[0xfeba]

> Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights and just leave them on and this includes cars with the older halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior.

This is one of my pet peeves.

I've categorized it into what I believe are the main causes:

1. People just don't know as well today that the blue indicator means you're blinding people

2. People with newer cars which will automatically turn off the headlights, including the brights, when you turn off and leave the car.

3. People with older cars where the low-beams are burned out or broken

I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to raise awareness. Eg., "If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone".

And/or, get a mirror on my trunk that I can adjust the angle of from inside the cabin to reflect back high-beams at the driver.

Mostly I'm hoping that automatic high-beams, like some Ford trucks I've seen do well, proliferate more!

[pksebben]

I have become an aggressive counter-flasher. This has yielded in some cases new knowledge - that the low beams of a lot of cars these days look like high beams (indicated when they flash back, and it's the brightness of a thousand suns).

For those behind me, I've discovered that my side mirror has an angle where it reliably bounces the beams back. I've gotten more than a couple of drivers to turn their beams down with this method (but they have to be tailgating for it to work, which usually means we're already in an adversarial situation).

[aceazzameen]

Haha I've also angled my side mirror out of my eyes, which incidentally is back towards the car behind me. I of course angle it back if I need to change lanes, but it's such an annoying thing I have to do just to see the road ahead of me.

At this point I put full blame on car manufacturers and lack of government regulation and enforcement. Lights will keep getting brighter because lights are getting brighter. It's a death spiral.

[radlad]

My 2017 Ford Fusion has an auto-dimming driver side mirror. I hate driving a car at night without this.

[aceazzameen]

My rear view mirror does this, I wish my side mirrors did too. Although recently I've noticed some cars headlights can even pierce my rear view mirror's polarized dimming. It never used to be a problem in the past. I've seen the difference when drivers turn their high beams on and off. It always did a great job against driver's brights including large trucks. But occasionally there's now a vehicle with the light of a thousand suns that is too bright for the auto-dimming.

[bergfest]

The older manual rear view mirrors worked much better in my opinion.

[notyourwork]

That indicates the low beams are incorrectly adjusted.

[alt227]

The problem is most drivers dont care.

[yrro]

Why isn't this flagged during the MOT?

[slumberlust]

Not all states have inspection, and those that do don't necessarily include an alignment check.

[qmr]

I've half jokingly told my wife I'm going to make a parabolic mirror for her to aim back at such drivers.

[Wistar]

… or a steerable corner-cube array or retroreflector prism. Steerable in that it needs to slightly redirect its reflection to above the light source—to the windshield area of the offending vehicle—rather than exactly back to the light source.

[nrds]

When I get incorrectly flashed I force my high beams on and keep them on, FYI. Don't do it.

[pksebben]

Maybe this ought to indicate to you that your low beams are blinding other drivers dangerously.

If you have OEM headlights, I can understand your frustration - neither you nor the other driver has control over that. I think this is what OP posted this whole thread about.

If, however, you've installed third-party LED headlights, then you're sort of on the hook for this.

I'd add that whoever it was that 'incorrectly' flashed you is long gone by the time you're leaving the highs on and blinding everyone in your path. That's aggressive and uncalled for.

[nrds]

I only do it if no one is behind the flasher; I thought was obvious. And I have OEM headlights.

[pipes]

I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people not using indicators and not understanding the rules of junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.

I was in a mates car recently and it scared the hell out of me, he was tail gating for most of a 3 hour journey. Eventually we got to a bit with chevrons and he wasn't obeying the rule staying N chevrons away from the car in front. I told him and he replied "nonsense, my car beeps if I'm too close to the car in front" I didn't have the energy to point out that is a collision warning not a safe distance measurer type device.

[ash_091]

The recommended 3 second gap is a much bigger distance than most people recognise, especially at high speed.

On another note- I feel sad that you could tell your mate "the way you're driving is making me uncomfortable" and be met with basically "your discomfort isn't valid because [technology] so I won't change my behaviour".

