U.s. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The Effectiveness of Daytime Running Lights for Passenger Vehicles (Nhtsa Technical Report Dot Hs 811 029) U.s. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The analysis evaluates the effects of daytime running lights (DRLs) against three types of target crashes: (1) two-passenger vehicle crashes excluding rear-end crashes, (2) single-passenger-vehicle to pedestrians/cyclists crashes, and (3) single passenger- vehicle to motorcycle crashes. Each crash type was examined at three crash severity levels ? fatal, injury, and all severity. The basic approach is a control-comparison analysis of real-world crash involvements for DRL-equipped vehicles and non-DRL vehicles. Ratio of odds ratios were used to derive the DRL effects. A 95-percent confidence interval was used to infer statistically significant conclusions. The Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the State Data System were the crash data sources used for this analysis.