All Lit Up

Drivers may not be getting any brighter, but cars are. The latest wrinkle in traffic safety is the running light.

A running light is a 21-candlepower light, attached to the grille, that turns on with the ignition. The resulting gleam warns of a car's approach not only at dawn and dusk, when headlights may be off, but also in broad daylight, when the car is in a shadow or blending with the background. Running lights were first used by Greyhound buses, which experimented in 1960 by leaving their headlights on in daylight. In 1962 the practice was made compulsory on all the company's buses, and since then, according to Greyhound figures, accidents have dropped 15%.

Running lights, inexpensive and easy to install, are sparkling all over the Midwest and are expected soon to permeate even the conservative East. Autocrat Manufacturing Co. of Ypsilanti, Mich., is turning them out at the rate of 10,000 a day and is planning to sell 5,000,000, ranging in price from $1.79 to $2.79, in the next 18 months. A competitor, Amsco Manufacturing Co. of South Bend, Ind., has had two lights ($1.95 and $2.95) in production for only a couple of months, and is already making 2,000 lights a day.

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