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Comment by LoganDark | Hacker News Reader

I usually drive with only the DRLs even at night. My vision is good enough that there's no reason to blind other drivers. I only use the beams at all when there's bad weather that fucks with visibility, or when the road has no retroreflectors. Also ever since a collision repair the headlight beams have been misaligned and that's extremely distracting/infuriating so I hate using them anyway.

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At least in NA, if you only have the DRLs on, it means your rear lights aren't on.

Anecdata around SV: I've seen an uptick in urban night drivers with only their DRLs and no tail lights.

That's not true for my vehicle, I've checked.

Not sure why people are not believing you. I have a Volvo and the headlights and taillights are illuminated at all times, even when the headlight switch is "off."

The only thing that turning the headlights "on" does differently is enable high beams.

Thanks - I'm ok with that. As also mentioned, I'm NOT when it's a dark car at night with ONLY DRL and no rear lights at all - which I've seen a LOT of lately..

Are you aware of what the D in DRL stands for?

Your vision may be good enough to see ahead of you by candlelight, but other drivers are not going to expect a nearly invisible car approaching at night. Turn on your headlights.

I don't know what's invisible about the outside edge of my headlights, and my taillights, being illuminated. The car is very visible. If it were invisible, and I do a LOT of nighttime driving, I would've gotten pulled over for it already (and I haven't been).

DRL's aren't dim enough to make your car "nearly invisible". If it's enough light for the driver to see the road via reflection, it's more than enough for the oncoming driver to see via line of sight transmission.

True - but the problem is at night, from behind, on many models, the ARE invisible because no lights are on.

Sounds like you had a bad repair then. take it back and get it fixed properly.

On many cars, the beam of the DRLs are more offensive to oncoming drivers when used at night.

Properly repairing your car might make it less distracting/infuriating.

Yeah, the DRL lamps are omnidirectional while proper headlights are much more directional.

Typically the DRL lamps switch off or go to a dimmer setting when the headlights are on.

That omnidirectional nature makes them pure glare at night.

My vehicle does not dim the DRLs with the beams on. The brightness of the DRLs is also inoffensive enough that I don't think they're worse than the beams at all. They're also essentially evenly-lit light bars, and not point sources like the beams, which further helps.

> headlight beams have been misaligned and that's extremely distracting/infuriating so I hate using them anyway

One might consider taking the 5 minutes to align your headlights? Even if you're alone and don't have a helping friend with a tape measure it's not difficult to just make them a little more properly adjusted.

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