I have heard the UL the opposite way: gangs “will” drive at night with no headlights on, and kill you (for some reason) if you flash them.
My answer is basically nothing. I drive a smaller car (compact I guess?). Everyone else drives a SUV, many with aftermarket lights, so half the time I’m puzzling whether their high beams are on or whether they are just particularly aimed towards my eyes. And many of the aftermarket ones have that particularly blinding bluish spectrum.
My night driving is limited almost entirely to well-lit areas where you could almost get away with no lights on at all–nobody uses high beams.
But when I was a country kid I not only had the high beams, I also had an extra set of driving lights aimed a bit higher and more to the left than optimum for my own use. I’ve mellowed a lot since then. Now I just gaze off into the trees until the dipalong moves on.
Two staged approach, I blip the highs to remind the oncoming driver, 90% of the time that’s enough, if they don’t respond to a blip, then full high beams until they drop theirs
Sometimes, I’ll try to angle my rear-view mirror so that their lights shine back at them. The odds of me getting the angle right are tiny, but it makes me feel better.
You may have brighter headlights than usual, or you headlights may be misaligned, or both. So people think you have your brights on. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if another car has its brights on, or if it just has bright lowbeams.
They might have been warning you of a speed trap.
I used to turn off and on, but now my car’s headlights are always on when it’s running so I can’t do that. I give them the low-high-low.
Then they steal your kidneys.
Look at the white line at the breakdown lane. Which is pretty much what kids are still taught according to this quiz about driver’s ed in NH
If I’m a pedestrian, I run out of the way.
Me, too.
I’d bet that the correlation between getting flashed for having your high beams on and being an asshole is pri-teee high. 
Seldom have back seat riders = low beam too high
Heavy load in a pick-up = low beam too high
Truck / SUV = low beam too high for low car
Plain old miss aligned = low beam too high
& on & on & on
I heard that’s how Alice Cooper died in Vietnam.
Joke’s on them… I already sold mine!
Baa Haa Haaa… I just saw this thing circling the internet again.
I first saw this CAUTIONARY WARNING passed around as an office memo OVER 20 YEARS AGO!
I’m willing to risk that even if it is true; that someone in Roswell/Alpharetta, GA with their high beams on probably isn’t in the middle of a gang initiation. :rolleyes:
I chose the flick the beams options. I don’t have anything to gain by being punitive to some jerk who doesn’t turn off their brights. Plus, I’m betting the reality of pulling out a spotlight, turning it on, and aiming it at someone is a little more of fantasy than a reality. I don’t see how there’s enough time.
I wouldn’t be able to remember how to turn off my lights fast enough to do any good (or find the switch for that matter). My headlights are set to auto on/off.
Which is why, if someone flashes me and I’m already on low beams, I’ll flash them back to demonstrate that.
[old fogey]I do like the stalk mounted high-beam adjuster. Much better than randomly stomping on the floor searching out the switch in the old model cars. [/of]
If I am approaching a hill and see the glow of approaching high-beams, I’ll flick my own on and off quickly to alert the other driver that someone else is coming.
Then, when they crest the hill and still haven’t dimmed their high-beams, waiting until they’re on top of me to do so (or wind up doing nothing), I think exceptionally evil thoughts about them and all their relations.
Yes, the standard UL I’m familiar with is called “lights out,” and the gang member, for their initiation, will drive around with their lights out and kill the person who flashes their high beams at them.
The other one at the same time, around here, was female gangs hiding out under cars in malls (in my neighborhood, it was Ford City, which was known for gang activity) and slashing ankles as some sort of gang initiation. It sounded every bit as stupid and unlikely as the “lights out” UL.
I do that too & the approaching car over the hill thing.
I grew up on stomping the floor type & only quit doing that in the last 10 years or so. I liked that way better for a long time.
The starter under the foot feed, that I never did like. 