"polygonum_on_google" wrote in message
...

DRLs should also be banned...stupid dazzling things....

If you find them dazzling, do you by any chance have a problem with your
eyes?

I have been very happy to see them on all manner of vehicles in situations
where sight of the vehicle might othrwise have been impaired. Do remember
that they can make a big difference when going from bright sun to stygian
blackness of a bridge. And, when cycling, I have found it much more
difficult to see and maintain awareness of vehicles behind me when they
are grey (current top colour), and the weather is grey, and the road is
grey... DRLs help a lot.

I agree: DRLs are a *very* important safety improvement in making cars more
visible in conditions where the driver would not normally have their lights
(either side or head) on. The shady sunlight situation (eg going into dense
woodland) is a case in point. Motorcyclists have long used their headlights
as normal running lights, and it's time that other vehicles did the same,
which is what DRLs are for.

I don't find them too bright - no more so than headlights during the day,
and you only see them for a short time as an oncoming car passes you. At
night they dim or even go out when the headlights are on. Even at dusk, when
it's still light enough for headlights to be of marginal benefit (as a means
of illuminating the road), DRLs dim to an appropriate level.

What I *do* find very dazzling is cars that keep their brake lights on all
the time that they are stationary in a queue. And because the car in front
is going in the same direction as you, it's there "forever", not just as a
passing vehicle. If I'm stopped in traffic, I do as I was taught ("footbrake
to stop; handbrake to *stay* stopped") and come off my footbrake as soon as
I can, to avoid dazzling the car behind me. The only exception is when I'm
stopped in the middle of the road in a turning-right bay, when I keep my
brake lights on until I see a car pulling behind me to turn right, when I
come off the brake to avoid dazzling. That's because I'm more vulnerable to
being rear-ended by a fast car that hasn't seen me as it goes to overtake
another car; that happened to my sister in America when they lived the
she was stopped to turn left, with her indicator and brake lights on, and
was rear-ended (luckily at low speed) by someone who was overtaking *at a
junction* and hadn't seen her.

Sadly, more and more drivers use their footbrake all the time that they are
stopped - do they even know where the handbrake is? I suspect the worst
culprits are those with automatic transmission who stay in Drive with the
footbrake on to prevent them creeping forwards, rather than knocking it into
neutral until they are about to set off again.