[MichaelBurjack]

As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health, I am entirely unsurprised by that response and get it all the time.

Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one of their children. And just this morning the other parent texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool".

So … yeah. Entirely unsurprised by that attitude. "Every person for themselves but also not if it's something I personally dislike."

[executesorder66]

> "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable"

What about that could possibly make someone uncomfortable. How does it have any effect on the other parent?

[alehlopeh]

Isn’t all air shared?

[MichaelBurjack]

Not in a way meaningful to assessing infectious risk, no.

I consider outdoor air to be unshared, except in cases of large dense crowds (such as say outdoor festivals or sporting events).

I consider risky shared air to be indoor air with one or more other individuals that are not known to be taking infection-prevention precautions.

One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction.

For example, a CO₂ reading of 2300ppm (common in a small or medium room with a few others, or larger rooms with a crowd or conference room, or in a car) means 5% of your air is rebreathed (5% of your intake is output from another person's lungs).

A way to think about this is we take ~20 breaths a minute on average. So in that scenario, it would be equivalent to one breath every minute coming directly from someone else's lungs. If they happen to be contagious with an airborne contagion (such as Covid, or influenza, or RSV), there's a high likelihood that you will catch it if you're spending more than a short time in that environment.

There are nuances, such as maybe the air is being scrubbed (eg by a HEPA filter) which won't affect the CO₂ levels but will drastically lower the infectious risk of that environment.

More reading: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/what-a-carbon-dioxide-mo...

[gblargg]

> One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction.

On this topic, I got a CO₂ meter fairly recently and was shocked how quickly it spikes with a couple of people in a car with the windows up and on recirculate. Easily over 2000 after a few minutes. I have to remind myself regularly when it's really hot or cold outside to keep the vent setting on fresh air.

[pipes]

Genuine question (as in not a passive aggressive question!) why do you and your friends child mask?

[MichaelBurjack]

Not sure why you'd ask me that vs. use Google, feels like cornering a random driver to defend "Why do you use seatbelts?".

But I'll offer one reply at your word that it's genuine and not passive-aggressive.

1. I am currently dealing with the after-effects of a previous Covid infection that requires expensive, ongoing medical treatment. I'm not anxious to test what additional infections may cause.

2. Wearing an N95 respirator is a cheap and easy preventative measure that is highly effective.

3. I adjust my habits based on measured risk. In my part of the world (Alberta), the current risk forecast for November 8-21 is that approximately 1 in every 81 people are currently infected with Covid. I relax my masking when it's 1 in 10,000 or less (which is not an unreasonable number; it's been there in the past).

4. Recent medical studies suggest that repeated Covid exposure is particularly harmful for children. Long Covid is now the #1 chronic condition in children in the US (displacing asthma as the top chronic childhood condition). As a parent, I see it as my responsibility to give my children the best chance at a long, healthy, medical-intervention-free life.

A few links (or just use Google):

- Covid monitoring in Canada: https://covid19resources.ca/

- Long Covid overtaking asthma as top childhood chronic illness: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

- Rolling Stone on Covid's affects on children: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/long-c...

- Remarks by Violet Affleck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTjCqIxorw

- Tom Hanks: https://whn.global/youve-got-a-friend-in-me-tom-hanks-shows-...

- A longer answer than mine: https://whn.global/yes-we-continue-wearing-masks/

[gblargg]

Thanks for sharing. I tend to think people wearing masks these days are a little loony, but these are solid reasons for specific cases and environments. I wouldn't shun someone because they're wearing a mask, though. It seems like a significant discomfort so I don't partake (and I get sick extremely rarely and stay home those few times).

[pipes]

I genuinely didn't think to use Google for this. I had no idea about the list of reasons. It wasn't passive aggressive, I was curious. Thanks for sharing this.

[oxag3n]

It's nice to see that my family is not alone in taking these precautions.

