Okay, I can think of one real-world example (admittedly obscure!). Our family is into astronomy. We were driving one night in very dark skies and wanted to stop to view the stars... but it was VERY cold out. We sat in the car with the engine running and the heat on... but had to have the lights off to see stars. That vehicle DID allow the DRL to be switched off (Isuzu Ascender).

I'm all in favor of safety, but if you think long enough you can find a viable reason for almost ANYTHING!! I agree, though, that the default setting should be toward SAFETY. You should be able to bypass this one, but it should be a bit of a pain to do it... and with the next cycle it should come back to default (lights on). Just my humble opinion!

 

Hey, rysa4 (and zimbop and anyone else who cares), if you really want a switch to turn them on and off, install one! Anyone with some basic electrical knowledge can show you how to buy the parts and help you to patch into the load side of the fuse, run some wire through the firewall (sorry, I didn't pay attention to where Tim said the fuse was, but you get the idea), and install a switch. Or, better yet, pay someone knowledgeable to do it. Place a small switch discretely under the dash somewhere, or put a big red "E-Stop" button on a plate over that little compartment below the sel/reset button! Anything that is rated for the proper voltage and current will work. Get creative! And post pictures here!

Yes, it will take a little time, patience, some money and a small amount of know-how, but if you really want it, go for it! But if anyone wants to try this, please, please, make sure you know what you're doing first, and disconnect the negative cable from the battery before you do anything....

p.s. and if you really want to get fancy, there may be a way to put in some trick circuitry that will even fake out the warning light on the dash! Probably just need to find the right wires...

 

Well, I still don't buy the original premise of needing to turn the DRL's off, but I will have to concede one point. I just checked in the manual to confirm it, and the HCH2 turns the DRL's on when the ignition is on, you put it in gear, and you release the handbrake.

But if you stop, put it in park, and pull the handbrake, it leaves the lights on until you turn the ignition off. I can't think of a single reason why it shouldn't turn the lights off any time the car is in park and the handbrake is on. Why wait until the car is off?

While that doesn't resolve the lack of a switch, it would take care of several of your examples.

 

While I'll agree that waiting for the car to be off seems a bit obtuse, what's the big deal with turning it off and then back on to turn off the lights while stopped and waiting? The lights won't turn back on until you move out of Park.

In defense of the OP - one other time when it would be nice to be able to turn the DRLs off is when approaching the gate at a military installation at night - they request that you switch to parking lights so that the guards can see your access sticker without being blinded. I'm not sure how much of an issue the DRLs are but I know a friend visiting a base with a rental with DRLs when they were still relatively rare and getting at least dirty looks from the guards.

 

Its an interesting idea. I am not skilled with electrical things ( basically I try to avoid electricity). I also have general concerns about doing anything electrical on this particular car as well.

However, I would have preferred to have this as an add on option over the options I was forced to purchase ( see the how much did you pay thread for details if anyone cares) for sure.

I'm not inclined to pull fuses and have yet another light on the dash either, so I'll leave it as is, although I really would rather not have daytime running lights at all.

 

I am an electrical engineer so it would be easy for me to make such an adaptation, but it is my feeling that the car should make sense as is without user hacks. Some will want them on, some will want them off sometimes, so the only sensible solution is to have a switch built into the design.

 

There are plenty of older pre-1960 vehicles still on the road that make you do everything manually.

 

Because anything you have powered by the cigarette lighter socket turns off and back on again when you do that. It resets the ipod momentarilly, when my computer battery is dead that shuts off my computer. Plus think about what happens when I do that rather than just staying in autostop mode: when i put it in park, the engine starts up again. Then I turn it off. Then when I'm ready to go i have to start the engine again. I should not have to turn the engine off and on twice to get the lights to turn off. That's just stupid.

So I ask, what's the big deal in just letting me turn the lights off? They're going through a bunch of effort to stop me from doing that for no good reason. With user-programable features, those who can't seem to muster up the incredible effort it takes to turn them on manually could choose the "automatic" mode, those of us who want to control them ourselves could choose the "manual" mode and everybody's happy... except for the control freaks who think their way should be imposed on everyone, and in my opinion, those people deserve to be unhappy. :-)

 

because you live in the country. there's no street lights. you get home late at night and need to open the gate to your driveway. you drive up, put the car in park, get out and unlock the gate. the lights stay on so you can see.

 

I realize that the cost of giving us a switching mechanism would be low, but I really wouldn't want it added to the cost of the car, which it would be. There are lots of things that the car doesn't come with - sun shade, solar powered cabin vents, rear cup holders, etc. They had to make a decision, and their decision was to supply DRLs without a switch, as most manufacturers who supply DRLs do (correct me if I'm wrong about that). There are several things I'd like Honda to offer, but I'm not sure in the end I'd want to pay for them, especially if I can aftermarket them.

In the old days, as was mentioned by AZMerf, car manufacturers did not bundle options near as much as they do now. I once bought a car that had two options - radio and automatic. Try doing that today! It's cheaper for the manufacturers to set up a bundle of options and sell them that way, and it gives the buyer more for less money. Personally, if they had bundled a DRL switch in the HCH II, I would have considered it a waste of money. I wish they would have spent more time making it so that you could always clearly tell if the A/C is running, but they didn't. But that's my opinion - I like DRLs - you don't! Thank goodness we have this forum and freedom so that we can agree to disagree!