On the visibility issue do we all remember when high vis first came in.
You would be driving down the road and freak out thinking it was a copper on the side of the road.
These days every man and his dog wears high vis and you just tune out to it. Admittedly the shiny strips are great at night with reflection but the bright colours do jack all during the day now.
The problem is when everything just becomes the norm.
I wont disagree with you. One of our participants of our headlights on campaign said that this year we have lights on to be noticed, next year we will have to have Christmas trees on our bonnets.
The stand out features of the lights on is your eyes are dragged to them, just like at night you have to consciously stop yourself looking at oncoming vehicles lights.
My thoughts on the headlights on (or DRLs) are not that you "see" the vehicle, but that "something" grabbed your attention to make you stop and see what grabbed your attention.
It is also worth pointing out that the very basic aim of the campaign was to try to grab the attention of the distracted driver (ie phone user etc). They may look up momentarily from their "device", but not actually "see" anything. Headlights on or DRLs hopefully increase the chances of them seeing "something", and in turn shifting their attention from the device back to the road.
Of all the operators I have talked to about the headlights on no one has complained about burning out globes, although one operator said he had issues with heat in the instrument panel from the dash lights.
Peter