> I actually like the brightness race since it's improved my ability to drive.
Unfortunately you are not taking into account how that brightness impairs other drivers ability to see.
I do agree with the parent, I do feel more distracted by bright flashes of blueish-white light from modern head lamps. Roads aren't flat. Cars bounce, dip, and hop over hills, bumps and pot holes. Never mind the jerks who regularly drive with high beams on or forget to turn them off when passing. Those sudden flashes of light cause floaters in your field of vision leaving you temporarily blinded. This is a problem that no one seems to care about and I feel like we are ignoring these issues on purpose.
I feel like it was an issue that a lot of people cared about when only a few cars had super bright headlights. People wanted to outlaw it, or at least put an upper limit on it. I'm surprised that the world went in the direction of everyone having them, but maybe I shouldn't be, since a similar thing happened with giant military-style SUVs. Now that most people have crazy bright headlights they don't complain as much, or they're used to it, or they're like "got mine, screw you" as with most things. Older people like my parents just won't drive at night anymore because oncoming lights are too blinding. But if you don't regularly drive an older car it's easy to forget how you used to actually have better night vision when all the lights on the road were dimmer.
I've complained to people at work and they agree but they're like what are you going to do? And they're right. They pushed this on everyone.
I just drive defensively, dim the rear mirror (auto-dim ftw.) Tinted windows are a nice attenuator for sun, headlights and other illumination but suck at night for all around vision. I wind up having one of those driver AB memory settings and have B angling my mirrors slightly down so I can see wheels and just crane my neck slightly to see next to me. Sounds dangerous but im used to it, can still see most of what's next to me and it keeps flashes of bright headlights outta my eyes at night.
The roads are more insane ALL the time post covid. Tempers are flaring over restrictions, people divided over dumb shit, etc, ad nauseum.
I have to either move or quit my job because the commute is now soul sucking. People drive really selfishly, some even retaliating on road with vehicular violence. This morning on my way in I was merging onto the highway, then accelerated and move into the middle lane to cruise for a while. Apparently I misjudged a dude who must have been doing 80+ in the middle lane, in a 50 zone as he was up my ass in seconds when he was a few hundred feet back in my mirror when moving over. So he goes around me and violently cuts me off almost hitting me, on purpose (he had a passenger too). You believe that shit. Fucking guy was mad I got in his way when he was getting off in a few hundred feet anyway and should have just went into the right lane and grannied the remaining few hundred but no. I wanted to drink the blood from his still beating heart after that fucking shit and I almost saw red and lost it reaching for my bat. but I have to eat that, drive defensively, and go on about my day because engaging in road violence puts everyone else at risk and is pure dumb. Fuck em. It's a shame they can get away with this crap.
I drive fast, always drove fast, and if I'm doing 100 and come up on a bimbo box in the fastlane I'll be flashing my lights. That being said, I'll brake at a safe distance and wait them out like a dying hospital patient if they don't get the message. What I'm describing here is an old LA to Vegas 2.5 hr, radar watching mentality where you're highly aware and entirely sober and the point is low visibility and getting there in the dark, fast.
Whatever has happened after covid is different. I don't think it's the frustration of lockdowns or whatever. I think people have lost a solid 10 IQ points and have had a few mm's shaved off their frontal lobes. No self control or self awareness. No sense of self preservation, (as I wrote that, outside a bar on a side street in Portland, a car just rocketed by at 70 in a 25 zone).
So the knock-on effect of a lot of borderline people becoming total sociopathic assholes is that relatively responsible people like you and I start to lose our minds being surrounded by them acting like hyperactive zombies. This might be how our civilization falls - after all, it wasn't Justinian's plague that finally killed Rome, it just knocked out the last of the cultural niceties that allowed an empire to function.
Whatever, this is a drunk post but feel free to deconstruct it.
Unfortunately you are not taking into account how that brightness impairs other drivers ability to see.
I do agree with the parent, I do feel more distracted by bright flashes of blueish-white light from modern head lamps. Roads aren't flat. Cars bounce, dip, and hop over hills, bumps and pot holes. Never mind the jerks who regularly drive with high beams on or forget to turn them off when passing. Those sudden flashes of light cause floaters in your field of vision leaving you temporarily blinded. This is a problem that no one seems to care about and I feel like we are ignoring these issues on purpose.