A BRIGHT IDEA?: DAYTIME RUNNING LIGHTS ARE COMING SOON TO A HIGHWAY NEAR YOU

Bob Englehart showed how a light switch is still needed to control parking lights, high beams and night lights on the 1995 Geo Metro.

Bob Englehart of Brennecke Chevrolet demonstrated the daytime running lights on the 1995 Geo Metro.

More Americans will see vehicle headlights on during the daytime in the next year, as General Motors Corp. begins equipping every model with daytime running lights, or DRLs.

Although the move was not mandated by the federal government, GM safety specialists said the decision was prompted by the success DRLs had in Canada and northern European countries in prevention of auto accidents.

But according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, no firm conclusions have been made in the United States of the benefits of daytime lights. The safety board last year made daytime lights possible by overriding state laws that prohibited them.

A technical paper said the brighter sky in the United States as compared to northern latitudes "might make a DRL-equipped vehicle no more conspicuous than an unequipped one."

One study, later called inconclusive, reported the proportion of DRL-relevant crashes (daytime or multivehicle) was 7 percent lower for the DRL-equipped vehicles.

The use of daytime lights isn't a new idea. In the 1960s, campaigns to use them during holiday weekends, when more vehicles were on the road, were initiated.

Some service fleets use daytime lights, and a yearlong Avis rental car company study helped GM to decide to go with the daytime lights.

Southwestern Bell's service technicians in the Cape Girardeau region have the option to drive with headlights on, said spokeswoman Mary Joe Sokol.

"It is a voluntary policy within the fleet," she said. "It is not a company policy. It's left up to the drivers."

Sokol estimated 10 percent of the fleet use them regularly.

Bob Englehart, a salesman with Brennecke Chevrolet in Jackson, said "there hasn't been much of a response," to the daytime lights, "simply because a lot of people just don't know about them."

Englehart said the Geo Metros sold with the DRLs.

The 1995 Geo Metro was the first GM vehicle equipped with DRLs. The Chevrolet S-10 and GMC Sonoma compact pickups and the Chevrolet Beretta and Corsica compacts followed.

GM will introduce a retrofit kit for older vehicles this fall, GM officials said.

DRLs don't burn at the normal intensity of headlights, instead lighting at a much-reduced intensity. They are activated when the transmission is shifted into gear or the parking brake is released.

Interior lights, taillights and instrument panel lights aren't automatically turned on.

DRLs also consume less energy than the vehicle's full-lighting system. The cost of DRLs is minimal, officials said. The fraction of a mile-per-gallon fuel penalty, estimated at $3 per year for the average driver, should be offset by insurance savings.