However as with the bright headlamps, there's no real solution coming anytime soon. I mean there are solutions - nasal vaccines and proper NHTSA regulation, but I have no hope in any of those to materialize.

[gblargg]

I was with a friend who was driving and he literally said that the car in front of him was driving fairly close to him. I have a funny bumper magnet that says "sorry for driving so close in front of you" that mocks this inversion of cause.

[johnisgood]

It is funny, yet I wonder how many people actually get it. :D

[mensetmanusman]

This is amazing, ha

[pipes]

Yes on your last point, I feel exactly the same way. If anyone told me I was driving too fast and they were uncomfortable I'd immediately be apologetic and slow down, and I'd genuinely feel bad about it.

As I get older I've realised that most people in my life react negatively if I express emotion that what they are doing is upsetting. It is only recently that I've realised my sample size is small and this kind of gas lighting behaviour is not ok. I've actually reached a point where I'm thankful that the internet popularised the phrase because it had helped me diagnose shitty behaviour that I've tolerated my whole life.

[ash_091]

> most people in my life react negatively if I express emotion that what they are doing is upsetting

Right. I guess they feel accused, as though you're attacking their behaviour rather than sharing how it makes you feel, and instinctively become defensive in response?

It's wonderful to meet people who don't think this way. My partner is incredible at this, I can tell her "when you X I feel Y" and know without a doubt her reaction will come from a place of trying to work together to understand whether the problem and solution exist in X, Y or both.

[BrenBarn]

I'd say just in general people have become way more cavalier and oblivious as drivers. I frequently see people doing wild stuff like driving at night with no headlights, or driving for several blocks in a bike lane. Every single yellow light is pushed to the limit, with often at least one (and sometimes multiple) drivers running the red light as well. I feel like a lot of is connected to a more general post-COVID decline in awareness of how one's actions affect others. People are just fine with doing anything they can get away with. I suspect the trend won't be reversed without a major increase in enforcement.

[jackvalentine]

I’ve noticed the same, and also people’s behaviour generally everywhere has bottomed out and not recovered. I was speaking to an ED nurse who said people have just forgotten how to relate and violence is through the roof every night in the hospital.

Did we all get subtle brain damage?

[StopDisinfo910]

I have legitimately been wondering for quite some time if we are not in a leaded gas kind of situation where something is adversely affecting the global population as a whole and we are left in the dark. Plenty of contenders between industrially processed food, social media, mobile phones. It might just be me getting paranoid however.

[alphager]

Covid does long-term brain damage.

[duskdozer]

I do think there's oddly disproportionate silence on covid infection as a potential factor in the overall life-enshittification lately.

[wartywhoa23]

No. Too many just got a jab and some boosters.

[wat10000]

People just don’t care about driving.

I get it. Maybe you're not interested in it. You’re at A, you want to arrive at B, and driving is just your tool for getting there.

But to misquote Trotsky, you may not be interested in driving, but driving is interested in you. Driving is the most dangerous thing most drivers do on a regular basis. Probably by a significant margin. Even if you hate it, respect it. Put in the effort to do it well.

[paradox460]

My favorite is that if you try to follow a safe distance, some jerk will immediately move to fill the space

[avidiax]

Just realize that the sort of people that move to fill the space are not the sort to leave even 2 seconds of following distance.

So once you restore your following distance, that person has cost you less than 2 seconds.

Is it a bit annoying? Sure. But it's not a reason to start tailgating (not that you were necessarily claiming that).

[watwut]

No, because once you to restore the distance, you have to go slower. The cars behind you then fill the restored space the moment they feel they can, because they perceive you as the slower car. If this happen with multiple cars and in practice it does, you are suddenly going very slow.

The fact is, you can have only so much space in front of you as other cars allow. I had to reduce the distance literally because of this. It then stopped happening.

