If you have purchased a vehicle in the recent years you may be familiar with a feature that automates your vehicle’s headlights, these are your daytime running lights. Daytime running lights are essentially what their name implies, lights that are enabled during the daytime. Unlike high beams, the purpose of this is to allow for more visibility when driving your car during cleardaytime hours and have a seamless transfer into nighttime lights once the sun sets low enough. But there are some that don’t agree with daytime running lights and see them as more of an annoyance than just an added feature.

What are Daytime Running Lights

Though it may seem to be a simple cut and dry, there is a fair amount that goes into daytime running lights that allow for the system to work. Essentially, daytime running lights are your low beam headlights that are illuminated during the daytime hours. This is done by your vehicles computer that is connected to an external ambient light sensor. The ambient light sensor is used to determine the amount of sunlight in any given area and connected with the computer to change settings based on the amount of light. This is a common sensor included in a number of newer electronic products such as Laptops and Smartphones that adjust brightness depending on how sunlit of an area you are in. This is essentially the same thing your vehicle is doing when enabling the daytime running lights.

These lights are normally ran at a lower powered setting as to not be too much of an interference to others on the road. These lights, primarily comprised of low-powered LED daytime running lights, are either fashioned as an led light itself or an array of lights. These lights can also take the form of LED fog lamps or special external lights.

Since their mainstream incorporation a few years ago daytime running lights have been included on every new vehicle. Which could take the form of any of the listed light arrays above.

How to Turn Off Daytime Running Lights?

Turning off your daylight running lights may seem to be something that never needs to be done, but there could be certain situations that would warrant you to turn them off. One of these reasons, as farfetched as it is in 2019, is visiting a drive-in movie theater. When you are proceeding to your space there is clear instructions to disable any lights other than hazard lights to navigate in a minimally lit area.

To turn off your daytime running lights and have your vehicle actively running you will need to do the following:

1. Turn off the vehicle entirely, not just on battery
2. Engage the parking brake, this may result in your brake light illuminating
3. Turn your vehicle back on, depending on where you are you may only need the battery.

This is a way to ensure your daytime running lights are off and stay off while your vehicle is still receiving power.

Some vehicles, such as Toyotas, have an optional knob near the rest of the car light settings that will allow you to disable the daytime running lights. This is normally found near the turn signal indicator and is found as a switch or a knob.

Dangers of Daytime Running Lights

The title may seem a little dramatic, but there is defiantly dangers of using daytime running lights and becoming comfortable with them automatically illuminating. One major occurrence could come in the form of being rear ended due to the tail lights neglecting to illuminate as the lights aren’t fully activate, it is still using the settings of the daytime running lights. Another potential issue comes in the form of the daytime running lights making it harder for motorists behind you to see your turn signal indicator. Due to this, accidents could occur if both parties aren’t paying attention. Lastly, the amount of times you will be required to change your headlights bulbs will increase, as daytime running lights are always on and burn outs occur frequently.