[M_Six]

A couple of years ago my brother was involved on a bad car wreck. Some idiot was doing 80mph in a 50mph zone after sunset with no lights on. My brother never saw him coming and pulled out from an intersection and got T-boned. The other driver was also possibly distracted because he never hit the brakes. The passenger in the vehicle my brother as driving was killed and my brother was badly injured and still hasn't recovered fully. The other driver got sentenced to a year in jail for vehicular homicide.

Fast forward to last night. For the 5th or 6th time this month alone, I saw some idiot driving along well after sunset with no lights on. This used to be a rare thing, but has become commonplace. I think people are too caught up in their phones or whatever, but they seem to not take driving seriously.

Although I'm not usually a big proponent of Nanny State laws, this is different. If you don't wear a helmet on a motorcycle or a seatbelt in your car, then you're usually only endangering yourself. But if you drive after sunset with no lights on (or in any poor visibility situation), then you are endangering other innocent people. And that's unacceptable. Automatic headlights are a simple and cheap thing to include in cars as a standard feature. It should be mandatory. /rant

[Esteban]

I agree. I see them on occasion at night with no headlights and I flash them. Strange, but some people get mad when you flash them. Don't drive with your lights off, then. Sheesh! Idiots!

Don't most modern cars have automatic headlights as a feature these days? I have them on my car and it's a 2016 and they're always set to auto.

Sorry about your brother and RIP to his passenger.

[infinitekidM2C]

I see cars fairly regularly accidentally relying on their drl's. I look down on them and call them names. No idea why they wouldn't keep their lights on auto.

[BMWGUYinCO]

Agree with everything stated here and my sympathies for what your brother has had to go through, but one thing I will say is that while I ALWAYS have my headlights set to Auto, sometimes when my car goes in to the shop for routine maintenance they always turn them off.

I have had to remind myself each time to check and turn them back on to Auto - not trying to make excuses for other idiots on the road, but I can imagine this scenario happening to others who may just assume they are still set in the Auto position...

[MassWholeBimmer]

Agree. Pisses me off when I see high end cars (heck, even newer "low end cars" have auto headlights) driving after dusk without any lights on. Put the light switch to auto !!!!!

Haven't touched the headlight switch on my F150, same with the BMW, since I bought them... Heck, last time I did was probably on my 1999 F150...

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by BMWGUYinCO

Agree with everything stated here and my sympathies for what your brother has had to go through, but one thing I will say is that while I ALWAYS have my headlights set to Auto, sometimes when my car goes in to the shop for routine maintenance they always turn them off.

I have had to remind myself each time to check and turn them back on to Auto - not trying to make excuses for other idiots on the road, but I can imagine this scenario happening to others who may just assume they are still set in the Auto position...

Shop turns mine off too. I always check and turn them back to auto.

[JMcLellan]

We used to have a 2016 4Runner, but a mid trim level one. It did not have automatic headlights (also didn't have parking sensors that beeped when close to stuff and I learned that the hard way......). My wife would pretty consistently forget she had to manually turn the headlights on as she was used to our other vehicles that had automatic headlights. Sure, my wife could have done better but eff you Toyota for not making that standard in a 2016 model year vehicle.

Sorry to hear about that accident. Must have been awful to be a part of it and have those memories.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by JMcLellan

Sorry to hear about that accident. Must have been awful to be a part of it and have those memories.

He's changed since the accident and sometimes I think it might be some PTSD. He doesn't talk about it much, but the few times he did it was clear that it was a horrifying scene. Not easy to get past things like that.

[cmyx6go]

So sorry to hear about the accident. It boggles my brain how people don’t realize their headlights aren’t on. That being said, for years I refused to use the auto headlights because I felt that was something you should always remember to do. It’s a habit, an automatic function that you don’t even have to think about. If you do it all the time, you don’t forget. I caved a few years back. I do look to make sure they are on everytime I start the car. Not sure why the dealers always turn them off.

[M_Six]

Before automatic headlights, you could just switch your lights off and on to warn someone about driving without lights. But with any car I've had with automatic headlights, it's hard to do that because the lights don't turn off right away when you go to the off position and by the time they do, the oncoming car is gone. I usually just flash my high beams these days. The folks driving w/o headlights are often too clueless to know what you're flashing about anyway. Or it's a case of "I can still see where I'm going without my headlights." They don't understand that it's all about other drivers seeing them.

[spazzyfry123]

I very rarely see people with no forward facing lights. However, I do see a ton of folks running on Daytime Running Lights. Some of those things put out some serious light, so I can see that. While annoying, it doesn't bother me because I can see them. BUT, that doesn't do anything for rear facing lights.

