Complaints about the blinding glare from the headlights of large vehicles have been intensifying over the course of the past few years. A quick Google search reveals several pages of articles discussing how the headlights on new cars are dangerously bright. They are so bright they can be blinding, but just because the headlights on other vehicles are blindingly bright does not mean that you should drive with your high beams on. As the old adage goes, "an eye for an eye and the world goes blind."
Many modern cars are fitted with LED headlights that emit more concentrated beams of light than older halogen headlights are capable of, and the color of the light that LED headlights emit is harsher on the human eye. Another contributing factor to the blinding nature of modern headlights is that most new vehicles are taller than older models, thus their headlights, even when properly aimed at the road ahead, tend to also aim directly at the rearview mirrors of smaller vehicles. Oftentimes the worst offenders have aftermarket LED bulbs fitted on a car that wasn't designed for them, causing them to blind other drivers. Regardless of the cause, driving with high beams on makes everything worse.
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When Should You Use Your High-Beams?
The primary differences between your high-beams and your low-beams are their brightness and their angle. High-beams are brighter and illuminate a farther distance ahead of your vehicle by being aimed higher than the low-beams. Low-beams are aimed at the road ahead of you, so they illuminate what's ahead of your car without blinding oncoming drivers, and high-beams are aimed straight ahead and they better illuminate rural roads and other poorly lit roadways, but that also means they blind oncoming drivers.
Ultimately, it's okay to use your high beams on any road as long as you don't see other cars on the road. If you have your high-beams on and you notice a car driving toward you, turn your high-beams off and only use your low-beams to avoid blinding the other driver.
If you have your high-beams on and you pull up behind another vehicle or notice that you're approaching another car, turn your high-beams off and use your low-beams. This prevents your headlights from reflecting off the other driver's mirrors and blinding them.
Here's How High-Beams Work
I've done mental gymnastics trying to understand how or why people justify driving with their high-beams on, and a potentially simple cause could be that some folks aren't aware that their high-beams are on. If you see a light on your car's dashboard that looks like a little blue jellyfish swimming sideways, that means your high beams are on. When you turn on your low beams, most cars have a green lightbulb or other green pictograph that illuminates in your car's gauge cluster.
In most cars, the same stalk that you flick up and down to activate your turn signals also controls your high beams. To turn your high beams on and leave them on, push that stalk away from you and it should activate your high beams. To flash your high beams, pull the stalk toward you and release it. To turn your high beams off, pull the stalk toward you and release it.
If you see the blue high-beam light on your dashboard and you see other cars on the road, pull the turn-signal stalk toward you so you don't blind other drivers. If you're confronted by a driver whose headlights are very bright, try focusing your gaze on the right side of your lane, but continue to use your peripheral vision to monitor those oncoming vehicles.
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