Driving lamps

Auxiliary high beam lamps may be fitted to provide high intensity light to enable the driver to see at longer range than the vehicle's high beam headlamps. Such lamps are most notably fitted on rallying cars, and are occasionally fitted to production vehicles derived from or imitating such cars. They are common in countries with large stretches of unlit roads, or in regions such as the Nordic countries[citation needed] where the period of daylight is short during winter.

"Driving lamp" is a term deriving from the early days of nighttime driving, when it was relatively rare to encounter an opposing vehicle.Only on those occasions when opposing drivers passed each other would the low (dipped or "passing") beam be used. The high beam was therefore known as the "driving beam", and this terminology is still found in international UN Regulations, which do not distinguish between a vehicle's primary (mandatory) and auxiliary (optional) upper/driving beam lamps. The "driving lamp" term has been supplanted in US regulations by the functionally descriptive term "auxiliary high-beam lamp".