Chevrolet Malibu sales jump 51.5%; dealers pleased

Witness my father's attempt, after being a foreign car owner for many years, to try GM. 1995 Olds 88. It was big and roomy, and had the typical American front seat area that extended all the way across, without a console in the middle. He liked it, and bought it.

Funny thing--they were the first ones to respond to the ad, and after a test drive they came back and wrote dad a check on the spot. No haggling, nothing. See, they understood the value of what they were getting, too.

After 18 years of Jaanese cars, in 1988 he figured it had to be safe to try GM--but got burned badly. Neither he nor any of our family will ever "look back". Trust issues? Yep.

It's not just GM or American cars--with me, I had the same issue with VW, and witnessed a few people at work getting burned with the VW coil pack issue. Cars aren't something that I say "oh, well" to when the manufacturer burns me like that. I can't afford to, and nowadays most people realize they can't afford to, either--despite having acted differently in the past.

People now have higher expectations about not being stranded.

When I visited the Seattle area in 1987, I did notice that folks would drive with their headlights on in the area where my brother-in-law lived. I thought it was strange but evidently,this was considered a safety measure for travel on those 2 lane roads.

There's other problems with DRLs, besides the particularly poor implementation GM has done on vehicles by using the high beams at reduced brightness.

Drivers with DRLs often forget to turn on their low beam headlights in rain or fog and at dusk or dawn. This is especially dangerous because the taillights do not come on until the low beams are turned on. Many drivers believe that in rain or fog the DRLs are sufficient and fail to turn on their low beams to activate their tail lights. When it is dark, the lack of dashboard lights is an indicator that the low beams and tail lights are not on, but in daytime conditions where the low beams should be used there is no indication that the DRLs, not the lowbeams, are on.

In 1998, after receiving hundreds of complaints, NHTSA acknowledged that the intensity limits were too high and proposed reductions in DRL intensity. NHTSA cited a study by Kirkpatrick, et. al. (1989), that said that at 2000cd, the glare from DRLs was rated at no worse than "just unacceptable" in 80% of the responses. At 4000cd, the glare was rated no worse than "disturbing" in 80% of the responses. These subjective ratings are based on the DeBoer scale. Corresponding to these ratings, they found that at 4000cd the probability that the rearview mirror would be dimmed was about 70%. At 2000cd the dimming probability was 40%. At

What?s good about DRLs is that they are proven to reduce head-on collisions on two lane roads, especially at dawn and dusk. This is what they were designed to do, and if they were implemented just to do this then you wouldn't see much opposition to them. You often see signs on roads in California proclaiming "Daylight Safety Test Section -- Turn on Headlights." These are the places where DRLs would be useful. Sadly, instead of coming up with a way to use DRLs only when appropriate, certain parties would like them to be on all the time. Why? Money. It's cheaper to implement a lame system than a well-designed system.

That sounds like a problem with the driver's, not the vehicle, or the DRL system. Hell, I still see people on vehicles without auto lights driving around in the pitch black with no headlights on. Should the auto makers have to put a sign on the steering wheel to remind people to turn there lights on? Of course not. Regardless of what systems the vehicle has, the

A very heated DRL argument went on in the GM newsgroup last year, and it ended up being some agreed with DRL's and there function, and others didn't. Just like everything else in the world.

It's aggravated by the DRL system. These drivers often mistakenly believe that their lights are on because of the DRLs, where if there were no DRLs they'd actually be turning on their lights.

Actually the opinions don't really matter, it's the facts. The facts are that DRLs do serve to increase visibility and reduce accidents in certain situations, but according to statistical data, the only place where there was a net reduction in fatalities was for pedestrians.

On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:59:30 -0700, SMS cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

It would be worth looking into the archives of this group. The discussion that took place on this topic previously, reveal a lot more "facts" about what the statistics really show, than most people thought would be the case.

Some people don't know how to use DRL's properly, so let's just get rid of them. Some people still haven't figured out that you're not supposed to pump the brakes, when you have anti-locks. Let's get rid of them, too.

Some people oversteer after dropping one wheel off the roadway, and collide with oncoming traffic. Let's get rid of that pesky power steering and save people from themselves. Some people leave their small children in cars with the windows up, till they die. Damn windows, let's get rid of them.

Hell, we don't need no reduction in pedestrian fatalities. Down with DLR's!!

