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Post Info TOPIC: What's the Point of an On/Off Switch Anymore?
ed11563


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What's the Point of an On/Off Switch Anymore?
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What's the Point of an On/Off Switch Anymore?

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Dear Car Talk

Jan 7, 2016 (Archives)

9 Comments

headlights
Dear Car Talk:

I look forward to reading your column each week! My question for you is this: If a car has automatic headlights, do I still need to turn my lights to the "On" setting at dusk? If the answer is "no," then what is the purpose of having both "On" and "Automatic" settings on the headlight switch?

-- Rachel

Well, the "automatic" setting is a nice convenience. It uses a photocell to sense when it gets dark out, and it turns on your lights automatically. It'll even turn on the lights when you drive through a dark tunnel, or into an underground parking garage. It's a great feature, because you never forget to turn your headlights on, or -- just as importantly -- off!

But there are situations in which you may want to override the automatic setting. For instance, in some parts of the country, daytime headlight use is required on certain sections of road.

Where there have been lots of accidents that seem to be related to visibility, local departments of transportation sometimes mandate headlight use at all times of day.

Some state laws also require that your headlights be on whenever your windshield wipers are in use, to improve visibility in rainy or snowy conditions.

Then there are funeral processions, where you might want to have your lights on during the day. 

And, of course, you'll want to be able to override the automatic setting when you're visiting one of the four drive-in movie theaters that still exist, right? 


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  • Lee_T • a day ago

    The Department of Transportation can be fickle. They had a proposal many years ago to make driving lights mandatory. Driving lights would have been a great safety feature although they ignore the fact that your vehicle has no rear lights in poor visibility. They killed that proposal and left it up to manufacturers even though it would have cost nothing. Meanwhile they mandate back-up cameras and radar accident-avoidance technology which is expensive. In this day of LEDs, it would cost maybe a couple of dollars to put yellow lights at all 4 corners of a car, on whenever the ignition is on. That takes care of the "lights on with windshield wipers" problem. In Virginia, they passed a law years ago to turn on lights with wipers, to my knowledge not one ticket has been written. Everyone has time to talk on their cellphones but not to think about operating their vehicle safely.

  • •
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    Art B • a day ago

    1. very high odds that this switch will brake prematurely.$$$$
    2. My brother in law was complaining about car batteries only lasting 3 years. I asked if he had this feature. He said yes, I said I don't an my batteries last at least 6 years.

  • •
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      Lee_T Art B • a day ago

      Very high odds your brother-in-law's experience is anecdotal and not statistically valid. Statistically I can safely say they 100% of people who married your sister had this problem and 100% of your sister's brothers have not had this problem. Unless you have some brothers who have had this problem, in which case forget what I just said.

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      .ks Art B • 3 hours ago

      What other features does he have? Chances are he's got heated seats and mirrors, power windows, power mirrors, DVD players...

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    jdoss79 • 2 days ago

    I have a 2015 ford escape. head lights can be left on all the time or set on auto. come on auto when wipers are on. When in on pos. they turn off when ignition is turned off.

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    cwatkin • 2 days ago

    I am sure it could be wired in very easily so that when the wipers come on, the headlights come on. Of course you would want some type of delay of like 30 seconds so people don't think you are flashing them when you are just cleaning off the windshield.

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    Blaise Pascal • 2 days ago

    I live in a state which requires headlights to be on when the windshield wipers are in use. If only my car knew that rule, so the lights would go on when I turned on the windshield wipers, not just when it was dark.

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      TheBobmanNH Blaise Pascal • 2 days ago

      It drives me bonkers that carmakers with automatic headlights have not implemented this feature. Lights should always be on when your wipers are on, law or not -- it's really difficult to see other cars in the rain, and headlights work wonders!

    • •
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        johnbarry TheBobmanNH • 2 days ago

        I also live in one of the states that require you to have your lights on when it is raining (which I always do) but I still see a fair number of people that do not do the same. I wonder if they ever get pulled over?