A feature that I like in my low-feature Chevy company car is (with auto-lights on) that the lights will turn on if the wipers are on regardless of how bright it is outside. I've been in some spooky situations driving through hard rain with people not having their lights on. I've got no idea where you are!

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by spazzyfry123

I very rarely see people with no forward facing lights. However, I do see a ton of folks running on Daytime Running Lights. Some of those things put out some serious light, so I can see that. While annoying, it doesn't bother me because I can see them. BUT, that doesn't do anything for rear facing lights.

A feature that I like in my low-feature Chevy company car is (with auto-lights on) that the lights will turn on if the wipers are on regardless of how bright it is outside. I've been in some spooky situations driving through hard rain with people not having their lights on. I've got no idea where you are!

That's especially important when you're on the highway and passing a truck. I know from my truck driving years that you can't see cars passing you in the rain if they don't have headlights on.

[2000cs]

I see cars, especially in the evening but sometimes in the morning as well, with their lights off. If not for a car behind them creating a silhouette, or some other bit of luck, I’d never see them.

There seems to be more of this each year, but I have no data. My theory is that almost all new cars have electronic dashes - speedo etc. Those are lit because they are digital. In the old days, last century, lots of cars had analog gauges which only lit up when the headlights were turned on. So today’s cars you might think your lights are on, or not notice that they are not, because of the lit dash.

Like others have posted, I always check now to be sure the shop has put my lights in auto after service.

[Esteban]

Another thing I notice a lot of people do is drive at night with their brights on. At least it looks like brights. Probably not always brights as some people these days upgrade their lights. Very rude imo when those cars are coming at you and you can barely see because their lights are so bright. After they pass sometimes I see spots from their ridiculously bright lights, whether they’re ‘brights’ or upgraded headlights. I think there are laws regarding upgrading your lights like that but not sure if they’re enforced.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by M_Six

A couple of years ago my brother was involved on a bad car wreck. Some idiot was doing 80mph in a 50mph zone after sunset with no lights on. My brother never saw him coming and pulled out from an intersection and got T-boned. The other driver was also possibly distracted because he never hit the brakes. The passenger in the vehicle my brother as driving was killed and my brother was badly injured and still hasn't recovered fully. The other driver got sentenced to a year in jail for vehicular homicide.

Fast forward to last night. For the 5th or 6th time this month alone, I saw some idiot driving along well after sunset with no lights on. This used to be a rare thing, but has become commonplace. I think people are too caught up in their phones or whatever, but they seem to not take driving seriously.

Although I'm not usually a big proponent of Nanny State laws, this is different. If you don't wear a helmet on a motorcycle or a seatbelt in your car, then you're usually only endangering yourself. But if you drive after sunset with no lights on (or in any poor visibility situation), then you are endangering other innocent people. And that's unacceptable. Automatic headlights are a simple and cheap thing to include in cars as a standard feature. It should be mandatory. /rant

I have a small book to write on this, but I’m short on time, so I’ll write a little and then more later. Three significant factors. First, and probably the biggest factor, dashboards are virtually universally backlit these days, so people don’t get a dark dashboard in front of them to clue them in they haven’t turned on their lights. I actually think automatic headlights contribute to this problem in a certain way. People come to rely on them and then for some reason they disable them/turn them off of automatic and don’t remember to turn them back on. Third, the level of utter stupidity in the world today is exploding like it never has before!!

More to come…

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by M_Six

He's changed since the accident and sometimes I think it might be some PTSD. He doesn't talk about it much, but the few times he did it was clear that it was a horrifying scene. Not easy to get past things like that.

That really makes me sad!

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by Esteban

Another thing I notice a lot of people do is drive at night with their brights on. At least it looks like brights. Probably not always brights as some people these days upgrade their lights. Very rude imo when those cars are coming at you and you can barely see because their lights are so bright. After they pass sometimes I see spots from their ridiculously bright lights, whether they’re ‘brights’ or upgraded headlights. I think there are laws regarding upgrading your lights like that but not sure if they’re enforced.

It is a ten mile drive from my dad’s place to my place all on Chicago ‘burbs and city streets. Every single time I drive home in the dark (super frequently in during central standard time in Chicagoland) I pass at least four cars with their bright lights on (actual bright lights) and at least three with no lights at all, not even DRLs. This is not an exaggeration. Every single time. On a single ten mile stretch of road. Just about three or four nights ago one of the cars was a black 2023 or 2024 Cadillac sedan. Zero lights, not even DRLs.