[paradox460]

The problem is, you move back to restore your following distance, and now another person moves in to fill it

[Viliam1234]

My friend ended up in a hospital, when some jerk moved into the small space in front of him, and then had to jump on the brakes because the first car unexpectedly slowed down. My friend also jumped on the brakes but the distance was too small.

[gblargg]

I leave plenty of distance and don't have that problem. Occasionally people do fill the space, perhaps because I'm providing a safer place than people tailgating. This reduced risk benefits me too. I just slow a little bit to re-establish my following distance.

[CBLT]

About once a week I see someone cut in even though the person is literally tailgating. The driver at the back has to brake+swerve to not cause a high speed collision. There's actually nothing you can do to prevent these people from getting ahead of you. Don't worry about what they'll do, it's insane anyways. Just try not to die.

[pipes]

Or toot their horn and flash their lights behind you

[abustamam]

Wow this gives me anxiety just reading. My 2012 BMW has a warning everytime I turn it on. "DO NOT RELY ON BEEPS" (I'm paraphrasing of course.)

And yeah, I don't let tooling on my car replace common sense driving habits. I still turn my head when reversing, even if I can see what's behind me on the camera. I think it's crazy that people rely so much on unreliable tech on their cars.

[0xfeba]

> I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people not using indicators and not understanding the rules of junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.

Same. I've also noticed that people entering the interstate seem to _expect_ that cars already on the interstate move over, or change speed to let them merge. Usually at 10-15 MPH slower than the speed of traffic.

I've made a point to, when I cannot move over, remain in my lane at the same speed. And I've had people just absolutely wait until the last moment of a long on-ramp to speed up, or slow down to merge. It's bizarre.

[smileysteve]

In my city, if you use your indicators, traffic is more likely to close the gap on you than coordinate you.

[soneil]

Isn't it great being able to rely on tech that isn't doing what we think it's doing.

I don't even need to keep an eye on my cooking anymore, the smoke alarm beeps when I get too close.

[DoomDestroyer]

The N chevrons away on those roads are often ludicrously far apart. It it well over the 2 second rule and nobody follows it.

[abenga]

There is no common 2 second rule, afaik. There is a 3 second rule, which is probably why they feel too far apart to you.

[turbonaut]

“Only a fool breaks the two second rule.”

It’s a UK thing:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-highways-urges-d...

[tim333]

In the UK there often isn't really space for it. The M25 usually looks like https://i2-prod.mylondon.news/article14471160.ece/ALTERNATES...

[tpholland]

...but you're often lucky to travel even a metre or so on the M25 in two seconds when it looks like that!

[mikestorrent]

What are these chevrons?

[imp0cat]

Safe distance markers.

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/Road_Markings/Chevrons_(...

[LeifCarrotson]

My other pet peeve is the opposite - they've got LED daytime running lights, and use those instead of headlights. They're driving around at 11pm with no taillights and abysmal forward lighting, but there's enough of a glow from the DRLs that they assume their lights are on.

Or worse, they're accustomed to "automatic" lights and don't even know where the switch is, so they're driving around at dusk or in fog, rain, or snow in a white, gray, or black vehicle without their lights on.

I have also been tempted to purchase digital billboard space, but not on the side of the road. I want LED signs on my roof rack (one forward, one back) with column or two of buttons on the dash to call up a slate of messages:

1. TURN YOUR BRIGHTS OFF! BLUE MEANS BLINDING.

1b. OW! YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE MISALIGNED.

2. TURN YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON! THOSE ARE DRLs.

3. TURN LIGHTS ON TO BE SEEN EVEN IF IT'S NOT DARK.

4. MY SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE IS NOT A SPOT FOR YOU.

5. YOU ARE TAILGATING. I WILL NOT SPEED FOR YOU.

6. YIELD DOES NOT MEAN STOP.

7. I AM ZIPPER MERGING, NOT CUTTING THE LINE.

8. DRIVE CAREFULLY! I JUST SAW A DEER.

9. GO AHEAD, I SEE YOU.

10. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR VEHICLE, PULL OVER.

