This is a major problem for me.
Driving a small car at night is so difficult for me these days, especially as a person who wears glasses. Huge lifted vehicles essentially reduce my vision >50% without even using their high beams lights.
Driving a small car at night is so difficult for me these days, especially as a person who wears glasses. Huge lifted vehicles essentially reduce my vision >50% without even using their high beams lights.
I never thought that I would want to see some regulation around maximum headlight brightness, but I really really do.
It's taken me a long time to get used to, but it seems to work. I had to break myself of the habit of using just the side view mirror for changing lanes, to ensure there is no fast moving traffic overtaking. The biggest problem there is if someone is close up on you, like in stop and go. But I can lean over a bit to adjust the side angle then or when backing into parking.
[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/blindzonegla...
Edit: a blog post about this: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToAdjustYourSiderearviewMi...
ISTR that there were regulations about the amount of light headlights could put out, and HIDs were more effective largely because they eliminated light going where you didn't need it, and were able to concentrate the light more out and down than up.
Self-defense Step #1: avert your eyes from the bad headlights. One of the problems is our eyes have a natural tendency to look at things which are blue at night, on account of our eyes' hyper-sensitivity to blue light.
It was sort of happy accident that early incandescent bulbs were low-blue sources of light that put out vastly more of the safe portion of the spectrum (infrared, red, orange, yellow).
Self-defense Step #2: screen out excess blue light. I wear polarized yellowish fit-over glasses at night. They help a lot. I found my current preferred pair at a clearance apparel/home goods store for $8. My backup glasses are yellow safety goggles -- these turn the bad headlights greener than the polarized goggles, but I've tended to use the polarized ones since I found them. You can spend more on "swannies" [0] or whatever, but I'm happy with my $8-$11 yellow glasses.
This was inspired by a HN comment, who told about wearing orange glasses to walk his dog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14170975 My first set of orange safety glasses cut out too much light -- great for dealing with headlights, not so great for noticing pedestrians.
Of course I live in NYC and work out in Suffolk county on Long Island. So the type of vehicle blinding you varies by region and its local knuckle dragging car culture.
I'm usually driving a minivan. It's high enough that getting blinded from the rear isn't a huge issue. But I get blinded from the front -- much worse! -- all the time.