Daytime Headlights

Carn't see any thing wrong with headlights in the day time. Dawn and dusk are very a dangerous time for darker coloured cars.
Funny I seem to turn my lights on before other people in black, dark green, gunmetal grey cars, and I drive a car thats fire truck red.
Turn your lights on you wouldn't believe how invisible you are.

FYI, in SA, prime movers engaged in towing Road Trains are required to have their headlights on during the day time, seperate to night time driving, without the trailer side lights on.

Cheers,

Dion.

I'm a believer Bob.

Defence rider training for motorcyclists have long advocated riding with headlights on to improve visibility - the same goes for cars, especially in darker colours. (Dark Green seems to be worst than most for visibility)

When you round a corner to find a vehicle coming towards yoiu on the wrong side of the road, it takes the brain a little while to make sense of what's going on -

1. Recognise that shape as a car....
2. Work out whether it's getting bigger or smaller....
3. Calculate the trajectories involved.... (Oh sh*t)
4. Decide on evasive action.....(Ahhrrrgggg!)

When the car has headlights on your brain skips straight to step 3.... That's my theory, and I drive with my lights on just in case it's true!( Gotta make sure it's low beam though)

Cheers,
Pete

It's not so much the on-coming traffic. In dusty conditions, foggy or misted windows it's very helpful to see vehicles approaching from behind or tail lights of those in front. Hopefully oncoming traffic are travelling in a different lane to you! In full daylight I don't see much use, but have been caught by the odd road-coloured vehicle approaching when I've been a bit tired, entering a road....

Yep, been doing it for many years, ever since I started riding motor bikes back in the sixties. I don't mind being seen in plenty of time!
As far as dust is concerned, I used to regularly drive the Nullarbor in those days. After a few scares with people trying to overtake trucks in the dirt, I always made sure I did the dirt bit during the night, that way I stood a better chance of seeing the idiots! And interestingly I never hit any roos on the dirt bit either - just LOTS of rabbits!

Which reminds me, I actually saw a couple of elephants wandering around at Cocklebiddy one trip but that was in the day time.........

Gotta agree with Hedonist and Cruiser1 - I've been doing this for a few years (it's easy as the 'Cruiser lights are turned off automatically when the ignition is off and you open the drivers door to get out - I turned the lights on 3 years ago and haven't turned them off yet!!). It was harder with my previous car as pop-up headlights in the permanently opened position don't do much by way of aerodynamics!!

Definitely a good safety idea.

G'da Bob,

It's a good habit to get into. Makes oncoming traffice that would normally fade into the background heat haze so much easier to pick up.

From memory the practice was first introduced in Australia by the [now defunct] Pioneer bus company wasy back in the early sixties.

Their press release on the subject at the time reflected on visibility issues - especially as their colouring at the time was a sort of gunmetal grey, and blended too easily into the background..

The habit was picked up by many experienced long distance drivers, and the facts supporting the visibility issue were so strong that Volvo installed high intensity, "permanently on", day time running lights in the mid 70s

The funny thing is that even after all this time, people still flash at you. I just smile and wave :) :)

regards

DennisN

On dusty roads it seems superfluous, with dust billowing for miles, but there are regular fatalities, where vehicles collide in dust, often at high speed.


Anyone who drives at high speed in conditions that dont suit it like fog, dust etc, deserve to lose...

With the dust on the weekend, headlights helped once when there was oncoming car, but that was only due to the fact that I stopped and let the dust settle... Not worth the risk to my family..

YMMV

Only one problem with the lights on all the time, at just prior to sundown ,long straight road ,you heading west into the sun ,other vehicle heading east out of the sun with his lights blazing becomes invisible,, a headon waiting to happen.

On a slightly different point I get REALLY REALLY REALLY annoyed with the idiots that drive with parkers-only at night and/or in the drizzle.makes it REALLY REALLY REALLY hard to see out the back/side window against other motorists lights. PLEASE turn em on!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. Does any one know how to send advice to future ADR recomendations?????????????? Like not allowing parkers only while driving for instance. Another one would be to wire up the standard rear tail lights as well as those stupid bumper lights (which are too low anyway).
Time to get off my soapbox_getting dizzy

yeah turn em on be seen to many people driving around with the seat laid way back being cool but are half asleep and while talking safety lets increase speed limits out of the doze zone 90/110 k ond make people drive instead of steer fatigue kills not speed .nulla, western qld ,top of the west,stuart sa,hay plains nsw,off my soap box cya

I turn them on, on every highway/offroad trip. My view on this is that visibility is probably a bigger factor in accidents than most other contributors. It is not much effort to have your lights on during the day, so why not take that little added safety precaution.

Safety first!