11. THANK YOU!

Plus a few spare slots to be implemented as needs arise.

I've been unimpressed with the automatic high-beams on my wife's newer Toyota and on other rentals I've driven, they usually depend on a direct line-of-sight to the other car's headlights, which means they stay on just long enough to hit the windshield of another car cresting a hill and blind them. Then they courteously turn off a few camera frames and vision analyses after the low beams become visible. If a __competent__ driver is controlling the high/low beams manually, they'll see the headlights of the other car illuminating the trees and such and turn off the high beams a couple critical seconds earlier. But I admit that the automatic systems are miles better at managing it than the __incompetent__ drivers who are all too common.

[webnrrd2k]

This hit on a peeve of mine, that automatic high beam systems really suck for pedestrians. Manual control is genuinely better in this regard. Try walking around at night in a wealthy neighborhood, and about 1/8 of the cars just blind every pedestrian.

[XCabbage]

I assume you're an American? As a Brit, your comment confuses me. Why would anyone ever have high beams on at all in anything reasonably described as a "neighbourhood"? Do built-up areas in the US not reliably have street lighting?

Here in the UK, it is pretty much universally the case that if there are buildings, there are street lights. (Maybe there are occasional exceptions where there's a single building in the middle of nowhere on a rural road; I'm not sure. And I suppose there must be occasional outages of street lighting even in e.g. dense city centres. But such things are rare.) Having high beams on in almost any context where there are buildings around is therefore unnecessary, against the Highway Code, and quite possibly criminal under RVLR reg 27.

[saltcured]

I'm not the one you asked, but I think a lot of 'wealthy' neighborhoods in the US mean suburbia with larger single-family-home lots, and roads often feel a bit more rural. In my area in California, these are often unincorporated (county) lands just outside larger towns.

You sometimes see a very clear boundary. The more middle-class housing is subdivisions built all at once somewhere in the 1960s-2000s, with underground utilities and street lights. This infrastructure was mandated by the city, when the developers were looking to get their newly built neighborhood annexed into it. Around the next corner, darker streets with overhead utilities and more spread out lots with oversized "McMansion" houses. These are following the more relaxed county building codes and had the space available for such construction.

These roads are also more likely to have expensive new cars with all the computerized functions. Walking in this limbo world at the edge of our town, I've also noticed being blinded by cars as a pedestrian with more dynamic effects. I suspect are the car's system actively painting me with more light. It is a little bit like the "fringing" you see when the cutoff of older HID projection lamps sweeps over you due to road undulation. But it happens too quickly and both vertically and horizontally. It feels like being hit with a targeted spot light.

I wish the engineers spent the same care to put a dark halo on a pedestrian face as they do for oncoming drivers. Even when carrying my own flashlight, such encounters can be dazzling enough to basically go blind and not be able to see the dark paving in front of me for a minute. My light is more to make me visible to the cars than to really illuminate my path for myself. It doesn't stand a chance against the huge dynamic range of these car lighting systems.

[webnrrd2k]

Yes, exactly, very well explained.

[jojobas]

I'm pretty sure pedestrians would rather blink a few times than get run over.

[duskdozer]

This is a big reason why "high-beams as default" is not the right choice

[boogieknite]

if you ever visit Portland make one up reading YOU HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. drivers keep it weird here by ignoring the rules of the road for some kind of "no no i insist, after you" as if theyre giving some gift, but instead just confuse everyone

if im biking and waiting at a stop sign: without fail, the last car in a long line of cars will slam on the breaks and insist i go when they have no stop sign. it would have been faster for everyone if they just kept driving and i cross after they pass, like the rules of the road prescribe

[dayjaby]

Defending that particular kind of driver: He might not have known to be the last car. But one thing he knows for sure: a long line of cars in front of him. Speeding up or keeping distance is pointless, so he uses that moment to be friendly instead.

