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Comment by wiggles_md | Hacker News Reader

I assign some blame to always-on modern gauge clusters. You couldn’t see the old-style front lit ones at night unless you turned on your headlights, so there was a sort of natural reminder.

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I think between always-on/lcd gauge clusters and DRLs that's a large part of the cause, but I think there are also a lot of really simple solutions that could be explored.

Right now the only way to realize you don't have your lights on when you have DRLs is to realize that your gauge cluster is missing the notification that the headlights are on.

I'd wager simply adding an icon in the gauge cluster like an orange icon with a cross through it would solve a large portion of the issue as it would only rely on people noticing the active notification rather than the absence of another.

I think it’s more a function of the street lamps that allow you to see the road without having to turn on the headlights. If people can’t see where they’re going, it’s obvious very quickly.

In a lot of northern states in the winter, one of the previous societal expectation was that you'd turn your lights on whenever it was snowing - which, around here, is pretty much constant, as is the resulting salt residue on windshields. It's not very bright either because the sun at solar noon peaks at about 20 degrees above the horizon and is behind perpetual clouds.

But that's still bright enough that a lot of automatic headlights don't turn on.

Don't most (if not all) auto headlights turn on when the wipers are on, though? So, off if just cloudy, on in snow/rain.

I know mine do turn on, even at the lowest intermittent setting. I thought I'd read somewhere that that was typical, but... maybe not?

Yes, but powdery flurries are blown off by a light breeze not to mention driving at 25+ mph, so wipers don't often need to be used.

Mine don't, and my car is pretty new. The problem is: I leave my wipers on almost all the time, rain or shine. With automatic wipers, there's little reason to turn them off, so I end up just leaving them on most of the time, and then when I get splashed by a passing vehicle going through a puddle or something, the wipers will automatically clear the windshield.

You wouldn't want the headlights to turn on all the time when wipers are on automatic mode. Now why they don't turn on for regular modes, I'm not sure, but probably consistency: if you don't turn them on for automatic mode, but you do for regular mode, then that's going to be too confusing for the driver. Maybe they should come on when the wipers are activated in any mode and stay on for a certain number of seconds (by "stay on", I mean actively clearing the windshield, not just waiting for water to appear). But this might be too unreliable in practice?

At least in my state, you are required by law to have your headlights on if your windshield wipers are going.

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