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https://www.google.ca/amp/s/sec.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/culture/technology/are-those-bright-blue-headlights-legal/article22107859/%3fservice=amp?client=safari

loeog said "Prissy said   Just need to rant..lol     Is anyone else getting frustrated with the amount of inconsiderate drivers out there that insist on driving with their high beams on or worse, their high beams AND fog lights when there is no fog?     I know it''s dark in the morning people, but do you not realize how hard it is on the driver you are passing to see when you ''blind'' them with your inconsiderate action?! Especially when there are animals on the road, foggy conditions, rain..etc. Come on people have some manners please!     And I am not mentioning this because it was one or two motorists, no word of a lie, it was more like 8 - 10. Ridiculous!     Thanks     Funny things is, it might be your lights that are the problem now.     https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=:961564&cat_id=:3     Edited by loeog, 2016-10-23 08:08:08"

 
 
Edited by wonderment, 2016-10-23 11:00:24

I bought my new car 4 years ago, I would get lights flashed at me even tho I was using low beams. I chalked it up to being a new car and new technology in making light bulbs. I still get flashed from time to time, but I don't get my panties in a bunch over it.  
Although, I did have my fog lights on for a period of time. I forgot I had them on until I was at the Timmy's drive thru window on Vic, and got blinded by the reflection from the windows in the building in front of me.  
I find it worse when I am travelling on a dark highway, and an suv/truck comes up behind and stays there for a bit before deciding to pass, even if they have dims on, it's pretty blinding.

Our car is not new, it's a 2009 Dodge and before that it was a 2007 Dodge. We get/got "brighted" once in awhile and I just chalked it up to Dodge's lol.  
 
It is very annoying when people wait until the last second to bright you. If you want to bright me that's fine but give me enough time to show you that they aren't on at least....or the odd time, to turn them off as I do sometimes forget but that is less than 5% of the time!  
 
To the person asking about deer...I'm not sure about how many times but yes, I was told this too. However, it's usually my brake lights that I tap a couple times for the cars behind me. I was also raised with a family that ran a truck stop restaurant and was taught to tap my brakes a few times to say "thank you" to them if they did something considerate and that when they passed me, I should flash my brights to alert them that I was out of their blind spot and it was okay to pull back in front of me. They then tap their brakes to say "thank you" as well. I don't see this very often anymore (although, I'm sure these things are probably frowned upon by driving instructors now haha)

wonderment said "    loeog said "Prissy said   Just need to rant..lol     Is anyone else getting frustrated with the amount of inconsiderate drivers out there that insist on driving with their high beams on or worse, their high beams AND fog lights when there is no fog?     I know it''s dark in the morning people, but do you not realize how hard it is on the driver you are passing to see when you ''blind'' them with your inconsiderate action?! Especially when there are animals on the road, foggy conditions, rain..etc. Come on people have some manners please!     And I am not mentioning this because it was one or two motorists, no word of a lie, it was more like 8 - 10. Ridiculous!     Thanks     Funny things is, it might be your lights that are the problem now.     https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=:961564&cat_id=:3     Edited by loeog, 2016-10-23 08:08:08"     Edited by wonderment, 2016-10-23 11:00:24"

I'm not sure why you re-posted loeog's message as I stated before that if you look at that specific thread, I did not write those words! Loeog was incorrect.

Most of the road courtesy's mentioned are taught in drivers ed its just that there is a lot of content to cover and with new drivers they may not remember everything taught to them, if most of the other people on the road have forgotten or were never taught its hard for kids to prefect and remember the courtesy's latter too and honestly teaching the laws, how to control their vehicle in dangerous situations ect are more important for them to retain so emphasis is not on the curtesy's of the road

flashed a lot, it is your problem, not the oncoming traffic. You are blinding them and they are letting you know about it. Brightnes of the headlight has less affect on how easy a headlight is to meet than how the headlights are aimed. Has anyone actually put an alignment machine on your vehicle? If so, then ask them to recheck and set the light to the low end of the spec.  
Also fog lites are often poor quaility and poorly aimed. They could be the reason you are getting flashed if you are driving with them on.  
 