[boogieknite]

i prefer predictability to friendliness every time

[gblargg]

I actually made an LED sign for the rear of my van, with over a dozen messages, including some peaceful ones like yours (sorry, thanks). One was for headlights. I made it IR-controlled and used an older Android smartphone with IR blaster and an app that gave me labeled buttons to show the messages.

https://postimg.cc/06xZ7pP0

[userbinator]

Or worse, they're accustomed to "automatic" lights and don't even know where the switch is, so they're driving around at dusk or in fog, rain, or snow in a white, gray, or black vehicle without their lights on.

The worst: automatic headlights required by regulations, but no corresponding automatic taillights. At least before those regulations one would notice the darkness in front and turn on (both) lights, but now you have drivers thinking their rear is also lit because the front is.

[fouc]

I've long wished we had a standardized communication channel between cars. It could even be fixed status codes.

I've always expected that in the future when all cars are fully self-driving, they would have some kind of communication channel to improve efficiency. Why can't we have this for humans too before that.

[gorgoiler]

12. YES I KNOW THIS IS A GAS STATION AND I COULD JUST WALK OVER AND TELL YOU BUT THIS SIGN THING I MADE IS WAY MORE FUN.

[nrds]

> BLUE MEANS BLINDING

ONLY IF YOU'RE LIVING IN THE '90S! THE REST OF US HAVE MATRIX HEADLIGHTS! ALSO TURN OFF YOUR CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

[Dylan16807]

#3 sounds like you're either nitpicking or maybe having an eye issue?

#7 You're either doing something good or something very bad, so I hope it's the former. If you're trying to pace the lane next to you, then it sounds like it's at least an honest attempt to get things zipper merging. If you're telling yourself that cars need to be in both lanes to zipper merge, while zooming to the end and then hoping maybe a zipper merge will happen, you're getting a big benefit to yourself while still causing slowdown for everyone else.

[randerson]

#3 Plenty of drivers have difficulty spotting a gray/silver/black car under low or high-contrast lighting. Highly visible colors (yellow, orange, white) have a 7-12% lower chance of getting into an accident during the day and up to 47% lower at dusk.[0] Keeping your headlights on at all times reduces this risk.

#7 In many states (e.g. [1]) if two lanes are merging you're expected to merge at the last possible point. This allows more cars to fit on the road to reduce congestion, and it reduces sudden stops.

[0] https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/216475/An...

[1] https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/traffic-safety-methods/work-zone...

[Dylan16807]

> #7 In many states (e.g. [1]) if two lanes are merging you're expected to merge at the last possible point. This allows more cars to fit on the road to reduce congestion, and it reduces sudden stops.

Maintaining smooth merging is far more important than where the merging happens.

The page you linked even says "It is legal to wait to merge until the lane closure devices (cones or barrels) start, but we recommend merging sooner than that to give more time to find a gap, complete the merge, and avoid getting in a pinch when the devices make the closed lane too narrow. Merging sooner also avoids the risk of hitting a closure device or ending up inside the work zone."

It recommends zippering, but nowhere in there does it recommend waiting for "the last possible point".

Someone that has it in their head that zippering is best and zippering needs to be done at the end is likely to cause more harm than good, even if they're working off the purest intentions. Keeping both lanes in use is a distant second priority to making sure the merge is smooth.

[fouc]

By definition, zipper merge means late merge [0]. The problem is that if some cars merge too early, other cars will keep driving down the road and then merging in front of the early mergers, it ends up being disruptive in heavy traffic conditions. If everyone consistently merges at the same point in heavy traffic conditions it's more predictable, leading to better through flow.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_%28traffic%29#Late_merge

[Dylan16807]

> By definition, zipper merge means late merge

Tell that to the site linked above, because even though they say "like a zipper" they want it to happen early.

> The problem is that if some cars merge too early, other cars will keep driving down the road and then merging in front of the early mergers, it ends up being disruptive in heavy traffic conditions. If everyone consistently merges at the same point in heavy traffic conditions it's more predictable, leading to better through flow.

