Back in the good old days, headlights were to help you see and be seen. No more, no less. They did exactly what they said on the tin. That meant that car companies - with a few notable exceptions - probably didn’t take all that much time and effort into designing them, it was usually a round or square housing plonked onto the bodywork. Purely functional.
These were simpler times. The headlights themselves were halogen bulbs housed in basic reflector housings to vaguely point the light in the right direction. The lights would only come on when the driver told them to, they would only point in one direction and would be pretty poor at lighting up whatever was ahead.
Fast forward a few years, and we have moved on in leaps and bounds with headlight technology. Xenon, LED and even laser headlight designs with options of projectors, adaptive beam control, scrolling indicators, start-up and shutdown ceremonies, the list goes on and on. You can see the latest in headlight technology below with Mat Watson from Carwow.
All of this technology made headlights sleeker, cleverer and more desirable. Designers weren’t only designing the face of the car, they were now having to meticulously design the eyes. This was made all the more crucial by a very specific change to the law… DRL’s.
DRL’s, or Daytime Running Lights, are a specific type of light that were made mandatory in the UK for all cars built after February 2011. They are a purpose made light that are designed to help others see you in daytime conditions but are not used for lighting the road.
These lights switch on automatically with the car and cannot be turned off individually (like you could with sidelights). Instead they will only deactivate when switching to your headlights, or when switching the car off completely. This way your car will always have some form of light on show. You can find out more about the requirements here.
LED’s soon became the obvious choice for this kind of light. Low cost, long lifespan and the ability to basically do whatever you wanted with them, just made sense. The most notable version of this technology is the original Audi R8. A striking design to start with, its “runway lights” swooping across and contouring around the bottom of the light housing. It was the beginning of what became a new era in headlight technology.
So, they’re great! Flashy, modern and safer headlights can be had for all! Case closed, the end.
But there’s just something that bothers me about them.
You see, as much as they are designed to be safer, that doesn’t mean they’re always being used safely. Because LED’s are now so advanced and bright, they can very easily be mistaken by the driver for looking like their headlights are on, especially when looking in the reflection of another car. This, along with the fact that so many new cars have constantly lit dashboards/displays, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish from the inside of the car which lights you have on.
But from another driver’s perspective, it’s very obvious. DRL’s don’t need to be directional, so can scatter light and dazzle oncoming drivers. The opposite can also be said for some makes and models, where the lights don’t provide enough light to safely mark a car on the road. This also means that as a driver, they have no directional headlights to properly see where they’re going and, in some cases, no rear lights at all as these are not mandatory under the DRL law.
The key point I’d say for most is: If your car is fitted with DRL’s, just take that little bit extra time to check which lights you are running on, and if they’re appropriate for the conditions. Check to see if your headlight symbol is lit in the dashboard, and don’t rely on auto headlights.
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