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Standard headlights are not good enough. People wouldn't be wasting their money on expensive bright LED headlights, if stock headlights were good enough. YouTube is filled with videos showing before and after examples of headlight upgrades. It's like the difference between night and day. Standard headlights are pathetic. But the real problem is that I drive on curvy mountain roads with heavy traffic. I need to be able to see the curves, animals, pedestrians, bikes, and such. I can't do that well with just a little patch of light directly in front of my car. I should at least be able to have a high beam light on the right side of my car scanning the shoulder, for obstacles. But the law says I can't so I deal with it, the best I can.
It just depends on the vehicles headlight design and the shape of the reflector. My Toyota trucks have excellent stock headlights.
I think one reason so many people today drive with no headlights is because most gauge clusters light up when the key is on. In older cars the gauges would be dark if the headlights weren’t turned on making it pretty obvious.
In my state of Mass. we have a new law that states if your wipers are on your lights also have to be on. In many cases it is not dark enough during a rain storm during the day so yes your daytime running lights will be on but your rear lights will not be so you have to turn all the lights on manually.
We have a 2017 Jeep and the daytime running lights are so bright that they are like headlights at night. When we first got it my wife was followed home by a good neighbor that told her the back lights were not working, she had forgotten to put the lights on auto or turned them on manually.
I can see people being confused that their lights are on when they are actually not.
That MA law has been a law in many states for a long time. A number of cars now will turn on the headlights automatically if the wipers are on as well.
I do hate the rare occurrence when I get a rental car without auto headlights, since all my vehicles have them, I'm almost certain I'm going to drive a few hundred yards or more in the dark until I realized the headlights are off. Almost all of them now seem to have auto. My favorite are the ones (GM generally) that default to Auto on every startup and you can manually turn off Auto as needed. When you turn off the headlights in the dark you get a message "headlights suggested".
How awful that the oncoming driver has his dimm non LED low beam headlights on and is already struggling to see, and is still blinded by your low beam lights and runs into you, head on.
My last accident involved my driving on the highway at night in the rain. I had lots of oncoming traffic, so I was driving with my low beams, which with my stock lights is almost like driving with my lights off. All I have is about 50 feet of light directly in front of my car. Anyway I was being blinded by the oncoming lights, when I spotted the red reflectors on a trailer directly in front of me, that was stopped waiting to make a left turn. I immediately slammed on my brakes and skidded into the back of the trailer. If my high beam lights had been on, I would have easily been able to see the trailer in time to stop. Even with my lousy dimm lights I was almost able to stop in time. I was traveling slow enough that my airbags didn't even deploy.
So don't tell me about the benefits of dimming my headlights. There aren't any. Headlights are blinding. High beams, low beams, it doesn't matter. Compounding being blinded by oncoming headlights with diminished visibility due to low beam lights, is a more serious danger.
Anyway there should be some hybrid light system. A low beam left headlight combined with a high beam right headlight angled away from oncoming traffic.
So, there was a trailer in front of you, without lights (because you only saw the reflectors) making a left turn -- on the highway?
It does sound like you have headlight issues, as those of us that have been driving for more than a couple of years have all had non LED headlights with low beams, and don't go around running into things from behind. In my state the inspect the brightness and aim of the headlights at the annual safety inspection (although some do that better than others). Yours may be dulled from the lens hazing or yellowing, or mis-aligned. I suggest you have them checked out.
European, Asian, and the Canadian version of American cars all have a lightbulb on the dash that turns on when lights are on. Why don't American car companies do this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by iamweasel
They were very late to the game. I had a Canadian 98 Jeep 5.9 limited that bulb lit up on dash and maybe lights always turned on when it was running? It also had the lights turn on with wipers. The US spec 5.9 I replaced it when the other was totaled didn't have bulb on the dash. My 2005 GMC doesn't have it.
My '76 Cadillac has a feature called "lamp monitor." Just behind the rear seat and above the back window, near the ceiling.
It informs the driver that the front and rear lights work. It also blinks along with the turn signal, either the right or the left. It is illuminated when the headlights are on, so the driver knows for sure they are on. I believe it was an option first available for the 1971 model year and became standard in 1975.
I see it all the time here in Florida, some idiot driving along after dark, with no lights on the front or back. Just the other night, I tried to signal a driver that his lights were off, and he was driving a BLACK car, so it was totally dark, and he just kept on driving along, oblivious.
Same here. Even when I flash my brights, they just keep driving in the dark. That's why the auto feature should be made mandatory. My VW always has the headlights on, I have to manually turn on the taillights, which also turns on dash lights.
Almost everyday at dusk/night I see some cars without having the lights on (whether front or back or both) which is dangerous. I don’t understand why anyone would forget turning the lights on but why aren’t all U.S. cars equipped with “auto” on/off lights? It shouldn’t be a luxury/extra thing.
They probably should come that way, and likely will before long. You can put them in manual mode though.
We have a Corvette, a Caddy ATS, and a Subaru Forester. On both GM cars, the lights come on when the wipers are on for more than a few seconds (prevents the lights coming on when you use the windshield washer I suppose), even if it's daytime. My Forester has auto headlights too, but the lights do not come on with the wipers.
I like the GM method better, because it also turns the tail lights on (all cars have daytime front lights now), and having tail lights for visibility in rain is important, daytime or not. The Subaru does not.
Standard headlights are not good enough. People wouldn't be wasting their money on expensive bright LED headlights, if stock headlights were good enough. YouTube is filled with videos showing before and after examples of headlight upgrades. It's like the difference between night and day. Standard headlights are pathetic. But the real problem is that I drive on curvy mountain roads with heavy traffic. I need to be able to see the curves, animals, pedestrians, bikes, and such. I can't do that well with just a little patch of light directly in front of my car. I should at least be able to have a high beam light on the right side of my car scanning the shoulder, for obstacles. But the law says I can't so I deal with it, the best I can.
Very few people are changing their standard headlights. (I wouldn't argue that a few more may do it once their car gets really old I guess.) But overall, that's a non-issue.....standard headlights, on most vehicles, are just fine. The brightness, angle, height, etc are all regulated by the government. I also drive through two-lane 45/55 MPH twisty roads at times where I live and have no issue seeing with standard headlights most of the time, and we have deer all over the place.
If I do have an issue, then I turn my brights on and will respect any oncoming vehicle by turning them off as that car approaches. Anyone who just leaves their brights on full-time, into oncoming traffic, is just being a jerk in my opinion.
My wife and I have this feature on our cars. They can be totally switched off. When bringing them in for service the mechanics turn off the automatic lights. We have to remember to turn them back to auto or manually on. Problems with this feature is useless for fog. Far too many drivers don’t turn on their headlights in fog. On brightly lit city streets some drivers either forget or choose not to turn on their headlights. Streets are lit enough that they can’t even tell if their lights or on or off or they’re just riding dirty.
In my state of Mass. we have a new law that states if your wipers are on your lights also have to be on.
That's not quite what the law says. The law says that if you're driving in a situation with impaired visibility, you need to use your headlights & tail lights. Needing to use windshield wipers is only part of it. You need to use your headlights at other times where your wipers wouldn't be used. Smoke. Fog. A truck kicking up a dust cloud.
Copy+paste from the actual statute:
Quote:
due to insufficient light or unfavorable atmospheric conditions, visibility is reduced such that persons or vehicles on the roadway are not clearly discernible at a distance of 500 feet or when the vehicle's windshield wipers are needed
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