Daytime lights issue hots up
Could DRL lead to environmental damage?
According to campaigners against DRL, daytime running lights on a Volvo need 170W of electrical power but, after taking into account engine heat losses, mechanical losses, drive belt losses and alternator losses, they need about 970W of primary energy. The result, say campaigners, is that each vehicle with headlights on emits 0.25kg of CO2/hr.
Further, they argue that, if adopted, daytime lights will add 1.85 million tonnes annually of CO2 into the UK's atmosphere. The UK overall emits around 560 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
During 2005/06 the Carbon Trust UK saved 3.9 million tonnes of CO2 using an army of 250 energy surveyors. The use of daytime running lights will negate 50 per cent of these hard won environmental gains, said the Drivers against Daytime Running Lights (DADRL) campaign.
As other countries will be forced to follow suit, a decision by the EC to mandate daytime lights will have untenable environmental consequences across the world, said DADRL.
As a compromise, the EC has the option of permitting low power 13W non-glaring dedicated daytime lights on new vehicles but then intend to make the existing 200 million vehicles in the EU use full power headlights in good daylight, said DADRL's UK co-ordinator Roy Milnes.
For existing vehicles, the EC could allow the rarely used (and often misused) fog lights on many vehicles to accept 13W lamps. On vehicles without auxiliary lamps, they could permit the fitting "by competent persons" of two regulation-sized light emitting diode discs.
Low power lamps would minimise the environmental impact yet provide a good degree of conspicuity, reckoned Milnes.
The deadline for requests for comment on the issue is Friday this week -- see link below.
Links
As we all know, in the usual case of Nanny vs. public, eventually the public have to back down because they've got jobs to go to, lives to live, and beer to drink.
But now, the gloves are off - in the red corner is Safety Nanny, angry that drivers are still having to use their discretion and judgement as to whether lights are appropriate. In the green corner, Environmental Nanny is stepping up and counting the carbon dioxide.
Neither have anything more useful or more fun to do than this. Neither are used to battling against an opponent equally illogical, persistent and dedicated.
Place your bets, please.
It makes the low, small Caterham more visible to other road users.
It makes all cars more obvious, if you are driving out of bright sunlight it helps just as much as driving in gloom.
is it really necessary to drive with lights on in the middle of summer?
Can’t drivers use their discretion in poor visibility – it’s really a driver education issue!
think I’d better buy some shares in a lamp manufacturing company.
i hear that government is going to outlaw baked beans next for environmental reasons
It makes the low, small Caterham more visible to other road users.
Very true, and that's also the same reason why it is normal, and advised, for motorcycles to have their lights on at all times.
Would everyone having their lights on make the rest of the cars more visible, or simply mean that the small sports car and motorcycle blended into the background more?
If research really shows that driving with lights on really has a safety benefit then I'm all for it - lives before a saving in CO2 emmissions.
My concern with this ridiculous proposal is that vehicles that have a very good safety reason to run lights in daylight; motorbikes, cycles, Sinclair C5's, low sports cars, etc. will be simply lost in a sea of lights and therefore will have to find another way of being seen. Perhaps colour will be next for vehicle lights.
What gets right up my nose, Fog Lights!! DRL are a breeze compared to some of the newer LED versions etc - When you try and indicate their mis-use you get nothing but gestures!!
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