Hi Michael

I just read Bobs message below and decided I could not resist giving you my
comments.

To help qualify my comments I have also served in the recent past on various
heavy vehicle technical advisory and other working groups involving the
development of the Australian Design Rules and Road Transport Reforms
involving the Department of Transport and Regional Services and the National
Road Transport Commission. I have a background in mechanical engineering
both at trade and para-professional level, and as a car and truck fleet
manager. I currently work as an outside transport industry engineering and
alternative compliance consultant.

My initial response to Bobs comments are that we should never be an enemy of
work such as yours nor work to prevent it. At worst it will prove our
arguments wrong but, at its best, it will add strength by validating what we
are already believing and preaching.

My second response is that the argument about increased electrical power
demands and the resultant need for higher capacity alternators and maybe
batteries etc is not valid. I would have thought that it is obvious that
daytime lights are only in use in daylight hours when the other electrical
power demands are low and well below the capabilities of existing vehicle
outputs. Meaning, all the other myriad of lights are not in use during the
day and sucking up their share of power.

My third response I admit is my subjective opinion. I find more car drivers
are turning their headlights on during daylight hours on our country (South
Australian) roads. I find on the roads I drive these vehicles are much more
visible making it far less likely that I will mistakenly pull out into the
oncoming lane to overtake another vehicle. Incidentally, it has been
mandatory and accepted practice for road trains and oversize vehicles to
operate with their headlights on during daytime for many years.

My final response is that I believe all ADRs and other technical standards
should only be mandated when there is sound verifiable evidence that
supports the cost versus benefits ratio. How on earth can we then obtain
objective evidence without freely permitting projects such as yours to
progress.

Go for it Michael, and hopefully we will see the results so that we can all
be a little wiser.

Wayne Checker
Engineering and Management Consultant
Transport Engineering and Management Pty Ltd TEAM
58 Alpha Road
Prospect SA 5082
Australia

T: +61 (0)8 8342 5999
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-----Original Message-----
From: The list is for the use of academics and others interested in
technical, op [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of IS Edit
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 8:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Daytime running lights


Hi, Michael.

This hoary old beast raises it's silly little head religiously every three
years. I've seen it come around too many times. I thought we'd driven a
wooden stake through it's little heart last time, or the time before.

I was Technical Manager for Road Transport Forum, now the Australian
Trucking Association, for several years and was a member of the Federal
Office of Road Safety Technical Liaison Group for that time. TLG handled
Australian Design Rules matters.

We knocked daytime running lights back. The gain in a high light environment
like Australia, where the most popular car colour is white is probably not
worth the bother. Certainly no one has made a rational, germane in the
Australian context, case for it. A much higher percentage of driving here in
Australia is done in bright daylight than in Sweden and other places where
Seasonal Affective Disorder runs rampant six months of the year.

Unless there has been some radical change in the equation, the next time I
have to participate in putting down a proposal for day time running lights
in Australia, I will do my damnedest to ensure that everyone standing within
30' of it gets collateral damage.

Try it again after LED headlights make it, in 20 years or so (maybe) and
energy/fuel/weight are taken out of the picture.

Do you have any idea of the weight and fuel expended by heavy vehicles
(especially) for lighting, the size of the alternator, the drag it imposes
on the engine, the fuel it eats, the weight of the batteries?

We are just starting to tune heavy vehicles to the lesser current demands of
LED side and tail lights on trailers. As you might imagine, the current draw
of conventional side and tail lights on multi-trailer combinations is
staggering. But I'd hazard a gas that there are energy implications in
alternator and battery size for automobiles as well.

As for the Swedes and their daytime running lights, serves them right for
living in that climate. Day time lighting is part of the cost. The equation
is different here in Oz, thanks.

It just occurs to me that in high speed day time running, the best signal
device on a motor vehicle is a headlight flasher. I've been using them for
years. I used them on road-trains (where you never swerve or go to the floor
with the brake pedal no matter what or who is in the way) to get water
buffalo, cattle, camels, emus and brumbies, roadkill-eating wedge-tail
eagles, magpies, crows and lots of other critters off the road and it works
very well. It also works on motorists. Headlight flashing would be nowhere
near as effective if headlights were on already, even dimmed (if they were
bright enough to do any good).

Good luck scaring up money for yet another study.

If you get it, I can promise you free entertainment in public and that you
will be named in despatches. :)

Could be fun.


Regards,

Bob Murphy
IS Edit Transport & Technical Communications
PO Box 111
Campbells Creek VIC 3451
AUSTRALIA

Tel: +61 3 5476 4408
                 5476 4474
Mobile: 0428 312 116

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