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weltschmerz


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Depends where you buy the car, I guess. Cars sold in Canada have to have Daytime Running Lights.
You still have to turn your lights on at night for added visibilty, both front and back.

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Momala


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DRLs turn on the front headlights, but they don't do anything to the rear lights - you have to turn them on manually. The second thing I do after starting my car is turn on the headlights - I've been doing this since 1961, when I read a Readers' Digest article about a Scandanavian study that showed a dramatic decrease in head-on collisions when at least one of the cars had headlights on. And I applaud New Jersey for their law: wipers on? headlights on!



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Lawyerlady


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DH refuses to use the automatic headlights and I ALWAYS do. So whenever he drives my car, he turns them off, and I'll end up driving in the dark a bit too long before I realize they are off.

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Fort Worth Mom


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Lawyerlady wrote:

DH refuses to use the automatic headlights and I ALWAYS do. So whenever he drives my car, he turns them off, and I'll end up driving in the dark a bit too long before I realize they are off.

My sister Irene got pulled over by the cops, one dark morning.

She had no idea the automatic headlights don't activate the rear lights.

The nice cop clued her in. She didn't get a ticket or anything.

And, she's lucky she didn't get rear ended.

Be careful if you use them, LL. 



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ed11563


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Daytime Running Lights are headlights on at half-power, without any of the marker lights. In cars with electronic dashboards, you can't tell from the dashboard whether the real, regular headlights and marker lights are on.

 



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ed11563


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Fort Worth Mom wrote:
Lawyerlady wrote:

DH refuses to use the automatic headlights and I ALWAYS do. So whenever he drives my car, he turns them off, and I'll end up driving in the dark a bit too long before I realize they are off.

My sister Irene got pulled over by the cops, one dark morning.

She had no idea the automatic headlights don't activate the rear lights.

The nice cop clued her in. She didn't get a ticket or anything.

And, she's lucky she didn't get rear ended.

Be careful if you use them, LL. 

Did he get her phone number and at least take her to dinner? 

 



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Lawyerlady


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Fort Worth Mom wrote:
Lawyerlady wrote:

DH refuses to use the automatic headlights and I ALWAYS do. So whenever he drives my car, he turns them off, and I'll end up driving in the dark a bit too long before I realize they are off.

My sister Irene got pulled over by the cops, one dark morning.

She had no idea the automatic headlights don't activate the rear lights.

The nice cop clued her in. She didn't get a ticket or anything.

And, she's lucky she didn't get rear ended.

Be careful if you use them, LL. 

 Mine do.  Otherwise, what is the point - you'd have to turn lights on anyway.



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Lawyerlady wrote:
Fort Worth Mom wrote:
Lawyerlady wrote:

DH refuses to use the automatic headlights and I ALWAYS do. So whenever he drives my car, he turns them off, and I'll end up driving in the dark a bit too long before I realize they are off.

My sister Irene got pulled over by the cops, one dark morning.

She had no idea the automatic headlights don't activate the rear lights.

The nice cop clued her in. She didn't get a ticket or anything.

And, she's lucky she didn't get rear ended.

Be careful if you use them, LL. 

 Mine do.  Otherwise, what is the point - you'd have to turn lights on anyway.

Well, not all cars are the same.

It would be nice if they would make certain things standard, like the turn signals.

They are same, no matter what make or model the car is.

Automatic headlights don't always activate the rear lights.

Stupid, I know.

But crap! I'm still driving a 2004 Jeep, with a manual transmission!

"Belle" doesn't have automatic anything, she's so old!biggrin 

And that's okay. I still love her. I plan to run the wheels off her!wink

 



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Lawyerlady


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FWM - there are some "new" things I don't particularly care for. Like all my doors locking automatically.

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Lawyerlady wrote:

FWM - there are some "new" things I don't particularly care for. Like all my doors locking automatically.

Well hell, I accidently lied.

"Belle's" doors auto lock when I hit 20 mph.

