I live in the woods in the northeast US, and also grew up in the 80s-90s in a very rural area and I've owned a number of cars when I was young, some with comically dim lights.
You really don't need the bright lights. You never have. Slow down, look for movement, and use your brights intelligently.
Growing up in rural New England it seemed that people were constantly hitting deer with their cars—slowing down is obviously a good idea, but every additional foot of headlight distance certainly helps for spotting the glint of an eyeball on the side of the road.
>every additional foot of headlight distance certainly helps for spotting the glint of an eyeball on the side of the road.
Only if you are paying attention in the first place. The reality is that most people hitting deer and moose just are not, or the animal ran out in front of them and there was nothing that could have been done.
I dodged many a moose with half burned out incandescent bulbs in shitty sedans in the northest of rural new england.
Meanwhile the silly folks who have duct taped ten massive LED lightbars to their fenders still seem to be hitting moose up north, so I just don't buy the "I need more light" argument.
Note how the DOT doesn't call out vehicle changes. Note also that despite the raw number being only a few thousand moose hits over a decade, you will consistently find that someone who has hit one moose is much more likely to have hit multiple moose.
They just aren't attentive drivers. Every single person up north has almost hit a moose. Only some of them routinely keep hitting moose. They are being saved by moose population control.
I also live in the woods in the northeast US, also grew up in a very rural area (in the 70s-80s), and I still own a few 70s and 80s cars with comically dim lights. Yeah, they're not good. 1) They're very noticeably worse comparing them back to back to modern cars, and 2) my eyes are no longer young. Can I drive with them? Sure. Is it less safe? You bet.
Slow down is kind of the general tip, but I find it kinda BS. I can drive slowly focusing on the bushes on the way to/from work in bumfuck nowhere, or I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and turn night into day.
> or I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and turn night into day.
But only if you don't care about other drivers on the road. And of course, how many of those other drivers on the road care about who they're impacting? A lot of them have your attitude.
My point is about bumfuck nowhere. Places where at night you may or may not see another car for the X km it takes you to get home. That with time people tend to forget they have their high beam bound to the beacon of god, with or without an extra switch, is a separate issue. The light itself makes sense.
If there's a constant stream of vehicles I'm not really worried about visibility all that much. The suicidal wildlife is mostly culled, for potholes you can track the person in front...
> I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and turn night into day.
And piss all other drivers off around you. This is the whole point of the thread you are posting in, but then if people cant realise or even care when they are blinding people I dont expect them to have fully read or understood the thread article.
"I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and turn night into day" they said, in a topic entitled "Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright"
Not to be pedantic but you do need to be able to see pedestrians at night too, who can legally walk on country roads on either side, without reflectors or illumination.
It’s the car drivers responsibility to not mow pedestrians down wherever or whenever they are walking.
A lot of smaller US cities also have areas with no lighting and worn-out lines, which contrast with brightly lit areas and suddenly you're basically blind if your lights are too dim. Couple that with a wet road, which reduces visibility, and it can be hard to see where to drive.
Then we have pedestrians walking with no sidewalks or crosswalks, because city planning actively hostile to people walking.
Well, the new stupid bright lights, yes. The idea of brights in general, though, not quite as bad.
I'm also not clear why someone would leave brights up once they are close to something that has eyes. The idea is you can see them further away. But, as you get close, drop the lights.
I think part of the problem is people drive at the speed limit regardless of conditions. If its dark and wet you really should not drive at the same speed as when its sunny and dry. If you are unfamiliar with a twisty road you need to slow down. If there are more pedestrians around than usual you need to slow down.
I agree with you 100%. The speed limit isn't seen as a limit, culturally, in the united states from what I can tell. Anymore, it's treated as the minimum socially acceptable speed on roads.
I do, and old school yellow high-beams were plenty on a 205 to do 80+mph down b-roads back in the 00's, I would happily go back to that if it meant I could avoid being blinded every ten minutes.
All cars in the U.S. used the same headlights up until the early 80s. You could literally walk into the auto parts store and buy a headlight to replace yours, regardless of make and model
Somehow we all did ok back then with standard high/low beams from lights which are very dim and warm compared to the harsh white LED lights of today
It seems to me that this is just another example of the arms race of modern cars. You need a big SUV to feel safe on a road full of SUVs and trucks. You need an array of dazzling LEDs to compete with every other car out there. And we all lose.
This is an anecdotal fallacy. We also did fine without seatbelts, with parents who smoked, with open containers in cars, with DDT sprayed in our neighborhoods. Until we realized that was crazy.
Not all improvements are without side effects. Increased headlight quality is one of those.
> All cars in the U.S. used the same headlights up until the early 80s.
Hey, there were several models.
For a long time you had the two filament bulbs vs single filament. And then around the late 70s, you could have circle or rectangle, so there were 4 bulbs to choose from! Tremendous variety.
Well this is why headlights have dipped beam and full beam. The issue is the dipped beam is getting as bright as the full beam used to be, and is mounted higher on the car as well.
I guess you don't actually drive at night in the countryside then.
You need lights to see where the road is, not where pedestrians might be - on none existent footpaths