Also lifted vehicles tend to put lights right in the eyes of oncoming traffic. Again your problem, get your lights properly aimed.

One thing to keep in mind is when you have them checked at the garage, you may not have the same weight in the trunk(car) or box(truck), thus it maybe correct at the garage, but when you add weight, this lowers the rear, thus angling the lights up, causing oncoming traffic to think you have your high beams on. Regarding fog lights, the vehicles I have driven require you to manually turn on the fog lights every time you start your vehicle and only will allow use with low beams. But if you are using them in normal driving and they are not aimed properly, you probably will get flashed, especially if you have a higher vehicle like a 25/3500 series truck. My truck is a 2015, but I see many vehicles go by me with lights 2x as bright! It would be nice, but thinking might get flashed more if I had them, like you.  
 
Edited by thecdnmole, 2016-10-23 19:30:24

I've driven different trucks of family members, both GM and Ford with the projection style headlights and guaranteed I will be flashed by a portion of the vehicles I meet. These trucks are newer, 4X4 1500s, not jacked up and no weight in the back. The headlights are factory equipped headlights; the pure white light...not the blue aftermarket lights referred to earlier in the thread.  
 
My 2010 truck is not equipped with the projection headlights and I've never been flashed anywhere as much as with my husband's truck that has the factory projection headlights. Personally I prefer the regular headlights for the wide coverage they give into the ditch compared to the projection lights.  
 
That being said, I was flashed a surprising number of times driving my car on the way home from Brandon the other night, and a couple times it was at the last moment before meeting the oncoming vehicle. It has regular style head lights. I was following other vehicles and I was driving on dim. I’m not sure it was that people thought my headlights were too bright; I wonder if they thought I was an inconsiderate driver because I didn’t visibly dim my lights.

I have a question for the OP.  
 
Is your truck equipped with driving/fogs lights? And if so do you have them turned on?  
 
These lights combined with the lights in newer vehicles are basically as bright as high beams, while providing no benefit regarding visibility for the driver under most conditions. Try turning them on and off while driving down a dark road and you will see what I mean. The increased illumination provided by these lights is a very flat thin beam that lights up an area very close and more to the side of your vehicle than conventional head lights.  
 
I have heard the argument from people who think their vehicle looks cool with these lights on. I have yet to meet anyone who can drive their vehicle and see it going down the road at the same time.  
 
To the OP and other, please turn there lights off unless conditions are such they they are beneficial.

I encounter people with their high beams on ALL THE TIME and I drive from Souris to Brandon every morning. Maybe 1 out of 12 that I give a flash to flashes me back to let me know their headlights are on low already (just bright), 2/3 dim theirs, and almost 1/3 either don't know what it means when you flash your lights to remind them to lower theirs, or are already on dim but look bright and don't bother to flash you back to let you know. If I flash an oncoming driver, I do it from a good distance and do NOT do it when they are very close, even if they are jerks who are blazing their lights the whole time. I'm glad to see this thread because it seems like drivers nowdays don't know anything about courtesy and safety! Don Brown and BigDaddy2 I totally agree with your breakdown of good communication signals on the road, they should be taught in drivers ed and reinforced by MPI

a almost 5 year old truck and routinely still get flashed when I'm on dim as well. Everyone's eyes are different sensitivity - just the way it is, and depends on the day too. I was driving home last night in the dark and was very much struggling with people's headlights, but my eyes were sore and sensitive. I got flashed more than once, and often by smaller vehicles. It's hard when they are driving toward me and they're directly at the level of my shining headlights I get it. But, it irritates me at the time and I get past it. What irritates me more is driving on a divided highway and oncoming traffic is driving with brights because they thing the division is enough to not be a bother......not so.

