malcolm

SByer

Wow. Interesting. I always thought they were lame, now I know where to find the evidence backing that up!

doug

I never really had much of an opinion of them either way. I have found them helpful on occasion in the past when I might have had a harder time seeing another car if it had not had them. What's the main argument against them?

TEG

I modified my Lexus so that I can turn them on and off at will.

When I first got it, DRLs were new and people kept telling me that I had left my lights on. Now that DRLs are common I could leave them on without getting hassled.

I think they are probably a good idea in general, but I could say this about them:

#1: They waste energy in cases when you don't really need them.
(The way they were implemented on my car was somewhat lame. There was a big resistor and heatsink under the hood to drop the voltage when in DRL mode... So they used the same power as when on full brightness, but just turned some of that power into heat instead of light).
#2: People sometimes forget to turn on their regular headlights because the DRLs give you the impression that your lights are already on. (Many cars now offer an auto setting that lets the car decide when to switch to full brightness automatically).

My Lexus also had auto-defogging mirrors which is a heater built into them. It was always on all the time. Here in CA where fogged/frosted mirrors is a rare occurrence I put a switch on that circuit too so I don't have to keep wasting energy to needlessly heat my mirrors all the time.