[0xfeba]

> Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights and just leave them on and this includes cars with the older halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior.

This is one of my pet peeves.

I've categorized it into what I believe are the main causes:

1. People just don't know as well today that the blue indicator means you're blinding people

2. People with newer cars which will automatically turn off the headlights, including the brights, when you turn off and leave the car.

3. People with older cars where the low-beams are burned out or broken

I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to raise awareness. Eg., "If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone".

And/or, get a mirror on my trunk that I can adjust the angle of from inside the cabin to reflect back high-beams at the driver.

Mostly I'm hoping that automatic high-beams, like some Ford trucks I've seen do well, proliferate more!

[pksebben]

I have become an aggressive counter-flasher. This has yielded in some cases new knowledge - that the low beams of a lot of cars these days look like high beams (indicated when they flash back, and it's the brightness of a thousand suns).

For those behind me, I've discovered that my side mirror has an angle where it reliably bounces the beams back. I've gotten more than a couple of drivers to turn their beams down with this method (but they have to be tailgating for it to work, which usually means we're already in an adversarial situation).

[aceazzameen]

Haha I've also angled my side mirror out of my eyes, which incidentally is back towards the car behind me. I of course angle it back if I need to change lanes, but it's such an annoying thing I have to do just to see the road ahead of me.

At this point I put full blame on car manufacturers and lack of government regulation and enforcement. Lights will keep getting brighter because lights are getting brighter. It's a death spiral.

[notyourwork]

That indicates the low beams are incorrectly adjusted.

[qmr]

I've half jokingly told my wife I'm going to make a parabolic mirror for her to aim back at such drivers.

[nrds]

When I get incorrectly flashed I force my high beams on and keep them on, FYI. Don't do it.

[pipes]

I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people not using indicators and not understanding the rules of junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.

I was in a mates car recently and it scared the hell out of me, he was tail gating for most of a 3 hour journey. Eventually we got to a bit with chevrons and he wasn't obeying the rule staying N chevrons away from the car in front. I told him and he replied "nonsense, my car beeps if I'm too close to the car in front" I didn't have the energy to point out that is a collision warning not a safe distance measurer type device.

[ash_091]

The recommended 3 second gap is a much bigger distance than most people recognise, especially at high speed.

On another note- I feel sad that you could tell your mate "the way you're driving is making me uncomfortable" and be met with basically "your discomfort isn't valid because [technology] so I won't change my behaviour".

[BrenBarn]

I'd say just in general people have become way more cavalier and oblivious as drivers. I frequently see people doing wild stuff like driving at night with no headlights, or driving for several blocks in a bike lane. Every single yellow light is pushed to the limit, with often at least one (and sometimes multiple) drivers running the red light as well. I feel like a lot of is connected to a more general post-COVID decline in awareness of how one's actions affect others. People are just fine with doing anything they can get away with. I suspect the trend won't be reversed without a major increase in enforcement.

[wat10000]

People just don’t care about driving.

I get it. Maybe you're not interested in it. You’re at A, you want to arrive at B, and driving is just your tool for getting there.

But to misquote Trotsky, you may not be interested in driving, but driving is interested in you. Driving is the most dangerous thing most drivers do on a regular basis. Probably by a significant margin. Even if you hate it, respect it. Put in the effort to do it well.

[paradox460]

My favorite is that if you try to follow a safe distance, some jerk will immediately move to fill the space

[abustamam]

Wow this gives me anxiety just reading. My 2012 BMW has a warning everytime I turn it on. "DO NOT RELY ON BEEPS" (I'm paraphrasing of course.)

And yeah, I don't let tooling on my car replace common sense driving habits. I still turn my head when reversing, even if I can see what's behind me on the camera. I think it's crazy that people rely so much on unreliable tech on their cars.

[0xfeba]

> I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people not using indicators and not understanding the rules of junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.

Same. I've also noticed that people entering the interstate seem to _expect_ that cars already on the interstate move over, or change speed to let them merge. Usually at 10-15 MPH slower than the speed of traffic.

I've made a point to, when I cannot move over, remain in my lane at the same speed. And I've had people just absolutely wait until the last moment of a long on-ramp to speed up, or slow down to merge. It's bizarre.

[smileysteve]

In my city, if you use your indicators, traffic is more likely to close the gap on you than coordinate you.

[soneil]

Isn't it great being able to rely on tech that isn't doing what we think it's doing.

I don't even need to keep an eye on my cooking anymore, the smoke alarm beeps when I get too close.

[DoomDestroyer]

The N chevrons away on those roads are often ludicrously far apart. It it well over the 2 second rule and nobody follows it.

