When in drive, pulling on the ebrake shuts off the daytime LEDS
 

I have a 2017 frs auto. What's the reasoning behind this?

yup pretty normal...the DRLs only come on to signify the car is moving. I'm sure just like the pre-facelift headlights you might be able to rewire it or get a harness adapter to keep them always on.

This... normal

This is not just normal for our platform, but is pretty common-place across most cars, regardless of brand. Engaging the e-brake will usually shut off ALL lighting on the exterior of the vehicle.

As for reasoning behind it, who knows? But it's nothing new and nothing to be concerned about.

The older style drl is one high beam headlight on at half power. Turning it off was my first mod.

I have the HID/LED headlights of Monogram. Does the same thing.

Read the manual. It talks about this (and many other things).

The reason behind it is pretty straightforward: It would be really annoying if you couldn't turn the lights off while the car was parked with the engine running at night. Also they're running lights, not parking lights.

What?????? There is a manual? Next you are going to tell me it is hidden in a secret door just fwd of the passenger! But what if I need to know what kind of oil to put in it, or how to use the radio Shirley that is not in there.

For the old guys and a very limited number of the younger ones

https://media.giphy.com/media/nKq1Ck2WDvEnm/giphy.gif

And yes I have had my FRS at the drive in movies and knew how to turn the lights off.

hmm? if it is at nighttime then your lights will always be on granted your headlight stalk is set to auto or on, your parking brake will never override that..

Maybe it's normal with Toyota but I've had nissan and mitsu's and neither of them have this peculiar behavior.

I'm talking about in case of brake failure at night and you have to use the ebrake (yes, it's not the drifting handle) your saying it will shut off all lights? I don't think that's correct and if it is, extremely dangerous, if that were the case.

This thread is about the Daytime Running Lights. Not about all of the other lights on the car. I never said it shuts off all of the lights. Just the DRLs. The other lights aren't even linked to the DRLs. They operate completely independently based upon the position of the light control switch on the stalk.