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Comment by Reason077 | Hacker News Reader

Usually yes. But in urban areas (where there are lots of street lights, and lots of cyclists), people often forget to turn their lights on. I guess it's becoming less of a problem now that most cars have auto lights, but I still see cars driving around without lights pretty regularly.

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Story time!

Last year saw a revival of drive-in cinemas in my area (for ... obvious reasons).

Apparently drivers are getting so used to the automation, that the staff was doing rounds telling the audience to turn off their automatic lights.

Then, on the way out, at least the driver in front of us completely forgot to turn on the lights again. This was not in a well lit area, but on cross country roads. I honestly have no idea how the driver did not notice that she couldn't see the road well.

Same here! I went to a drive-in just a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in .. decades? .. and that happened. The other thing was all the people in big SUVs parking backwards and opening up their tailgates, thus blocking the view of people behind them. The house rules said that open tailgates should not extend higher than the vehicle itself, meaning some folk had them tied partly closed, but I think enforcement was mostly complaint-based.

If the drive-in theater became a real thing again, I imagine it would have to adapt to these realities.

Yeah I’m astonished at how often people drive with headlights off. Why is it even an option for lights to be off when in drive? I can understand wanting to turn them off sometimes, but not while moving.

I think the proliferation of daytime running lights is partly to blame here, because you still get some light out of the front even without headlights on.

The thing that always gets me is switching between (rental) cars that have automatic headlight sensors and those that don't.

No lights on shouldn’t even be an option. Even with older cars I’ve always turned them on. My current car won’t even allow you to turn them off.

A fun thing I've noticed, those driving with no headlights in nighttime often lean towards windshield to, presumably, see better)

Right, but that's a bigger problem than confusing turn signals. Doesn't matter what shape they are in that case.

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