Recently, a friend and I were discussing the merits of a vehicle she test drove. The vehicle (which shall remain nameless) was loaded with options, among them, daytime driving lights. It seemed a little odd to us that daytime driving lights would be optional. Even more odd is the fact that they are an individual option, costing $40. We wondered if someone who is spending $40,000 — or more — on a car would decide another $40 was just too much.

Obviously this topic had my friend and me flummoxed. We could understand daytime running lights being part of an add-on package, but still couldn’t get our heads around them being a stand-alone option. After puzzling over this for awhile, I’ve come up with some ideas.

Maybe there are people out there who wouldn’t buy this particular vehicle if the daytime running lights were a standard feature. Maybe there are those among us so strongly opposed to having their headlights come on automatically that they would refuse to consider the cars many other merits. Maybe there are enough people out there who say, “I’ll turn my lights on when I’m darn good and ready, and there’s no way on Earth I’ll buy a car that’s going to do it for me,” that the manufacturer decided to make daytime running lights a $40 option rather than throw it in as standard.

Maybe I think about these things too much.

Back in November the brothers at Car Talk took a letter from a guy who wondered if his father-in-law was crazy for turning off his truck at every stop to save gas. Tom and Ray said the father-in-law was doing a good thing and saving fuel.

“Turning off the engine when you’re going to be sitting for more than a minute or two is a great thing to do. Most hybrid vehicles do this automatically now. When you come to a stop, the engine shuts down, and the moment you touch the gas pedal again, it instantaneously starts up, so quickly that you don’t even notice.”

They go on to say that one energy expert suggests if all cars shut down automatically, “we could cut our fuel consumption by 10 percent. Or about 40 MILLION gallons a day!”

They talk about hybrid engines and cars shutting down automatically and saving gas. What they don’t address is how much money you’ll spend in the emergency room when the road-rageaholic behind you beats you up for making him wait at a green light while you start your car.

I’m all for saving gas. I think we should try to do as much as we can to reduce our gas consumption. But I have to wonder how practical it is in heavy traffic to turn off your engine if it doesn’t happen automatically. In a vehicle with an automatic transmission, you have to put the car in park, then turn off the engine. Once you restart the car, you have to put it back in drive. While that probably only takes a second or two, we all know there are intersections in town where that second or two could give you another red light — and a black eye.

If turning off and on the vehicle could happen “so quickly that you don’t even notice” as it does in hybrid cars, I would vote yes for shutting it off at stoplights. And it might be ok if your commute route doesn’t include bumper to bumper traffic. But from a practical commuting perspective, until it happens instantaneously and automatically, I’m afraid I’m going to have to stick with idling at lights.

Granted, I don’t have a degree from MIT or a syndicated radio program, so Tom and Ray may have one up on me. But I can make jokes just as bad as theirs — and I’m way better looking.