headlights.....Re: WHY?

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Ti is absolutely correct.  The Feds have simply lagged behind the curve in a
lot of technical issues involving automobiles for years.  One of the reasons
is that there is so much political money flowing out of Detroit that it fogs
the glasses that the Bureaucrats in Washington wear...makes them exceedingly
myopic.  You all have heard the old fashioned expression, "What's good for
the General, is good for the USA!"  That attitude prevailed for years.

I very clearly remember seeing my first VW.  Funny, clattering thing.  I was
a huge Dodge/Plymouth guy in those days, and I can still hear Herb Stone,
the kindly car salesman at Halperin's in Natick Massachusetts telling me
what a joke the VW was, and that it wouldn't be sold here very long.  The
big reason, he thought, was that the foreign companies just couldn't
manufacture or design cars that Americans would like.  He predicted that
only a few VWs would be sold here.

I don't think Mr. Stone was still alive when the big Volkswagen dealership
opened in Framingham the next town.  And I am sure he was gone by the time
it took over the "new" facility that Halperin Chrysler/Plymouth had built a
decade earlier up on Route 9.

But I am not going to paint the Bureaucrats with the "all bad" brush.  For
the truth about Euro headlights, is that they really are inappropriate for
the vast number of vehicles being driven on US roads.  The vast number of
cars being driven on US roads are NOT driven much at night, nor in extreme
dark conditions.  The highest percentage of US miles are driven on
Interstate highways within City compacts, and for the most part, most cars
spend their driving time in traffic where glare in the face of oncoming
drivers or in the rear view windows of cars being followed would be a safety
concern of significant magnitude.

I have found a lot of cars will approach me at night with their high beams
up, and only dim their lights either when asked or when they have already
blinded me.  This is particularly true on dark nights on curvy or hilly two
lane roads...which is basically all that exists in this area.  I noticed
this especially when I started to live here permanently twelve years ago,
and intiialy though it was some sort of game of "headlight chicken".

But what I have decided is that people drive with their eyes right in front
of the car.  Instead of looking ahead to the edge of their headlights, their
focus is directly in front of the car, and when they are going up a small
hill, or around a curve, they are "surprised" when another car's headlights
suddenly appear in their range of view.  THEN they react, and dip their
lights.  I have noticed a lot of cars will follow the cleared pavement after
a light snow, and suddenly, when they see that they are moving into the
oncoming traffic lane will swerve visibly back to the right.  THAT happens
quite a lot, it seems.

So, basically, I have come to believe that the biggest single problem with
the whole headlighting issue stems back to the methods and technical level
of driver training.  I don't think that people are really being taught how
to drive their car within the whole driving environment, and the appropriate
use of headlights and night driving is onearea that seems to be lacking.
And of course, there is NOT national standard for driver training at all.

High intensity headlights, with really strong projection now become a
problem for US drivers, as more and more companies take advantage of the
weakened regulations that allow bigger and brighter front end illumination
for cars, and it become more and more "trendy" to have these ridiculous
blue/pink/yellow/whatever headlamps.  And I suspect that there will be some
sort of "correction" as I am reading more and more complaints about these
new, "bright" headlights in the press and elsewhere.

In my opinion, the most offensive headlights on the road are on ANY F-series
pickup truck since 1989, and all Subarus equipped with those foolish, round
fog lights that do nothing except glare into the face of everyone regardless
of whether or not the car is using low of high beams.

Roger