[shit_game]

>This is a change in behavior.

>I am not sure what the solution is but the situation is getting worse and quickly.

The solution is legislation and enforcement. Driving at night now makes me afraid for my safety because I'm literally blinded by oncoming traffic, and I'm sure that many other people share the same sentiment. I would happily argue that driving with lights bright enough to impair other drivers counts as wreckless driving and ought to be treated as such, but as far as I can tell, there are no legislative limits on directional lumen output or directional calibration for front-facing lights on cars, which leaves "wreckless" open to interpretation. This issue requires legislation that affects car manufacturers to prevent them from putting dangerous lights in their cars, and legislation that requires regular inspection of cars regarding their lumen output and headlight calibration. Most US states already require yearly inspections for emissions for most cars in order to re-register them; there are already means and methods in place for this to happen, it just needs to be done.

I'm sick of feeling like im going to die every time I drive home because some asshole wants to see everything a mile in front of him.

[Wistar]

Adaptive headlights that actively shield oncoming drivers were finally made legal in the US in 2022 but complicated bureaucratic hoops make them hard to implement. BMW seems to have them working as I find their higher-end lighting (ex: ICON Adaptive w/ Laser Light) to be among the best to oncoming drivers—at least to my eyes.

CNN writes about why headlight brightness is worse in the US than in other countries:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/15/cars/headlights-tech-adap...

[Zak]

The USA seems to suffer from a not-invented-here problem when it comes to automotive regulations. Most of the world adopted the European standard for adaptive headlights, but the USA had to spend years coming up with its own incompatible standard.

[andrewaylett]

BMW have one of the more annoying matrix main beam setups, as far as I'm concerned -- it's not great at picking out my car, and seems worse than others I've encountered. A redeeming feature is that it does seem to be smart enough to stop blinding me if I flash my own main beams.

The (2017) Ford Galaxy has actually pretty decent auto-main-beams. Importantly, the stalk controls don't stop working but also if I'm just a fraction of a second late in turning them off manually and the system beats me to it, they stay off. They also stay off when driving on roads with street lights.

[Espressosaurus]

It's solving the wrong problem, and doesn't help the typical situation of being on hills, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.

Just turn the damn maximum output down.

[LeifCarrotson]

It's "reckless", not "wreckless". Recklessness is often correlated with wreck-fullness.