[LeifCarrotson]

My other pet peeve is the opposite - they've got LED daytime running lights, and use those instead of headlights. They're driving around at 11pm with no taillights and abysmal forward lighting, but there's enough of a glow from the DRLs that they assume their lights are on.

Or worse, they're accustomed to "automatic" lights and don't even know where the switch is, so they're driving around at dusk or in fog, rain, or snow in a white, gray, or black vehicle without their lights on.

I have also been tempted to purchase digital billboard space, but not on the side of the road. I want LED signs on my roof rack (one forward, one back) with column or two of buttons on the dash to call up a slate of messages:

1. TURN YOUR BRIGHTS OFF! BLUE MEANS BLINDING.

1b. OW! YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE MISALIGNED.

2. TURN YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON! THOSE ARE DRLs.

3. TURN LIGHTS ON TO BE SEEN EVEN IF IT'S NOT DARK.

4. MY SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE IS NOT A SPOT FOR YOU.

5. YOU ARE TAILGATING. I WILL NOT SPEED FOR YOU.

6. YIELD DOES NOT MEAN STOP.

7. I AM ZIPPER MERGING, NOT CUTTING THE LINE.

8. DRIVE CAREFULLY! I JUST SAW A DEER.

9. GO AHEAD, I SEE YOU.

10. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR VEHICLE, PULL OVER.

11. THANK YOU!

Plus a few spare slots to be implemented as needs arise.

I've been unimpressed with the automatic high-beams on my wife's newer Toyota and on other rentals I've driven, they usually depend on a direct line-of-sight to the other car's headlights, which means they stay on just long enough to hit the windshield of another car cresting a hill and blind them. Then they courteously turn off a few camera frames and vision analyses after the low beams become visible. If a __competent__ driver is controlling the high/low beams manually, they'll see the headlights of the other car illuminating the trees and such and turn off the high beams a couple critical seconds earlier. But I admit that the automatic systems are miles better at managing it than the __incompetent__ drivers who are all too common.

[webnrrd2k]

This hit on a peeve of mine, that automatic high beam systems really suck for pedestrians. Manual control is genuinely better in this regard. Try walking around at night in a wealthy neighborhood, and about 1/8 of the cars just blind every pedestrian.

[boogieknite]

if you ever visit Portland make one up reading YOU HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. drivers keep it weird here by ignoring the rules of the road for some kind of "no no i insist, after you" as if theyre giving some gift, but instead just confuse everyone

if im biking and waiting at a stop sign: without fail, the last car in a long line of cars will slam on the breaks and insist i go when they have no stop sign. it would have been faster for everyone if they just kept driving and i cross after they pass, like the rules of the road prescribe

[gblargg]

I actually made an LED sign for the rear of my van, with over a dozen messages, including some peaceful ones like yours (sorry, thanks). One was for headlights. I made it IR-controlled and used an older Android smartphone with IR blaster and an app that gave me labeled buttons to show the messages.

https://postimg.cc/06xZ7pP0

[userbinator]

Or worse, they're accustomed to "automatic" lights and don't even know where the switch is, so they're driving around at dusk or in fog, rain, or snow in a white, gray, or black vehicle without their lights on.

The worst: automatic headlights required by regulations, but no corresponding automatic taillights. At least before those regulations one would notice the darkness in front and turn on (both) lights, but now you have drivers thinking their rear is also lit because the front is.

[fouc]

I've long wished we had a standardized communication channel between cars. It could even be fixed status codes.

I've always expected that in the future when all cars are fully self-driving, they would have some kind of communication channel to improve efficiency. Why can't we have this for humans too before that.

[gorgoiler]

12. YES I KNOW THIS IS A GAS STATION AND I COULD JUST WALK OVER AND TELL YOU BUT THIS SIGN THING I MADE IS WAY MORE FUN.

[nrds]

> BLUE MEANS BLINDING

ONLY IF YOU'RE LIVING IN THE '90S! THE REST OF US HAVE MATRIX HEADLIGHTS! ALSO TURN OFF YOUR CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

[Dylan16807]

#3 sounds like you're either nitpicking or maybe having an eye issue?

#7 You're either doing something good or something very bad, so I hope it's the former. If you're trying to pace the lane next to you, then it sounds like it's at least an honest attempt to get things zipper merging. If you're telling yourself that cars need to be in both lanes to zipper merge, while zooming to the end and then hoping maybe a zipper merge will happen, you're getting a big benefit to yourself while still causing slowdown for everyone else.

[sneak]

You forgot THE LEFTMOST LANE IS FOR BRIEF PASSING, NOT DRIVING

[NietzscheanNull]

> I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to raise awareness.

