> Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights.
I guess you don't actually drive at night in the countryside then.
You need lights to see where the road is, not where pedestrians might be - on none existent footpaths
I guess you don't actually drive at night in the countryside then.
You need lights to see where the road is, not where pedestrians might be - on none existent footpaths
You really don't need the bright lights. You never have. Slow down, look for movement, and use your brights intelligently.
But only if you don't care about other drivers on the road. And of course, how many of those other drivers on the road care about who they're impacting? A lot of them have your attitude.
If there's a constant stream of vehicles I'm not really worried about visibility all that much. The suicidal wildlife is mostly culled, for potholes you can track the person in front...
And piss all other drivers off around you. This is the whole point of the thread you are posting in, but then if people cant realise or even care when they are blinding people I dont expect them to have fully read or understood the thread article.
>every additional foot of headlight distance certainly helps for spotting the glint of an eyeball on the side of the road.
Only if you are paying attention in the first place. The reality is that most people hitting deer and moose just are not, or the animal ran out in front of them and there was nothing that could have been done.
I dodged many a moose with half burned out incandescent bulbs in shitty sedans in the northest of rural new england.
Meanwhile the silly folks who have duct taped ten massive LED lightbars to their fenders still seem to be hitting moose up north, so I just don't buy the "I need more light" argument.
https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2018-09...
Note how the DOT doesn't call out vehicle changes. Note also that despite the raw number being only a few thousand moose hits over a decade, you will consistently find that someone who has hit one moose is much more likely to have hit multiple moose.
They just aren't attentive drivers. Every single person up north has almost hit a moose. Only some of them routinely keep hitting moose. They are being saved by moose population control.
In more open areas it can be quite helpful to have greater throw and flood illumination.
In the American Midwest, being able to spot ice patches or deer on the interstate with your brights is quite helpful.
Normal driving lights have no need for the intensity they have today though
and sure, you don't need to drive over 20mph on a 60mph limit road ...
It’s the car drivers responsibility to not mow pedestrians down wherever or whenever they are walking.
Then we have pedestrians walking with no sidewalks or crosswalks, because city planning actively hostile to people walking.
Drive faster and you have to have brighter lights shining farther into the distance to be able to see at least a couple seconds ahead.
I'm also not clear why someone would leave brights up once they are close to something that has eyes. The idea is you can see them further away. But, as you get close, drop the lights.
Somehow we all did ok back then with standard high/low beams from lights which are very dim and warm compared to the harsh white LED lights of today
It seems to me that this is just another example of the arms race of modern cars. You need a big SUV to feel safe on a road full of SUVs and trucks. You need an array of dazzling LEDs to compete with every other car out there. And we all lose.
This is an anecdotal fallacy. We also did fine without seatbelts, with parents who smoked, with open containers in cars, with DDT sprayed in our neighborhoods. Until we realized that was crazy.
Not all improvements are without side effects. Increased headlight quality is one of those.
https://static.cargurus.com/images/forsale/2021/04/17/22/52/...
Just because everyone smoked in restaurants doesn't mean they didn't have other things figured out.
Hey, there were several models.
For a long time you had the two filament bulbs vs single filament. And then around the late 70s, you could have circle or rectangle, so there were 4 bulbs to choose from! Tremendous variety.
A lot of it is A roads - few pedestrians and they are on pavements.
On country lanes, I think traditional lights are usually bright enough. if not, slow down at might.