I don't blame the early mergers there. If someone zooms down the empty lane then they are not attempting to zipper merge, they are bad actors.

A proper zipper, at the last moment, is slightly better than early merging. But again smoothness is the important factor. Smoothness is 90% of the solution. Do not give up smoothness for the sake of being more zipper-y. If people think you're cutting in line, you probably are cutting in line.

-

Also, anywhere we want to make sure there's a zipper merge, how about we stop having a favored lane? Cut off half of each lane at the merge point.

[rob74]

#3 ...not to mention situations like fog, heavy rain/water spray etc.

[jaapz]

Regarding #3, in the EU it is normal to have lights on even when it's not dark. Some countries even mandate it. You're just more visible that way.

[sneak]

You forgot THE LEFTMOST LANE IS FOR BRIEF PASSING, NOT DRIVING

[belorn]

The rule for the leftmost lane (highway) is that you must not block for other drivers. It is in the rule book (at least in my country). That mean in very clear terms that if you can't do the overtaking in a timely fashion without blocking other drivers, then you should not enter the left lane.

If there is one thing that tend to cause conflict and trigger dangerous situations in traffic, it is when someone driving at 0.001% faster than the next car enter left lane while maintaining the exact same speed, basically matching the speed on the right. That is just as illegal as speeding.

[throw0101a]

> That mean in very clear terms that if you can't do the overtaking in a timely fashion without blocking other drivers, then you should not enter the left lane.

And then there are the drivers who are in the centre/right lane who, when you try to pass on their left, speed up to try to prevent you from passing them.

[quadyeast]

I'm often on highways were the left lane, for many miles, is the only one without potholes and broken road.

[pixl97]

Then when there's another person behind you, get over in the right and let them pass.

[Dylan16807]

Eh. If there's a speed limit and the left lane is 5+ over it, what's the benefit of keeping it empty?

[scotty79]

If everybody left it, it wouldn't be going 5+ over limit and then it could serve the people who are serious about breaking the law and go big. ... Oh, wait...

[NietzscheanNull]

> I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to raise awareness.

Ironically, digital billboards are often 10x more obnoxious than even LED high beams in my area (and those are plenty awful, FWIW). We've got a few nearby that are so bright they could be used as stadium lighting when they're set to white. Naturally, half the ads running on them feature a white background, so it's like a stadium light that flips on and off every 15 seconds. Considering they're pointed directly at drivers' faces, I genuinely don't understand why there isn't more opposition to them; they're absolutely blinding. I'm seriously considering bugging local and state reps about it until they pass light intensity ordinances in my area.

[japhyr]

> Mostly I'm hoping that automatic high-beams, like some Ford trucks I've seen do well, proliferate more!

I have a 2021 Tacoma, and its automatic high-beam adjustment is terrible. It does a reasonable job of turning high beams off when a car approaches, but it has a number of problems that make it unusable. After the car passes it waits too long to reactivate the high beams. That's when they're needed most; my eyes have already adjusted to the other car's headlights, now the road is dark again, and I'm still on low beams.

It's way too sensitive. When a car approaches from a long ways away, it sometimes turns high beams off for minutes at a time. It turns them off when there are widely-spaced streetlights on long empty rural highways.

I finally took the time to figure out where the switch is to turn off automatic high-beam adjustment. I do a much better job knowing when to dim and reactive the lights than the vehicle does.

[bespokedevelopr]

Maybe it’s an overcorrection because the Tacoma I had, a couple years older than yours, had auto high beams and they would just stay on all the time. They only turned off from reflecting on road signs or when a car was only a few lengths away approaching. Quickly found the button to disable that feature.

The feature seems to be poorly implemented by all manufacturers. I see Teslas driving around flashing high beams every night because they trigger on/off really quickly and the drivers seem oblivious to the rapid change.

