Not all headlights are equal (work, trucks)

[AlfredB1979]

Originally Posted by BCB

My pet peeves are

1) trucks who have on both their bright headlights, which are already blinding at eye-level, along with their fog lights. It's incredibly rude to use your fog lights when there is no fog! My guess would be that some vehicles are unable to turn off their fog lights, but for those who leave them on...please turn them off!

2) Jeeps, which already have bright headlights, that feel the need to turn on the extra lights mounted in front of their grill.

I'll give you that on the high beams with fogs. Let's be honest--you're only going to be able to see using the brights or the fogs, not both at once. The point of fogs is to cut beneath the fog to see the road, which is defeated by use of the high beams to see farther down the road. Fogs shouldn't be blinding you unless you are staring right at them...and I'd have to ask why you're doing that while driving. Oh, yeah, those Jeep driving lights are off-road use only, really. Those later Mustang GT driving lights are useless for actual vision because they are mounted too high as well.

[JaxRhapsody]

Stupidly manufacturers design the "foglights" to come on with low beams, most of the time.

[woxyroxme]

Furthermore do not tailgate anyone at night, your bright headlights are blinding the driver in front of you. SUV and pickemup truck drivers are the worst, bar none.

[jtur88]

My policy has always been to keep lights on dim if I can see the lights (head or tail) of any car through my windshield. It always amazed me how many drivers drive with brights on divided highways.

There is a reason why fog lights are amber. Without burdening you with detail, a prism bends light further at the blue end of the spectrum than at the red end. So illuminating an area full of mist (tiny prisms) with amber light results in less scattering of the light, so the light continues on a straighter path through the mist. Amber-tinted blu-blocker sunglasses will noticeably improve your vision in fog, because they filter out the light rays that have been most sharply deviated from straight line.

In France, all car headlights had to be yellow, until sometime around 1970.

[JaxRhapsody]

Originally Posted by jtur88

My policy has always been to keep lights on dim if I can see the lights (head or tail) of any car through my windshield. It always amazed me how many drivers drive with brights on divided highways.

There is a reason why fog lights are amber. Without burdening you with detail, a prism bends light further at the blue end of the spectrum than at the red end. So illuminating an area full of mist (tiny prisms) with amber light results in less scattering of the light, so the light continues on a straighter path through the mist. Amber-tinted blu-blocker sunglasses will noticeably improve your vision in fog, because they filter out the light rays that have been most sharply deviated from straight line.

In France, all car headlights had to be yellow, until sometime around 1970.

Actually, any yellow lense glasses will do it. I got a pair of yellow safty glasses, that work just like some $20 pair.

[Old Gringo]

Originally Posted by turkeytrot

I live in the Panhandle and drive at night on I 27 between Amarillo and Lubbock. I 27 is a great stretch of highway day or night but I just don't understand why most drivers will not dim their headlights to on coming traffic on a four lane highway. This include truckers as well as four wheel vehicles.
Some lights are misaligned and even dimmed they can be very bright to oncoming drivers, on high beam they're painfully bright.
So I ask...
IS there a good reason not to dim your lights?

Since Ross Perot got Texas to discontinue drivers' ed back in the mid 80s, the results are exactly what one would expect.

[pop251808]

Originally Posted by jtur88

My policy has always been to keep lights on dim if I can see the lights (head or tail) of any car through my windshield. It always amazed me how many drivers drive with brights on divided highways...



In France, all car headlights had to be yellow, until sometime around 1970.

Yeah, I used to be a decent guy, too. But "light inflation" on the part of manufacturers, d_ckwads, Audi drivers, and pickups in every other driveway mean no more Mr. Nice Guy.

And yes, I'm ready to move to pre-1970 France, for a WHOLE lot of reasons besides the yellow headlights (which I remember fondly)!

[wintersbone]

Originally Posted by JaxRhapsody

Stupidly manufacturers design the "foglights" to come on with low beams, most of the time.

No there is a separate switch for it.

[unquiltom]

Originally Posted by AlfredB1979

I'll give you that on the high beams with fogs. Let's be honest--you're only going to be able to see using the brights or the fogs, not both at once. The point of fogs is to cut beneath the fog to see the road, which is defeated by use of the high beams to see farther down the road. Fogs shouldn't be blinding you unless you are staring right at them...and I'd have to ask why you're doing that while driving. Oh, yeah, those Jeep driving lights are off-road use only, really. Those later Mustang GT driving lights are useless for actual vision because they are mounted too high as well.

Cars with factory foglights are designed to only be on with the low beams and turn off when the high beams are on. If you're being blinded by a car with both it's headlamps and foglights on, then it's not because the high beams are on, it's a headlight aiming issue.
People driving with their high beams on is a common problem in South Florida too. I can only think it's because of the high number of drivers who have come here from some island that doesn't have street lamps, so they spent their early years of driving with the high beams on all the time.

[jeremy2788]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

My husband recently bought a Ford pickup and it has the brightest "dim" lights I've ever seen, with a huge range as well. I feel sorry for other drivers coming toward us sometimes, and we often get "flashed" but there's nothing we can do about it.

I agree, I have a 2013 F150 and it had some of the brightest halogens I have seen in a vehicle. I switched them out with the xenon headlights and weirdly enough I have never been flashed with the HID, but several times with the halogen.

I have noticed that some people who do not have bi-xenon headlights, but only a xenon low and halogen high do drive around with both the low and high beams on which is incredibly bright and annoying.