Comment by mceachen
21 hours ago
Driving with your lights off at dusk or dark gets you (rightfully) pulled over by law enforcement in CA. It's well-correllated with driving under the influence.
I'm a huge fan of many car safety regulations, but this isn't one.
(Sign me up for car-hiding-in-blind-spot notification lights on side mirrors, though, those are great)
I don't understand what you're saying here - you think it's good to have your lights turned on - but you don't want them to automatically turn on?
Because of my ADHD I would constantly get pulled over if automatic lights were removed
You and I both!
I think they mean that it gives a clear signal to LEOs that the person driving is likely distracted/unfit.
Everyone makes mistakes. It's important to make it easy to do the right thing.
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That doesn't make any sense. Eliminatung DUI is not a matter of detection, and automatic light sensors save lives.
It could make sense. We don't know the numbers.
Let's say net X lives are saved each year because of automatic lights turning on.
Let's say net Y lives would be saved each year without automatic lights, via more effective detection of drunk drivers and stopping them before they kill someone.
Is X > Y? We don't know.
> Eliminatung DUI is not a matter of detection
There are a lot of avenues to decrease DUI, among which one is effective detection combined with enforcement.
The EU has done lots of reach on road and car safety, there's lots of data out there - just perhaps not in the US as many American made cars have significantly lagged behind in terms of safety features.
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There may be something like that that does make it counterintuitive. Usually those kind of Malcom Gladwell paradoxes end up overstated.
There would be other factors, like drunk people are probably safer with their lights on too. Lane keeping probably makes it harder to detect drunk drivers too but also may make them safer.
This is simply because police don’t do their jobs. It would be trivial to simply wait outside bars at 2AM and give out tons of DUIs but a significant percentage of the population are alcoholics and this would result in massive blowback against the police.
Go to any small town watering hole at 2AM to see this in effect. The police have no legal obligation to prevent crime or enforce laws. None.