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Comment by brikym | Hacker News Reader

What do you suggest I do about Ford pickup trucks with annoyingly high, bright high beams?

Maybe a light bar for the rear of the car and some reflective material for the sunvisor?

Flash brights at them, as you would do with anyone else. I drive a lifted 4x4 and through honest oversight failed to re-adjust headlights after the lift.

Just took a few people flashing brights at me to make me realize and do the (very easy) adjustment to proper specs.

Doesn’t solve people behind you, but it’s not like they’re going to pull over and adjust anyway. Flash brights and consider it a favor to the person in front of the offender.

Telling people they're doing something annoying / dangerous / etc is surprisingly effective. Ask the person smoking next to you to move downwind. Ask the neighbor next door to turn down the TV. Ask the tourist in public transport to move their suitcase so it doesn't block the door. Works every time, most of the time.

Doing so politely is effective.

But yeah, it's kind of shocking how often people are like "I hate this thing that person is doing" and I'm like "Have you asked them to stop?" and they haven't. Just... ask? Worse case scenario they say no and you're in the same spot you were.

People prefer to avoid rejection because if you get denied, depending on stability of your self-esteem and feeling of security, you may enter a new reality where you are inconsequential, not loved/respected, and so on. It may end up being a vicious loop of self-fulfilling prophecies and self-hate.

Avoiding such negative consequences of rejection may require a confrontation and possibly very expensive dental treatment (or sponsoring one for the victim of your assault, which it may be interpreted as if you win even if you do not hit first) when it is between two men, and other concerns for personal safety if it is a woman against a man.

(Anecdotally, unfamiliar women seem to have less of an issue asking each other to change their behaviour this way, as do men asking women.)

So, it is more preferable to not complain and instead raise your social status such that you do not come in contact with those people (either real status or at least imagined one, through bottled-up contempt towards those rubes or whatever offending term the context calls for).

I’m not saying it is ideal, just describing why it seems pretty to me obvious how person A would often rather not “simply” ask person B to stop doing something or change something to accommodate person A.

People hate(d) teslas for a while because software updates reset their headlight angle and made them blind everyone, and recalibrating was apparently a bastard at the time

What kind of car do you drive? It’s highly likely if your vehicle is low-slung that the pickup is not using high beams, just its regular lights, but the height difference means they shine straight in your eyes.

Similar to the effect when an oncoming car is cresting a small hill and the headlight angle of incidence changes to impact your eyes

It's a Nissan Leaf which is a little higher than most sedans because of the battery but still lower than an SUV. The problem is vehicle shapes become an arms race. I don't really want to drive an SUV. Vehicles keep getting more and more hostile to other drivers and pedestrians especially with the fist shaped front ends.

Maybe a light bar for the rear of the car and some reflective material for the sunvisor?

I once came up behind a semi on a rural stretch of I-80 with my brights on. He hit me with a set of rear-mounted flood lights.

Probably illegal, but who's going to stop him? Plus, I got the message.

If you mean rear extra bright red lights those are for fog to prevent being rear-ended. If there was no fog it is illegal. Whether or not it is enforced depends on location, agencies, priorities. Example usage would be in Bakersfield, CA there is a location that at times goes from clear to not being able to see lights 2 feet away nearly instantly. Beyond pea-soup fog. It's a very unnerving experience if one is not ready for it.

No. Not red lights. Flood lights. Like you'd have to light up your backyard.

Those are standard equipment on many big rigs for backing up in the dark. I had the same experience as you when I forgot to dim my brights coming up on a trucker on the interstate at night!

Put tennis balls between your washer and the back windshield with a visible note "back off or feel my balls"

Night driving glasses. They don't reduce the lumens per se, but they reduce the blue light, leaving a yellow light which is not as headache inducing.

https://www.eagleeyes.com/collections/night-driving

Green stickers

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