When To Use Your Parking Lights

I guess I just don’t see the point of this thread.

Parking lights are for parking. So that a stationary car is visible to traffic.

If it’s daylight, then you can see my car at Starbucks, parking lights are too dim to help.

If it’s dusk, or dark, then my headlights are on, and so are my parking lights.

And you can see my car.

Under what circumstance would parking lights be needed at the drive through?

It's just to show consideration to the people in front of you so that you're not blasting your headlights into their mirrors. Especially if you're in a tall pickup truck. It makes the whole drive-thru experience more pleasant for everybody.
 
Little too preachy/cranky for my taste.

Drive through? Na, I'm not parked and that is such a minor annoyance. I can certainly relate to the pickup up from dance comment. That is typically an adventure with lots of chaos. Don't see that kind of chaos at a drive thu. Just me, but we often skip the drive thru as the lines are often longer than if you actually got out of the car and walked in to place an order.

Usually in a road situation, if I need my parking lights I'll have my headlights on as well.

It's a bit cranky to complain about preachiness though...

 
It's just to show consideration to the people in front of you so that you're not blasting your headlights into their mirrors. Especially if you're in a tall pickup truck. It makes the whole drive-thru experience more pleasant for everybody.
Fair enough.

So, really what your thread is meant to be is, “When to turn off your headlights and leave just the parking lights on”.

I generally drive a car, but when I’m in my truck, if I’m behind someone in that sort of circumstance (drive through, I don’t tailgate) I do actually go to parking lights.
 
I think the point is to turn off your **** headlights when waiting in a line where lights will be blasting others...my gripe is the line to pick up my daughter from dance...idiots with their lights on, and especially the ones parked perpendicular in the other area, lights clearly shining right into our car. Be considerate of others, people. Happy Memorial Day.
I already do that, when I’m in my truck. I usually drive a car.

But thanks for assuming the worst of me.

By the way, there’s nothing “happy” about Memorial Day.

I don’t barbecue, or have a party, I’m more like this guy.

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When I was a kid, we had relatives in Riverside IL, and in those days the village required that anyone parked on the street after it got dark had to leave their parking lights on. Who knows, maybe they still do. Anyway, it was not unusual to go there for Thanksgiving or something and then have to jump-start the car afterward. Fun.

At least everything is LEDs now...
 
None of my cars came with Drive Thru lights, but rest assured the next one that does, I’ll engage them while waiting in line at a Drive-Thru.
 
None of my cars came with Drive Thru lights, but rest assured the next one that does, I’ll engage them while waiting in line at a Drive-Thru.

We should rename them to "drive-thru" lights in North America. It would be very educatory.
 
I used to use them at twilight or sunrise, until I learned that the law really has no rules on them. Ohio has the “lights on when using wipers” law, and I actually heard a coworker’s wife got a ticket for not using them, shortly after the law was enacted. There’s no limit to small town PD greed…
I was almost killed by a careless oncoming driver with no headlights on during a somewhat overcast, drizzly early morning. commute I was passing a Camry doing 40 in a posted 50 on route 111, overtaking at at about 75 on a non divided one lane highway. NO constabulary greed here - this is a MAJOR safety issue.
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On the parking lamps question, In the early 70's the Massachusetts statute law was to NEVER drive with parking lamps (side/rear markers) illuminated without the main head and taillights illuminated. Parking lights are marker lamps to make a car visible in poorly lit area when parked on the side of the road. On modern cars Taillight reflectors are much larger and more noticeable than in the past so you may not have to use parking lamps as often.

I have been guilty of driving with the P lamps on where I wanted my car to be more visible but I didn't require headlamps.
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These days many drivers only care about what THEY can see, not if they can be seen - at least in their cars; I suppose they get enough wanted EXPOSURE on social media.
 
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Would have been nice if the moron behind me, in the Dairy Queen drive thru, with his lifted jeep wrangler equipped with LED aftermarket headlights would have used the parking lights.
 
Would have been nice if the moron behind me, in the Dairy Queen drive thru, with his lifted jeep wrangler equipped with LED aftermarket headlights would have used the parking lights.

Yes, more than anything in the world I wish lifted trucks would turn off their headlights and switch to their parking lights in the drive-thru.
 
Yes, more than anything in the world I wish lifted trucks would turn off their headlights and switch to their parking lights in the drive-thru.
You and me both! When I’m in my car, getting blinded by the glare of a truck three feet behind me, a bit of courtesy would be nice.
 
PSA, if you do switch to the parking lights in the drive-thru, make sure to remember to turn your headlights back on when you leave. It's easy to forget.
 
Mercedes has exactly the same feature.

In Germany if you park on the side of the street, at night, you are expected to turn your parking lights on, on the side on which you are visible to traffic.

They are, in fact, parking lights.
Actually, so do many other Euro cars.
I also noticed the feature on an Opel Astra I rented in Germany.
Same goes for the rear fog light.
 
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