But, that doesn't really bother me.wink 



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Like all my doors locking automatically.
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consult your owner's manual or your manufacturer's website--you can normally program that function--depending on the make/model, auto locking can occur when the vehicle is placed in " drive " or attains a particular speed ( 10-15mph or so )--is actually a security feature that we like

another one we like on our vehicles is " selective unlocking mode " i.e. when you press the remote fob, the driver's door is the ONLY one that is unlocked--another press of the button is required to open the other doors--a good security feature for a lady by herself in a large parking lot or a dark parking garage





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Lawyerlady


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Fort Worth Mom wrote:
Lawyerlady wrote:

FWM - there are some "new" things I don't particularly care for. Like all my doors locking automatically.

Well hell, I accidently lied.

"Belle's" doors auto lock when I hit 20 mph.

But, that doesn't really bother me.wink 

 What irritates me is that mine do it as soon as I shift into drive.  Then, Baby J will call out that her seat belt is stuck and I'll put the car in park and get out to go around to her door.  But I forgot to hit the unlock button, so her door is locked and I have to walk back around again and unlock the doors.  Grrrrr.  Or, she'll have gotten out at school in carpool line and once I drive off the bell dings that she didn't shut her door all the way, and I hop out to do it and the door is locked.  Drives me nuts!



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burns07 wrote:


Like all my doors locking automatically.
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consult your owner's manual or your manufacturer's website--you can normally program that function--depending on the make/model, auto locking can occur when the vehicle is placed in " drive " or attains a particular speed ( 10-15mph or so )--is actually a security feature that we like

another one we like on our vehicles is " selective unlocking mode " i.e. when you press the remote fob, the driver's door is the ONLY one that is unlocked--another press of the button is required to open the other doors--a good security feature for a lady by herself in a large parking lot or a dark parking garage



 The second one is great. 



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LawyerLady

 

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Lawyerlady wrote:
burns07 wrote:


Like all my doors locking automatically.
______________________________

consult your owner's manual or your manufacturer's website--you can normally program that function--depending on the make/model, auto locking can occur when the vehicle is placed in " drive " or attains a particular speed ( 10-15mph or so )--is actually a security feature that we like

another one we like on our vehicles is " selective unlocking mode " i.e. when you press the remote fob, the driver's door is the ONLY one that is unlocked--another press of the button is required to open the other doors--a good security feature for a lady by herself in a large parking lot or a dark parking garage



 The second one is great. 

 Yes. My old car did that, the new one doesn't.



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First car I had with automatic headlights was the Cruz I inherited from dad when he got his new car. First time I got the oil changed, the guy asked me to turn on my headlights for him to check them. Took me a couple minutes to figure out how. The guy looked at me like I was an idiot because I couldn't turn on the headlights.

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weltschmerz


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Fort Worth Mom wrote:
Lawyerlady wrote:
Fort Worth Mom wrote:
Lawyerlady wrote:

DH refuses to use the automatic headlights and I ALWAYS do. So whenever he drives my car, he turns them off, and I'll end up driving in the dark a bit too long before I realize they are off.

My sister Irene got pulled over by the cops, one dark morning.

She had no idea the automatic headlights don't activate the rear lights.

The nice cop clued her in. She didn't get a ticket or anything.

And, she's lucky she didn't get rear ended.

Be careful if you use them, LL. 

 Mine do.  Otherwise, what is the point - you'd have to turn lights on anyway.

Well, not all cars are the same.

It would be nice if they would make certain things standard, like the turn signals.

They are same, no matter what make or model the car is.

Automatic headlights don't always activate the rear lights.

Stupid, I know.

But crap! I'm still driving a 2004 Jeep, with a manual transmission!

"Belle" doesn't have automatic anything, she's so old!biggrin 

And that's okay. I still love her. I plan to run the wheels off her!wink

 

 Well, no. You have to turn the lights on manually when it's dark, but the fronts are always lit.

It's kind of hard not to notice that your dashboard is completely dark, but you'd be surprised how many people drive around like that.

Their cars are completely invisible at night from behind.



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