I think many people lack the consideration out of ignorance, be it drivers, bikers, pedestrians or even people in my group with headtorches if they don’t use them regularly. When able i try to respectfully remind people and most of them realise just then. I agree that consideration should be the norm but it’s not, such is the world we live in, and we can either try to actually make some progress, or devolve into angry tit-for-tat loop.
A couple of my coworkers have recently mentioned they’ve decided to always be the last one to turn off their full beams in traffic, should the opposing driver (or their automation) take a while to turn theirs off- I’ve had a think and decided against that mindset, even though some (or even the majority) of the opposing drivers could be acting out of selfishness, it’s still safer for at least one of us to see okay. No amount of ‘peer punishment’ will re-educate the selfish but it very much is driving more people into embracing this roadrage-adjacent ‘punitive mindset’ that solves nothing.
My understanding is that such cars have diesel engines. I am told that current ones have so called diesel particulate filters that remove the smell, but I haven’t done any tests to confirm or disprove that suggestion.
Yes, diesels are stinky but many gas engines are as well. One of the big differences is that stinky gas trucks are less likely to be left to sit at an idle for an hour or more at the Walmart parking lot. Is there a law that your diesel must idle for hour after hour?
My car is a diesel with DPF and it does produce a distinct sickly sweet smell that might be similar to what you’re describing but there are likely other factors at play e.g. local fuel quality, my understanding is that US diesel is less refined than what we use in the EU and has less additives. EU diesel on the other hand contains biofuel component that might be absent from US diesel.
if every driver flashes those with LED in headlights designed for halogen, maybe they will get sick of it and change back to legal original halogen bulb. Somewhat of a saying: If you constantly allow dumb people to move forward they will become president… (brace for idiocracy)
One reason for owning a big vehicle that is often overlooked is ergonomics. I’m personally driving a Corolla now, but my next vehicle will probably be something bigger to take pressure off of my tailbone.
I don’t meet a lot of retrofitted lights, the police over here are pretty active in that regard. What i do meet a lot is newer cars with piercingly bright factory led lights, and i’ve personally driven cars that make it difficult to manually turn the full beams off on account of having automation (e.g. the stalk on some VW group models cycles between off-auto-on-off with no option to disable the automation). For the automation to do its job its camera needs to see a car (and therefore already be blinding someone) whereas a human driver can respond to seeing mist or guardrails illuminated by oncoming traffic or to seeing glimmers through the woods and in the cars i’ve described pulling on the stalk to protect the oncoming traffic from being blinded can actually make it worse by selecting the full beams to on first.
While i get you, my assesment is that punitive blinding of oncoming drivers (not talking about a brief reminder flash) escalates the issue with people who choose to act maliciously or antisocially to begin with and could instill a ‘why bother’ attitude in the ones who are genuinely ignorant OR unable to act better due to poor car design.
Assuming malice or antisociality only cements people in their positions
BUT both will walk away with the (presumably warm fuzzy) feeling of angry righteousness in being the only good driver dishing out luminous justice one car at a time
That’s why I miss my 90W/130W H4s in my old car (4×6 4-light system).
Lowbeam was wonderfully well-behaved, nice big fat blanket of light in front of me, pretty sharp cutoff up top. Even at 90W each, never once got flashed. Asked around to check, from normal angles, they didn’t look any different than any other headlight.
Highbeam was just a freaking howitzer of 150W halogen goodness.
Oh, I should mention they were all H4s. After I’d burn out the lowbeam filament, I’d stick the bright-only bulb into the highbeam cup. So 600W of halogens scorching whatever was in front of me. Had to use a relay with 40A relay and fuse on a separate circuit per side to handle the brights. Mission-critical lowbeams stayed on the breaker.
For my bike light, I modded it to triple 2700K SST-20 LEDs (What did you mod today?). The original was a cool blue LED.
Not only is a 2700K bike light a rarity to see these days vs the incandescent bulbs of the past, it is also much easier on the eyes. And since it’s an older light, the brightness is not all that bright, about 300 lumens.
I also point the light down in front of the bike unless I’m riding on streets and competing with cars.
It is annoying when I’m on a later jog and come across someone with a very bright light. I put my hand in front of my eyes to block the lumens, but I’m not sure if the message is received. They may instead think they have an awesome light!
When I used to ride at night I bought one of the Fenix bike lights, which had a beam generally shaped like an automobile headlight: better-distributed without unwanted intensity in the lower sectors. Occasionally rode with a headlamp affixed to my helmet and tried to be cognizant of where the beam is pointing when there are vehicles and pedestrians about.
Perhaps not, but I’ve learned a few things along the way:
Learned in the Scouts: point a flashlight at chest level or lower
Swiftly reasoned when I used to work second shift and walked around at night between midnight and 4AM: never light up private property more than ~3 meters from a road or walkway and for sure never light up residential structures
If you’ve spotted an oncoming vehicle and are outside of their likely path, don’t signal the driver