I used to attribute the bright lights to assholes who just don’t care about the effect they have on anyone else, but recently I have come to believe it is a combination of that and people today being too stupid to know the blue light icon on their dashboard is telling them their bright lights are on. For the no lights at all crowd I believe that is almost exclusively the result of the fact that backlit dashboards prevent people from getting the clue they would have gotten in the past their lights are not on.

In addition to the bright light problem is the LED light problem. With the advent of LED headlights the DoT appears to have completely abandoned their responsibility to ensure headlights are designed properly. Teslas are by far the worst offenders. Virtually every Tesla I have encountered on the road at night has headlights so poorly designed they basically blind oncoming drivers just as if they were actually on the bright setting. The next worst offenders are Honda/Acura products. Then come the pickups. Ford is the worst, but GM is close behind.

In Canada DRLs have been a requirement for many years and there the option to turn off the DRLs does not exist. The U.S. needs to do that. If people couldn’t disable their DRLs at least there would be something to see in the dark.

I have taken note especially that BMW LEDs are quite good at not blinding oncoming drivers and they are good for the BMW drivers, too. BMW’s fully adaptive LEDs are definitely superior to their regular LEDs.

[M_Six]

I agree the backlit dashboards are literally a safety hazard if they keep people from realizing they don't have their lights on. Wifey's car is a 2006 Honda Civic and it has a backlit dash, so it's not just new cars. All the more reason to require automatic headlights that default to the Auto setting. My GLC300 has this annoying "fuel saving" BS where the engine shuts down every frickin' time you come to a stop. I can hit a button to turn that off, but it resets to on the next time I start the car. If they can do that with a gimmick like that, they can do it with automatic headlights. Have them default to Auto every time you start the car.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I agree the backlit dashboards are literally a safety hazard if they keep people from realizing they don't have their lights on. Wifey's car is a 2006 Honda Civic and it has a backlit dash, so it's not just new cars. All the more reason to require automatic headlights that default to the Auto setting. My GLC300 has this annoying "fuel saving" BS where the engine shuts down every frickin' time you come to a stop. I can hit a button to turn that off, but it resets to on the next time I start the car. If they can do that with a gimmick like that, they can do it with automatic headlights. Have them default to Auto every time you start the car.

That is a good idea!

[SpeedBuggy]

Technology is dumming down society today. I believe people have become self absorbed while thy drive and the technology in the cars is taking away the thought process required to drive. He'll, as antiquated as blinkers are, not many folks use them, why would we expect them to check if their headlights are on.How about actually looking at the side mirror for a vehicle along side you instead of believing the flashing light or lack of in your mirror

[SpeedBuggy]

[QUOTE=Esteban;30788233]Another thing I notice a lot of people do is drive at night with their brights on. At least it looks like brights. Probably not always brights as some people these days upgrade their lights. Very rude imo when those cars are coming at you and you can barely see because their lights are so bright. After they pass sometimes I see spots from their ridiculously bright lights, whether they’re ‘brights’ or upgraded headlights. I think there are laws regarding upgrading your lights like that but not sure if they’re enforced.

I agree that these new vehicle lights are an issue. Factory lights and even the aftermarket lights are ridiculously bright. I believe the new Honda's and Acura 's have dual headlights on each side. Pickup Trucks, Jeep Wranglers, and Large SUV's are especially irritating.

I suffer with the start of cataracts and these headlights are brutal. The problem with cataracts is that when you are diving head on towards these lights, the cataract distorts/fractures the light causing it to be brighter than they really are. Try this with a long line of cars coming toward you, it's miserable.

[tturedraider]

[QUOTE=SpeedBuggy;30788793]

Originally Posted by Esteban

Another thing I notice a lot of people do is drive at night with their brights on. At least it looks like brights. Probably not always brights as some people these days upgrade their lights. Very rude imo when those cars are coming at you and you can barely see because their lights are so bright. After they pass sometimes I see spots from their ridiculously bright lights, whether they’re ‘brights’ or upgraded headlights. I think there are laws regarding upgrading your lights like that but not sure if they’re enforced.

I agree that these new vehicle lights are an issue. Factory lights and even the aftermarket lights are ridiculously bright. I believe the new Honda's and Acura 's have dual headlights on each side. Pickup Trucks, Jeep Wranglers, and Large SUV's are especially irritating.

I suffer with the start of cataracts and these headlights are brutal. The problem with cataracts is that when you are diving head on towards these lights, the cataract distorts/fractures the light causing it to be brighter than they really are. Try this with a long line of cars coming toward you, it's miserable.

As I mentioned, Teslas are the worst, but most Honda/Acura cars use a “jewel” type LED headlight with four - six jewels and they are almost as bad as Teslas.