The issue I would like to address hasn't been brought up yet and I wonder how many other vehicles are like this.
My 1997 Pontiac Grand Am has daytime running lights. I do agree that daytime running lights indeed make you more noticeable on the roads and can reduce accidents. I would like to see more statistical data on how many lives it has saved. I was able to come up with this figure, though: According to a report released by the European Commission, daytime running lights could save 1,000 to 3,000 lives each year. But, yes, this does not say how many have actually been saved.
But the main point of my contribution is to talk about something I always found a tad silly about the daytime running lights on my Grand Am. They are not any more or less brighter than the lights. I have studied the car at length with the lights on or off and I have concluded that there is absolutely no difference. So I never turn the lights on. Why even bother making regular lights and daytime running lights on a car if the two are no different than one another? Just take the knob to turn the lights on off of the dashboard if you are going to do that. The only conceivable purpose I can see is if you would want to leave the lights on the car when it's turned off, maybe to shine it into the woods for snipe hunting adventures.
But I'm not really complaining. It's kind of a convenience. I never have to bother with turning the lights on or off. Well, it was an inconvenience once when I was going through a little Christmas light show. I had to put my emergency brake slightly on while going through because they required that all headlights be off; that seemed to be the only thing to turn them off. And I really don't like driving with my emergency brake on, even a little bit.
I have gotten some questions on this: yes, I can still switch the high beams on without the regular headlights turned on. I came from and drive a lot in the sticks. Trust me I use them a lot. Another reason why the actual headlights on the 97 Grand Am are completely useless.
Source: http://adtsea.iup.edu/adtsea/pdf/TheChronicle/2005%20-%20Winter.pdf