On Wed, 09 Dec 2015 12:45:50 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

On 12/8/2015 7:23 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 12/08/2015 06:07 PM, wrote:
Up here in Ontario Canada it has been a legal requirement for
motorbikes to run with lights for several decades - and all new
Canadian market cars have daytime running lights - any time you are
moving, you are lit up.

The daytime running lights on cars negates any advantage of a headlight on a
bike standing out.

I think "daytime running lights", means different things. E.g., the
DRL's on our car are *not* the same lamps that illuminate the roadway
at night (i.e. "headlights"). Instead, they are just a line of lamps
(LED's) beneath the actual headlamps. They are spaced close enough
together (optically) that they look like an "underline" of sorts.

A few days ago, I was face-to-face with some other vehicle with a
similar arrangement. When he applied his turn signal, these white
lights turned to yellow and "swept" outward to complement his
turn signal indicator (cool, but not worth a penny, IMO).

The last car had daytime lights I came out of work one evening at about dusk.
Perhaps I was preoccupied but I started the car, saw the light beams and drove
off. About a half mile later a cop pulled me over and was getting ready to
ticket me for defective tail lights since he saw the headlights but no
taillights. I told him the tail lights were fine and they would come on if I
turned the headlights on. It took a while to convince him.

The next Toyota I bought was the same model but no longer had the daylight
feature. I realy think if you're going to have daylight headlights the
taillights should come on too like on a bike.


Most DRLs still use the headlights - but cars with LED or HID
headlights can't. Some use the turn signals - some use separate lamps,
Those that use the headlights use them at reduced output - some by
running them in series, some by running high and low in series, and
some by regulating the current.