The DRL's have nothing to do with it. If you own and operate a vehicle, you should know when to turn your lights on, and when they can be off. Do we get rid of every safety feature because some are too lazy to know how to use them?

Facts scmaks. Back when the original argument went on in this group, there were thousand's of "facts" presented. The only true "fact" is that most automobiles are equipped with DRL's, and every driver should know what they are, and when to actually use there true headlights.

You've hit on the problem, the safety features should be passive and not make the vehicle actually more dangerous to operate for the owner, as well as more dangerous to others on the road.

It's not only their problem that they're too lazy or dim-witted to understand that DRLs do not equal headlights+tail lights, it's a problem for everyone that's on the road with them.

Well, you said yourself that DRL's do increase visibility and reduce accidents in certain situations. You also said that, according to statistical data, the only place where there was a net reduction in fatalities was for pedestrians. So what do we do? Cancel the DRL's, and have innocent pedestrians (who aren't even driving a vehicle, by the way) get killed, or force people to learn about there vehicles? Like I already said, car's are full of safety features that, when used incorrectly, can pose a huge safety risk. Some people still pump ABS equipped vehicles, so do we get rid of ABS, just because some people don't know how it works? That would be akin to getting rid of books, because some people can't read. It's also like blaming the gun for the homicide, instead of the person pulling the trigger. If DRL's are that much of a problem (which, they aren't in Ontario), then people need to be taught how to use them correctly.

What you do is to implement a safety system that doesn't actually make things worse. It would not be hard to have a warning light or sound that warned when a driver only had their DRLs on at night or in low visibility conditions.

You also mandate standards for DRLs so that especially bad implementations of them, like GM has done on vehicles where they use the high beam headlights, are illegal.

You keep saying that it's the driver of the vehicle with DRLs that doesn't use them properly that's the problem, but you're not going to fix that behavior problem, and meanwhile their cluelessness makes things more dangerous for everyone.

The reason that the only statistical benefit of DRLs is pedestrians is not because DRLs don't work, it's because their benefits in the reduction of head-on collisions is being offset by how they contribute to other accidents.

It really isn't asking too much for the manufacturers to implement them properly, since this is already being done on many imports, such as Volvos, Saabs, etc. There needs to be a way to over-ride them and there needs to be a warning when the driver has _only_ their DRLs on at night (or the warning can be simply when the driver doesn't have their headlights on at night, regardless of the state of the DRLs).

You basically want the vehicle to have a warning system telling the driver the DRL's are on, but it's nighttime, and the full headlights should be on? GM's vehicles already have auto lights. When it gets dark, the headlights come on by themselves. As for the high beam DRL's, they don't bother me in the slightest, so we'll have to agree to disagree.

When the US Congress was considering making DRLs standard in the US, several studies showed DRLs caused more accidents then the prevented. Particularly at times of limited vision and increases in motorcycle accidents. Do a search of the Congressional Record for the facts.

There's nothing wrong with DRLs'. Any I've seen. The only problem is the anti-GM crowd that jumped on them because GM was the first to make them standard in the U.S./Canada. Did you know that GM plastic is "plastic" and Honda plastic is "leather-like"? They're seeing problems nobody else sees. Prowlers and burglars have to disable them, in order to furtively skulk around. Might be a real problem for them. If you want to stare at DRL's, go ahead. Your eyes. OTOH, there's those intense Euro headlights blinding everybody at night. BTW, the only time I touch the headlight switch in my DRL-equipped '97 Lumina is to turn on the interior lights. There's a sensor that turns on all the normal night time lights when it darkens. And they do go on in heavy rain. Personally, I could do without that automation, but so far it has been trouble-free.

--Vic

Wacko bullshit. Even you could put something in the Congressional Record. Might as well read the Old Farmer's Almanac.

--Vic

Can we assume you do not ride a motorcycle?

DRLs are NOT standard in the US, the Congress conclude years ago that they caused more problems than the prevented.

Go to Committee reports, not member remarks and see for yourself why DRLs were not made standard.

Yes, because that's the most common problem with DRL equipped vehicles. The driver thinks that their lights are on because the DRLs (which are usually brighter than European DRLs) are providing road illumination. But they don't realize that their tail lights aren't on.

Nah, we don't have to disagree, anyone that doubts that high beam DRLs annoy other drivers can simply read the NHTSA report, including the NHTSA proposal that the European standard for DRL brightness be adopted in the U.S..