering for analguy, but from what I myself read, other owners want them off because of extra load on the alternator-battery-engine. They think it's another mtce item to worry about also.


FYI, I have had occasion wherein while driving, I noticed that my voltage started to go down. I quickly turned off everything (radio,etc). I believed this conserved the battery and I barely made it home.

 

I was not planing on running them on all the time, but I thought the LED's drew less power than the OEM's? That was one of the + factors in finally deciding to go LED.

 

Yeah, they draw less and that's why I am open to having them for safety reasons; however, I do not know how much less. Still, they still draw power (I.e., pennies turn to dollars). FYI DRLs, by definition, are supposed to be on all the time.

If and when I do get them, I would like to have the option of turning them off for emergencies.

 

The NHTSA has done studies that have shown there is absolutely no safety benefit to DRLs. Keep in mind, this is an organization that will put into law absolutely anything that even remotely suggests safety (remember the national 55mph speed limit? While originally enacted to ostensibly conserve fuel, the NHTSA forced its retention for years after the oil embargo was over because they felt there might be a safety benefit to it...thankfully, ensuing studies finally proved otherwise). In fact, DRLs may have a negative effect on road safety due to the added glare they inflict on oncoming traffic. See here:

http://www.lightsout.org/

I hadn't given the power-saving benefits much thought, as modern electrical systems probably don't notice the added load from DRLs...

 

Wow! I didn't know about the subsequent findings of no added safety benefits. And I thought I wouldn't learn something new this year.

If that were the case, then I will not pursue DRLs. Why? I always theorized that it would make my car stand out among the speeding/offending cars in the eyes of Smokey Bears!

Cheers!

 

These studies have dug deeply into human physical and psychological "wiring" to determine why (or why not) DRLs have (or don't have) the expected/intended effect. In a nutshell, it turns out that there may have been some limited benefit when the whole thing started decades ago and there were only a few vehicles with DRLs. The way we're wired, we tend to see and recognize things in our visual field that uniquely and continually stand out against the background. However, once DRLs proliferated, they became that glaring background...and each vehicle has now become just one more source of glare in that background. Ironic, no? It seems that the only DRLs that we do reliably notice are the obnoxiously-bright ones that turn up in our rear view mirrors!

Regarding the negative safety aspect of DRLs, there is some evidence that, not only do our brains tend to no longer recognize individual DRLs, we may actually have a tendency to unconsciously "erase" all of this background glare altogether...making it more difficult to reliably discern things that are happening in traffic. Naturally, these effects are all on a subliminal level, but that's what makes them dangerous: we aren't aware of them while they are affecting our driving decisions.

Sadly, I think it was GM that originally sent us down this road in the first place. Decades ago, their marketing department was squawking for a way to make their cars stand out in the marketplace. Instead of expensively redesigning their cars to actually be safer, someone came up with the much cheaper idea that, if they just left the headlights on all the time, then they could claim GM was "the safety company" and, to cement that impression in the public's eyes, they actually (as publicly as they could, for maximum PR benefit) championed legislation that would require DRLs on all cars. No kidding, that's the way many car makers used to think. Thank goodness the NHTSA finally quashed that misguided legislative attempt. Even so, now, decades later, we're all still suffering with the results of someone's misguided marketing attempt...

Do whatever you like with your DRLs. I've chosen to permanently turn mine off, but I'm just one grain of sand on this beach...