Speaking strictly from Washington State law, you’re supposed to turn on your car’s headlights at “sunset”, and keep them on until “sunrise”.
Let me educate you idiots: “sunset” does not mean “pitch black”.
After “sunset”, you can still see light due to atmospheric conditions. It’s not fucking dark yet, but TURN YOUR HEADLIGHTS THE FUCK ON.
The purpose of your headlights, when you’re driving around town, with streetlights everywhere, is not to light your way. The purpose of your headlights is so that I CAN FUCKING SEE YOU COMING!"
Especially given that fact that so many of you fuckers seem to think that the best color for a car’s paintjob is white, black, grey, or silver. You know what? During twilight conditions, without your headlights YOU’RE FUCKING INVISIBLE!
Good God, I’ve only had a driver’s license back for 6 years (after 15 years without, due to a DUI when I was young and stupid), but I can still remember the fucking laws. Has the sun disappeared from my view? TURN ON MY FUCKING HEADLIGHTS. Is it raining? TURN ON MY FUCKING HEADLIGHTS! Is it snowing? TURN ON MY FUCKING HEADLIGHTS!
I thought the federal government passed a law a few years ago that cars had to have “automatic-on” lights. IIRC, the law went into effect with 2012 cars, but I still see people driving around without their headlights on.
The other day someone behind me in an SUV turned off his blinding lights at the stoplight, and then turned them back on as soon as the light turned green. That was weird, but thoughtful at least I guess.
You’re a pretty cool guy, and I’m sure you already know that getting busted for a DUI is so fucking stupid. But I’m going to take a brave stand and say it’s much worse to drive drunk than without headlights.
I got my DUI when I was 26 years old. I’m 47 now. I learned my lesson 21 years ago. If I’m drinking, I don’t even look at my car. If I decide to go to the bar, I fucking WALK. So that, if I get drunk at the bar, I’m forced to either take a cab or WALK.
TLDR: If I’m drinking, I don’t drive.
These days, I get off work at 7:00 PM. And I have to dodge idiots with no headlights.
Yeah, the number of “ghost cars” on the road at twilight or in the rain is absolutely mind-boggling. In Maryland, it’s the law that if your wipers are going (meaning: if it’s raining) you need to have your lights on. Except nobody ever gets pulled over for it, and I see ghost police cars driving around in the rain all the time.
My rule of thumb is that if it’s easier to see other cars when they have their lights on, I need to put my lights on! I want to be more visible to other drivers. I’ve been in a couple of wrecks myself, and I’d really rather avoid that experience if at all possible. Even if it’s just drizzling so lightly that I only need to flick the wipers on and off every five seconds or so…if visibility is low, my lights are on.
I’ve had a couple of close encounters with ghost cars, too.
What I see is people driving around with headlights blazing unnecessarily–putting glare in the eyes of oncoming drivers, making it harder for people to see anything that’s not a lamp.
Your headlights are not for other drivers to see you. That’s your running lights. Your headlights are to illuminate the road and other objects for you to see, if necessary.
To me the problem is that people don’t know how to operate their lights–can’t find any setting between all-off and all-on (including fog lights).
I’m sure there’s a statistic out there somewhere about the predominance of silver/grey cars on the road in the US, so there’s got to be a correlation, but I swear, 90% of the time when I see a car toddling along at dusk or daybreak or in the fog or rain without its lights on, it’s silver or some shade of grey.
In my opinion it is because many cars are outfitted with over-powered halogen lamps or something. Headlights have gotten a lot brighter than they were 30 years ago, and it’s especially bad with SUVs and other larger vehicles shining them right into your eyes.
No. Running lights are useless in twilight conditions for making yourself visible. Here’s a clue, the darker it is outside, the easier it is to see a light. So when it is still quite light you need your headlights on so I can see you, not your running lights, they don’t stand out enough amongst the ambient light. When it gets properly dark, you only need your running lights on for me to see you, but you need your own headlights on so you can see the road. The latest cars with what I assume are LED lights muddy the waters a bit as the LEDs are much brighter.
I got up early the morning and made the drive down to Carmel. There’s a section of Hwy 1 that is only two lanes as it goes through Moss Landing (one lane in each direction). It’s a designated “daylight headlights” section, although that’s not enforced by law.
Anyway, it was dark outside, raining pretty steadily and this idiot in a big truck going north had no lights on at all. None. WTF? And I’ll give everyone three guesses as to what color the truck was, and the first two guesses don’t count!
