Living with blondes: Part LXXVIII

Lyndsay said, "Dad, the headlights in my Blazer are very dim. It's hard to see at night."

I asked if there was a voltmeter on the dash. She said there is.

"OK, check the voltage as the motor cranks when you start it. If it's dropping to 10 volts when you start the engine, we may need to put the battery on the charger for a while. You drive a lot of short trips and the battery may not be charging enough."

She was leaving for church, so I had a thought to check the lights before she left. The daytime running lights came on when she started the engine.

"Turn on your lights", I said. She pushed the main lighting switch and the low beams came on. They looked fine.

"Turn on the high beams." Nothing happened.

I walked around to the driver's side door. The window came down and she said, "Those ARE the high beams."

That's when it hit me. She's been driving around at night relying on the daytime running lights! No wonder she thought the headlights were dim!

I showed her how the main light switch works and how to turn on the high beams with the stalk-activated switch. "If the dash lights aren't on, your headlights and taillights aren't on. If you drive like that at night, you can get a ticket!" She was wide-eyed at this. Lyndsay is a stickler for rules and I suspect she'd be reduced to tears if she were stopped and ticketed.

So if you've seen a dimly lit Blazer cruising around Owasso at night, it just may have been my daughter.