Ironically, digital billboards are often 10x more obnoxious than even LED high beams in my area (and those are plenty awful, FWIW). We've got a few nearby that are so bright they could be used as stadium lighting when they're set to white. Naturally, half the ads running on them feature a white background, so it's like a stadium light that flips on and off every 15 seconds. Considering they're pointed directly at drivers' faces, I genuinely don't understand why there isn't more opposition to them; they're absolutely blinding. I'm seriously considering bugging local and state reps about it until they pass light intensity ordinances in my area.

[japhyr]

> Mostly I'm hoping that automatic high-beams, like some Ford trucks I've seen do well, proliferate more!

I have a 2021 Tacoma, and its automatic high-beam adjustment is terrible. It does a reasonable job of turning high beams off when a car approaches, but it has a number of problems that make it unusable. After the car passes it waits too long to reactivate the high beams. That's when they're needed most; my eyes have already adjusted to the other car's headlights, now the road is dark again, and I'm still on low beams.

It's way too sensitive. When a car approaches from a long ways away, it sometimes turns high beams off for minutes at a time. It turns them off when there are widely-spaced streetlights on long empty rural highways.

I finally took the time to figure out where the switch is to turn off automatic high-beam adjustment. I do a much better job knowing when to dim and reactive the lights than the vehicle does.

[bespokedevelopr]

Maybe it’s an overcorrection because the Tacoma I had, a couple years older than yours, had auto high beams and they would just stay on all the time. They only turned off from reflecting on road signs or when a car was only a few lengths away approaching. Quickly found the button to disable that feature.

The feature seems to be poorly implemented by all manufacturers. I see Teslas driving around flashing high beams every night because they trigger on/off really quickly and the drivers seem oblivious to the rapid change.

[GrinningFool]

> That's when they're needed most; my eyes have already adjusted to the other car's headlights

On a purely practical note from someone who is very light-sensitive, a combination of partially closing the eye closest to the light and fixing your gaze on the the outer edge of your lane (such as lane marker or eode of road) almost eliminates this problem, even for modern stupid-bright headlights.

Added benefit of letting you see more of your own lane in spite of the oncoming lights.

[VBprogrammer]

I dunno, maybe where you live is a lot flatter than the roads that I drive on, but the instant I see a car coming the other way (ideally before they come into direct view) is the time to turn off full beams.

Though from a game theory point of view, leaving them on for a couple of seconds is probably ideal to remind anyone who forgets to dim their own headlights.

[gorgoiler]

Automatic high beams only dip for other cars. They don’t dip for bicycles or pedestrians. Those walking or cycling by the road do not even register. Pure hubris.

[timthorn]

They also don't dip in anticipation of a car coming round the corner, which humans can do fairly accurately.

[asdefghyk]

RE ".... get a mirror on my trunk that I can adjust the angle of from inside the cabin to reflect back high-beams at the driver. ...." I had this idea too this annoyance too - but never implemented it.

One way to implement would be to mount a thin object , like a toothpick thickness and 1 or 2 cm long say on the mirror 90 degrees vertically to mirror surface , then (auto? ) adjust so their is no shadow from car's headlights that is behind.

Like lots of my other ideas , when i search for them , they already exist .maybe this one too

Found similar ideas already exist for car rear view mirrors .... ie Google finds ... ".... auto-dimming rearview mirror automatically adjusts to reduce glare from incident light by using sensors and an electrochromic gel layer...." However my google of words "...auto adjust reflecting mirror to face incident light...." FInd there is much discussion on Faceboot and REddit for people asking for "...mirrors that reflect very bright high been lights BACK at the driver BEHIND ...: Could not find a implementation though ... Maybe it should be an Arduino project ....

[NickNameNick]

You don't need electronics for that, just corner-cube reflectors.

[gblargg]

A big cause on older cars is haze on the clear plastic that develops over the years. This makes even low beams spread so they blind oncoming drivers. There are kits where you polish and re-finish them, and they do make a noticeable difference in beam directionality.

[branko_d]

According to Project Farm, Sylvania is the best headlight restoration kit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyVCEbfrU-c

[nrds]

> If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone

Your information is outdated. My Tesla with matrix headlights keeps the high-beam indicator on but oncoming drivers are not blinded.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to raise awareness. Eg., "If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone".

The thing is, IMO, there is a growing psychopathic trend of not giving a shit about other people. You can tell them "you're blinding everyone" and they will not care. They can see better, and the fact that you can't see at all as a consequence does not concern them. It's not their problem.

[rob74]

It could become their problem however if you are so blinded that you drive into them head-on. But yeah, I doubt they realize that, otherwise they wouldn't do it in the first place...

[alvah]

"If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone"

In many modern cars with auto-dipping headlights, this is not true (or at least not intended by the manufacturer to be true).

[rconti]

The blue indicator is almost impossible to see on modern screens, vs the old one that blinded you from in between a couple of dim gauges.