Driving at Night - Oncoming Headlights

[CaptTom]

...people running...with their (LED retrofit) fog lights on with no fog (another new trend)...

Definitely not a new trend. If you put custom fog lights on your car, it's almost certainly not for use in the fog. It's to prove how "cool" you are to everyone else on the road. You're gonna use them all the time. And probably have them aimed up so high that they'd blind you if you ever did use them in actual fog.


Just like those yellow safety light bars on personal trucks with plows. It seems some guys run those lights all winter, even when not plowing, again obviously trying to prove something. Or compensate for something.

 

[Koolau]

I recall when the annual state vehicle inspection included shining the headlights at a target on the garage wall. If they were too high (or too low, or off to the right or left) the mechanic would grab a screwdriver and adjust them.


I haven't seen that in a while. I don't think headlights even have adjustment screws any more. If they do, I'm quite sure nobody around here uses them.

Our state inspection includes the headlight check with target. I've never needed an adjustment but YMMV.

 

[cho oyu]

Our state inspection includes the headlight check with target. I've never needed an adjustment but YMMV.

What surprises me, is that so many vehicles do need those adjustments. I've also never had a headlight get mis-aimed, so I'm unclear on both how it happens so often, and how people don't notice when it does happen.


We have a very windy 4-lane (2 in each direction) mountain road with heavy traffic that I need to drive quite often, and I don't see how people manage to drive it with their headlights pointing into the trees. Or perhaps that helps explain the daily crashes? At least there are barriers now, so most of the crashes are single-vehicle, and not head-on.

 

[cho oyu]

Definitely not a new trend. If you put custom fog lights on your car, it's almost certainly not for use in the fog. It's to prove how "cool" you are to everyone else on the road. You're gonna use them all the time. And probably have them aimed up so high that they'd blind you if you ever did use them in actual fog.


Just like those yellow safety light bars on personal trucks with plows. It seems some guys run those lights all winter, even when not plowing, again obviously trying to prove something. Or compensate for something.

I do suppose you are correct. I just wish fewer people felt they had so much to prove.