There seems to be some sort of arms race happening on Britain’s roads. Over the past few years, car manufacturers have been competing amongst themselves to see who can fit the world’s brightest headlight to their cars.
City driving, this isn’t so bad, but there’s whole stretches of motorway in northern England and Scotland with no street lighting, where oncoming vehicles with bright headlights are extremely dangerous, as you literally cannot see a thing for ten seconds until the car has passed.
Is there a legal limit to how bright a headlight can be? How often is this enforced?
My suspicion has long been that some of it is badly-retrofitted lights, plus wankers who’ve added front fog lights without an off switch. And don’t forget those who don’t seem to think they need to dip their lights for oncoming traffic when there’s a central reservation…
As a small-car driver, my other complaint it over-bright lights on 4x4s, when they’re behind you on a country road. Every time you reach a straight bit, they’re right in your eyes through the mirror. Thankfully my small car and my knowledge of the roads around here normally lets me build up some distance from them
Bah… try living in America, where every other vehicle is a 4x4 or equally tall pickup truck. My interior mirror is pretty much permanently in the dimmer position at night. :mad:
My WAG is most of the headlights you’re seeing are just poorly adjusted. They should be pointed dead level, but over time the screw that allows angle adjustment may move of its own accord, and if you’ve had front end damage repaired the headlights will usually need to be realigned and most body shops/garages don’t bother.
Realign the rearview mirror(s) so that they reflect the following cars headlights back into the drivers eyes. He will soon drop back or dip his lights.
Nah, this is with them on dipped beams. It’s just that on twisting 20-40mph, very common territory here, they’re going to be quite reasonably be following fairly closely, and with no other lighting, my pupils are wide open!
When they’ve got them on full, when behind, presumably just being absent-minded, I’ll slowly flash mine full/dipped/full/dipped until the penny drops. It works, and I don’t think it comes across as unnecessarily provocative. Of course, if they’re tailgaiting with full beams, then it’s the whole touch-the-brake-while-accelerating drill, etc (Pretending to struggle up a hill, by staying in fourth, then halfway up dropping to second and shooting away is good fun, although there’s not enough hills around here for the opportunity to arise often )
(Pretending to struggle up a hill, by staying in fourth, then halfway up dropping to second and shooting away is good fun, although there’s not enough hills around here for the opportunity to arise often 
)