[GrinningFool]

> That's when they're needed most; my eyes have already adjusted to the other car's headlights

On a purely practical note from someone who is very light-sensitive, a combination of partially closing the eye closest to the light and fixing your gaze on the the outer edge of your lane (such as lane marker or eode of road) almost eliminates this problem, even for modern stupid-bright headlights.

Added benefit of letting you see more of your own lane in spite of the oncoming lights.

[VBprogrammer]

I dunno, maybe where you live is a lot flatter than the roads that I drive on, but the instant I see a car coming the other way (ideally before they come into direct view) is the time to turn off full beams.

Though from a game theory point of view, leaving them on for a couple of seconds is probably ideal to remind anyone who forgets to dim their own headlights.

[japhyr]

I live near mountains, rolling hills, and lots of farmland. There are many stretches where you can see a car coming from a mile away, long before anyone's high beams are noticeable. But in that darkness, my truck picks up those headlights and dims the high beams.

[VBprogrammer]

Hmm, I mostly drive in the English countryside where most often there are hills and bends, bushes and trees, houses and hedgerows. Seeing another car a mile away would probably mean both are heading into a wide valley, in which case the geometry makes it less important.

That said, I'm still not convinced your truck isn't doing the right thing. Even a mile a way you've got perhaps 30 seconds before you are passing each other. Is there much to be gained by leaving them on for a few more seconds? Seeing another car heading towards me is a much clearer and less likely to be forgotten trigger than "ok, about now my lights are probably getting annoying".

[gorgoiler]

Automatic high beams only dip for other cars. They don’t dip for bicycles or pedestrians. Those walking or cycling by the road do not even register. Pure hubris.

[timthorn]

They also don't dip in anticipation of a car coming round the corner, which humans can do fairly accurately.

[asdefghyk]

RE ".... get a mirror on my trunk that I can adjust the angle of from inside the cabin to reflect back high-beams at the driver. ...." I had this idea too this annoyance too - but never implemented it.

One way to implement would be to mount a thin object , like a toothpick thickness and 1 or 2 cm long say on the mirror 90 degrees vertically to mirror surface , then (auto? ) adjust so their is no shadow from car's headlights that is behind.

Like lots of my other ideas , when i search for them , they already exist .maybe this one too

Found similar ideas already exist for car rear view mirrors .... ie Google finds ... ".... auto-dimming rearview mirror automatically adjusts to reduce glare from incident light by using sensors and an electrochromic gel layer...." However my google of words "...auto adjust reflecting mirror to face incident light...." FInd there is much discussion on Faceboot and REddit for people asking for "...mirrors that reflect very bright high been lights BACK at the driver BEHIND ...: Could not find a implementation though ... Maybe it should be an Arduino project ....

[NickNameNick]

You don't need electronics for that, just corner-cube reflectors.

[gblargg]

A big cause on older cars is haze on the clear plastic that develops over the years. This makes even low beams spread so they blind oncoming drivers. There are kits where you polish and re-finish them, and they do make a noticeable difference in beam directionality.

[branko_d]

According to Project Farm, Sylvania is the best headlight restoration kit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyVCEbfrU-c

[nrds]

> If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone

Your information is outdated. My Tesla with matrix headlights keeps the high-beam indicator on but oncoming drivers are not blinded.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to raise awareness. Eg., "If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone".

The thing is, IMO, there is a growing psychopathic trend of not giving a shit about other people. You can tell them "you're blinding everyone" and they will not care. They can see better, and the fact that you can't see at all as a consequence does not concern them. It's not their problem.

[rob74]

It could become their problem however if you are so blinded that you drive into them head-on. But yeah, I doubt they realize that, otherwise they wouldn't do it in the first place...

[alvah]

"If this blue indicator is on, you're blinding everyone"

In many modern cars with auto-dipping headlights, this is not true (or at least not intended by the manufacturer to be true).

[rconti]

The blue indicator is almost impossible to see on modern screens, vs the old one that blinded you from in between a couple of dim gauges.