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  • My lights confuse me so I just leave them on all the time. Safer that way anyway
    by NDlurker
  • Confidently wrong? The labeling the author has chosen, with "park"/"drive", would lead someone to select headlights because they're in drive, even during the day. I have never seen the symbol they label "parking" described as such.

    > “parking,” which activates only front lights, at half brightness, and (for some reason) leaves the tail lights off.

    I've also just double checked the manual for my car to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass here: the symbol he calls "parking" activates the tail lights. From the manual:

    > “[double headlights, one left one right symbol]” position:

    > Instrument panel illumination, parking lights, front side marker lights, rear side marker lights, tail lights and license plate lights are on.

    (My manual does not ascribe a name to it.)

    Now, I suppose this could be an unexpected thing that differs between cars, but it also shouldn't really matter that much. The intro example is in the rain; you should be using the symbol he calls "park" in the rain, you should be using the "low beams" setting, and then your tail lights are definitely on. Or … just let "Auto" handle it?

    (I've always called this symbol "daytime running lights". Wikipedia says that's a different symbol (a single headlight with stippled lines emitting from it), one I've definitely never seen before & isn't in TFA; Wikipedia claims it to be the ISO symbol, however, I've found the relevant ISO standard¹, but it seems to lack the symbol Wikipedia calls "daytime running lights". The symbol I call DRL is called "position" or "side" lights, and the term DRL is not used by ISO AFAICT, despite what Wikipedia claims. What a mess.)

    (from TFA:)

    > Many cars have an AUTO option now, but would you trust it to choose the right thing?

    … yes? Absolutely yes. The car can just do the right thing for me, without me having to remember. Sensing ambient light is not complicated.

    > pull on the stalk for high beams (another mode), or rotate the stalk left or right for turn signals.

    There is absolutely no way whatever car this is a photograph of is rotating the stalk for turn signals. Turn signals are pull up or down, universally.

    ¹ISO-2575:2021, though technically a draft since ISO standards are not open. But this symbol has been around since forever, so unless it's changed recently…

    by deathanatos
  • Volkswagen have a great idea for rain driving, am option for having the headlights on automatically when the wipers are on. So even if it's bright and raining, the headlights will still be on.
    by thrixton
  • Is that digital car dashboard cluster near the end of the article from a real car? It’s blissfully simple compared to every new car I’ve driven recently. The best I’ve seen are simply skeuomorphic, most are instead filled with decorative clutter.
    by fjlunky
  • Great article, which I strongly agree with. Another reason I've personally seen for over-reliance on icons instead of text is it's an easier, cheaper way to satisfy localization requirements.
    by mrandish
  • Not even sure why we need a parking mode for the lights now. Sounds like a legacy thing
    by michaeljx
  • The parking lights vs low beam icon are quite standard, at least in the EU, and they tell you the difference when getting your licence.

    Icons are still the same as they were 25 years ago AFAICT.

    by alanfranz
  • "Many cars have an AUTO option now, but would you trust it to choose the right thing? I didn’t, being unsure if it properly accounted for daylight rain driving."

    While it doesn't negate the iconography discussion throughout the rest of the article, the AUTO option is the intended default, because it turns on low beams in every case where they're needed, including daylight rain driving, which is based on the use of windshield wipers. I'm always a bit baffled at the modern cars driving around without their lights on. The car does it for you these days.

    The ability to select low beams vs daylight running lights (DRLs) is mostly for convenience for one-off odd circumstances where you would want to override AUTO for whatever reason.

    by aschla

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