I would see light behind me and go "why do they have high beams on" but then looking ahead it didn't look like they had their high beams on, I was just in a short car.
You were in a normal car, and the SUV manufacturer has mounted the lights higher just for aesthetic reasons.
There are rules. FMVSS [1] says lower beam headlamps must be mounted between 55.9 cm and 137.2 cm above the ground, and upper beam headlamps must be mounted not less than 22 inches nor more than 54 inches. The height ranges match, but are specified in different units
But that's a big range.
These rules end up being the stick used to regulate vehicle lifts and lowering; you could lift a vehicle higher, or drop it lower but very few people will do the work to relocate the lights.
[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p... Table 1-A, seach in page for 'Expand Table' cause I couldn't find a good way to navigate.
The irony is that SUVs and pickup trucks do not need lights 137 cm above ground, but that height is perfectly legal in too many countries. These vehicles are a menace and should be legislated out of existence.
It's insane to me that I as a 16 year old was allowed to drive an F350 pulling a 40ft trailer on a standard license.
I'd be all for exemptions to any rules for anyone who proves ownership of a working farm or ranch but you can bet that no regulation of any kind will ever be enacted to curb the disaster that CAFE rules caused to "car" size.
IMO, this sort of thing should work more like the way fair use works. A cop could pull you over for a traffic violation, ticket you, and then when you go to court you push the defense of "I'm a farmer and I was doing farm work" to get the missing license charge dropped (but you'll still likely end up with a traffic ticket to pay).
Generally speaking, cops aren't patrolling farming roads anyways so you'd really not need almost any exemption in place.
I'm not a big EV person, but afaik EVs don't have efficiency standards and so they don't have to conform to CAFE footprints, so we can get compact vehicles again, hopefully. Up to manufacturers to put them for sale, and people to actually buy them, of course.
Plus, giant EVs have more room for batteries and most Americans think 300 miles of range is necessary even if they drive 20 miles a day and even if they can charge at home!
This is a huge hole in the regulatory regime. It doesn't make sense to be as wasteful with electrons as we are with hydrocarbons. Sure the electron can be generated cleanly or with higher efficiency, but that doesn't negate the pursuit of encouraging increased utility.
Now you're in a car that the US car industry doesn't want to sell, and thus you don't exist.
Do we need self-darkening HUDs? Like an LCD overlay that specifically mutes the intensity of these improperly engineered cars? Seems dumb, but it might happen.
I wonder if we'll just move to using IR for the really high beams? That probably doesn't do anything good to the human eye at high intensities, but if you could augment the driver's vision and not blind everyone at the same time that would be nice? Let's bring back the Cadillac Deville!
EDIT - also:
> Now you're in a car that the US car industry doesn't want to sell, and thus you don't exist.
To be fair, this is related to the cars people want to buy. Everyone's making SUVs because they sell like hot cakes.
The economically efficient way to get the fuel economy result would have been to increase gasoline taxes, but that's a non starter politically. Higher gas prices would allow people to choose to keep a cheap gas guzzling truck/car, buy a new more efficient and expensive car, or buy a new slightly more efficient slightly more expensive car. It would have been simpler though and given consumers more choice.
People’s desire to sit higher up and be in large vehicles, which have always been more expensive than smaller, lower vehicles, is what causes them to be bought. And once a significant portion have them, it becomes safer to be in one yourself, further incentivizing their purchase.
But 99% of the time, it’s just because people like the feeling of sitting higher up than others, and the ego boost from taking up more space. The simple evidence is the popularity of Suburbans/Sequoias/XC90s/etc over minivans, like Sienna/Odyssey. There is absolutely no functional benefit of the former over the latter, yet the former is more popular.
It makes no sense to buy a GM Suburban or Ford Expedition because you think a Stellantis Pacifica is low quality. The Japanese minivans have always been there for purchase, if you wanted a quality minivan.
People have been choosing to pay extra for bigger, taller cars because they want bigger, taller cars to signal ostentatious consumption, not any other reason. I’ve heard this direct from many, many people on why they chose an SUV or pickup truck over a minivan (though they will couch it in terms like “cool” or “sleek” or whatever).
There are very few countries where pedestrial fatalities have continued to rise, and the US and Canada are two of them, driven in large part by auto obesity.
You point to popularity, but I will mention that it is impossible to buy a sedan from US automakers today. The reason why is simple - profit. Larger cars are more profitable. When combined with incessant marketing that a pickup truck makes you more "manly", you can manufacture "desire" and "preference".
Toyota/Honda/Subaru/Mazda/Tesla/Volkswagen manufacture sedans made in the US, that you can buy today. Not sure why it would make a difference where it is made anyway.
If you wanted a lower priced sedan, you would choose from the 10+ great options, cheaper than a larger vehicle, and buy a sedan.
Which means if you paid more for a larger/higher vehicle, it is because you wanted the larger/higher vehicle.
What's normal can change. Today, 37% of used registrations in the US are sedans and about 18% of new registrations.