Does the safety of turning your lights on during the day outweigh the cost?
According to Hamish Piercy – no.
Apparently lights on increases fuel consumption by 2%, which is a huge number. (Frankly I dispute it, and want to see the evidence)
and Hamish’s research says that:
“However, on closer examination he said there were many factors that complicated this such as ambient light conditions, the effect of glare, the brightness of the lights and potential masking of other road users.
and
“It is apparent that those supporting the use of DRL’s predominately refer to studies carried out in countries at lower latitudes which have significantly lower ambient light levels.
“Studies carried out in countries recording higher ambient light levels throughout the whole year were less supportive of DRL’s and did not appear to be in favour of their mandatory use.”
So it is darker in Scandinavia that NZ/Australia, so lights-on works better. Again – I’d prefer to see how those studies were carried out downunder, and so forth.
This certainly is going to raise a few eyebrows in the Safety community – is it better to be slightly more safe or to emit 2% less CO2?
Lance Wiggs 
Reminds me of a MythBusters episode I saw recently, where they proved that running your car with the aircon used no more fuel than not, and less fuel than driving around with your windows open
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Reporting such as this makes my wonder why I read ‘news’ media. No attempt to get a second opinion or to verify sources.
If I’m reading the article correctly, it would appear that this was course material for a diploma.
It would also appear to be in stark contrast to other available material such as: http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheets/FS_DRL.pdf – (also see the references at the end), the opinion of a prominent Oz researcher: http://members.optusnet.com.au/carsafety/paine_drl_sep03.pdf
and the position of the FIA: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/roadsafety_library/consultations/drl_20060727/drl_fia.pdf
Is google that hard to use?
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