There are several large trucking companies that now hard wire the headlights to turn on if the truck is not in neutral. One of the big ones simply did it because they thought it would help safety with almost no dat ago back it up, their rate of crossing accidents dropped 90% the first year. So now its just standard with many companies..

The bulbs for the older GMM rigs are 2x12 watts.. the LED's are 2x2 watts.. (power draw not output light level) 12 watts=.016 horsepower.. Probably about the same impact as a dirty car.. LOL

I like them but I wish they would put a simple easy switch in to turn them off, because sometimes I want to park or work on my car without any lights on..

 

You could wrap a string around the #25 fuse (red circled) for quick release.

 

The owner's manual lists 2 fuses for the daytime running lights. 7.5 amp fuse (fuse #17) in engine compartment box A (near the brake fluid reservoir) and 7.5 amp fuse (fuse #25) in the cabin box A (the non-covered box behind the instrument panel). It says the fuse puller is located on the "back of the engine compartment fuse box cover" but doesn't say which box. OK I found it in box A. However the space in engine compartment box A, space 17, is empty. I wonder if the engine compartment DRL fuse is for an non-US model Fit or Jazz, that has LED headlights that are lens-focused (projector beams), and separate lamps for the DRL's, and if the fuse in the cabin box A, are for models with DRL's that work by sending lower voltage to the 12v halogen headlights that are reflector-focused.

 

lol .. wut?

 

made sense to me.

 

A zillion years ago a car magazine (I think Car & Driver) reviewed a Nissan that was gray- they said for some reason people kept cutting it off. Then I bought a gray car and noticed the same thing. I agree- it blends into the road and is less noticeable.

 

nnnn, i think its the shape of the GK. people perceive dese cars as slow and want dem out of their way. mine is white and people cut me off all da time..or speed up when i want to change lanes. and its not like im driving slow either, just following traffic. fully disrespected. without power cant really dig into the lane next to me either..

 

I went from a gray Infiniti G-20 to a blue 2010 Fit and the cutting off went way down.

 

I agree with this. I be cruising 75-80 and people still want to go around me.

 

Energy being equal, and assuming 55w headlamp bulbs being run at half-power, alternator and battery in good shape, fortunately the parasitic power loss at the crankshaft would be .07 hp. Or seven one-hundredths of a HP, less than the mechanical tolerance to even measure it, much less have any effect.

 

yah, yesterday i took the GK out to run an errand in da pm and sure enough, some faker in a charger behind me passed me only to cut me off while i was going 50 in a 45mph with everyone else.

 

Here in the dark and rainy canadian north-west DRLs are both a blessing and a curse.
They help during poor visibility conditions (which is most of the time) but at the same time they confuse many drivers at night, as they see a faint glow ahead of their car and drive in the dark without turning their actual driving lights on...
I see dozens of cars at dawn/dusk/night with no taillights... I wish automatic driving lights were mandatory just as DRLs are.

 

Time to leave your political agenda at the door and actually do some research into how DRLs became law. You are using a public resource paid for almost entirely with other people's money, so either buy your own roads or share the road responsibly.

This EIGHTY PAGE study is from 2010, not 1995, and has a ton of data, all of which points to AT LEAST a 5%-10% reduction in collisions. Minnesota's experience, in particular, is very compelling...

The study concluded that vehicles equipped with DRLs had a statistically significant lower crash rate than vehicles without DRLs. Specific findings included:

• The overall crash rate among vehicles without standard DRLs was 1.73 times higher than the rate for vehicles with standard DRLs (832 crashes vs. 481 crashes per 10,000 vehicles).
• For fatal vehicle crashes, the crash rate ratio was 1.48 times higher (3.0 fatal crashes vs. 2.0 fatal crashes per 10,000 vehicles)
• For crashes involving pedestrians, the crash rate ratio was 1.77 times higher (5.2 crashes vs. 2.9 crashes per 10,000 vehicles).
• For crashes involving bicycles, the crash rate ratio was 1.72 times higher (7.8 crashes vs. 4.5 crashes per 10,000 vehicles).

https://www.dot.state.mn.us/traffice...hsynthesis.pdf

 

DRLs are only found on US cars because they are mandatory in Canada. Car makers could manufacture two slightly different cars, with DRLs for Canada and without for the US, but in many cases they chose to simply put DRLs on all cars of a particular model for simplicity on the production line and possibly because of the safety benefits of DRLs. Incidentally, expansion of DRLs to rear lights on cars is being considered in Canada now and I believe they are talking to car makers about this now.

 

Great post, solidpoint. Thanks for the data.

 

i pulled the fuse on mine shortly after i got the car , considering how folks are driving in N.Y. lately , i'm thinking i'll be
better off with the DRL turned on again . in a world of suv's and pick up trucks , people drive around me like i'm invisible .
i'm wondering if it's the car's color ( modern metal ) , my last honda was silver

 

Silver is hard to see - from the motorcycle Hurt report data that I remember. Lights do help - which is why motorcycles have their lights on.

 

My eyes pass the NC eye test but they aren't nearly as good as they used to be in my youth. I have cataracts just beginning to develop, and focus abnormalities requiring corrective lenses, in both eyes. I always wear my glasses, even though I can pass the eye test without them. But even with my glasses, I have trouble reading the small print showing road names, on road signs on country roads, and I have trouble reading the license plate of the car in front of me. I can read stop signs ok, and speed limit signs, but not the smaller lettering such as on road name signs on country roads. I use my GPS to learn the road names! At night my cataracts cause me to see starry "halos" around street lights, and oncoming headlights. During the day, I don't notice any effects caused by my cataracts, but my eye doctor tells me they are reducing the amount of light that gets to my retina, but that it happened gradually so that is why I don't realize it has happened. I still like to wear sunglasses at morning and night when driving into the sun!

OK, so here's the story: During the day, I have trouble seeing both dark gray and light grey cars. I usually see them, but a couple of times I realized "oh shit, that is a car that's coming," only after I had already begun to make a turn. It wasn't too late to stop, I didn't cause any collisions, I had only moved a few feet before I realized I should have waited, but it made me decide I would need to be more careful in the future, and check more carefully before making a turn.. No longer can I just glance; now I need to double-check, or triple check. I didn't have to do this when I was younger.

DRLs are very helpful. I wish everyone had them on, especially if their cars are gray.

Dark grey is maybe a bit darker than an asphalt road surface. So-called silver seems to be really more of a light gray, with "metallic" particles just like all the other "metallic" colors. It is not easy to see either gray. The cars I see best are green, and yellow. Neon green and yellow are the easiest. I think red is OK too, but not maroon so much. Dark blue kind of blends into the background. Light blue isn't really good either.

I wanted to get a yellow Fit, in 2015, but I got a much better deal on a silver 2015 Fit, and I liked the dealer much better, that had the silver. They seemed a bit less crooked than your average crooks. They were a very small dealership in a rural town. They had only 1 Fit LX with a CVT on their lot – and it was silver.

So yes, I think I would have trouble seeing Honda's "modern metal" color coming toward me, in the road I want to make a left turn across, but I would see it just fine if the DRL's were on.

 

Yes, it's been my experience (with a silver Infiniti G-20) and one car magazine I read (a gray Sentra) that other drivers don't notice them as much. I really think it's because they're close to the same color as the road surface. When I sold my silver Infiniti and bought a (smaller) blue Fit I got cut off less and other drivers seemed to behave more reasonably.

 

yea , i think that's part of it , besides the dark gray color , i get the same impression , people just assume i'm going to be slow ,
even when moving with traffic . on off ramps are especially tricky , keeps me on my toes .