Every year it seems that vehicles are coming out of the factory with brighter headlights. This is actually a good thing when it comes to the High Beam lights. You have a better chance of seeing a deer, other animal or pedestrian while driving on a highway or rural road. The only time it becomes a problem is when an oncoming driver forgets to "dim" or is too inconsiderate to "dim" their headlights. So, it shouldn't and doesn't matter how bright the High Beams are, just as long as the driver dims when meeting oncoming traffic.  
 
The Low Beams are a different story. These new vehicles have Low Beams that are much brighter than they used to be. This is good from the perspective of it's driver. It's not so good from the driver's seat of oncoming cars. If these brilliant Low Beams happen to be on a truck, then they are above the eye level of the drivers of cars. Even if they are properly aimed, they still blind the car driver, simply because the car driver is under them. If the truck is carrying a load the situation becomes worse.  
 
What it all comes down to is, it doesn't matter how bright they make the High Beam lights, it's the brilliant Low Beam lights that are the problem.

get your lights adjusted

I know we all like to consider ourselves experts but I can only assume that there are some strict regulations on things like brightness and aim that the manufacturers have to follow and unless her vehicle has been in an accident or modified I am sure the lights are perfectly fine and wouldn't need adjustment and being a newer vehicle they probably are brighter which doesn't mean she should run to the shop and have them aimed down lower because some people are too easily annoyed

There's a huge number of new cars and trucks on the road with headlights that work properly, so suggesting the OP might be the problem isn't totally out of line.  
It's the age old question of the chicken or the egg. Her bad headlights or the rude person that is flashing there high beams at the last second.

loeog said "There's a huge number of new cars and trucks on the road with headlights that work properly, so suggesting the OP might be the problem isn't totally out of line.   It's the age old question of the chicken or the egg. Her bad headlights or the rude person that is flashing there high beams at the last second. "

seeing how there have many others that post being flashed seconds in front tells me it's the other drivers. And there's also many people in new vehicles who get flashed who have posted in this thread as well. It's looking to be more of the other drivers who are being rude than any issue with her vehicle.

I have read this thread with interest having owned a 2010 dodge ram with pathetic headlights. I would often drive with the fog lights on simply because I didn't feel confident with the peripheral vision of the regular low beams. Surpisingly I wasn't flashed that often by regular cars/trucks but was often flashed by semis.  
 
Recently traded for a new F150 with standard halogens and found them brighter but not very good spread. Have been constantly flashed with the new F150 this fall despite only using regular low beams.  
 
Interestingly, saw this report today on headlights on new trucks and I think it hits the nail on the head - the new lights aren't that good for the driver but tend to cause glare to the oncoming traffic - newer F150 is apparently the worse.  
 
link to the IIHS report through Kare11 news:  
 
http://www.kare11.com/news/iihs-study-shows-your-trucks-headlights-may-not-be-safe-enough/341350245

Just throwing this out there...  
Perhaps its the color of the newer lights that is causing so much grief.  
 
We have become used to "ordinary" halogen or otherwise incandescent lamps. New vehicles, and new expensive-yet-legal bulbs offer a color that''''s less yellow, and more "white". The "whiteness" comes from the higher amount of BLUE present in the light.  
 
Having this white light makes seeing farther down the road easier, but there''''s a catch. Human eyes are very sensitive to blue, and we have trouble with glare, when there''''s too much blue entering our eyes.  
 
There''''s a common theme here where streetlights had been purposely chosen to be that nasty orange/yellow color for so many years due to the minimum blue and therefore glare that they caused, which maximized safety for drivers. We are now in an era where that previous research has been discarded with the new bright white LED streetlights, and guess what... complaints about glare are abundant now!  
 
Getting back on-topic, I think that the color-temperature(the technical jargon for "whiteness) of new car headlights is making life difficult for drivers who have to face them on the roads, which has nothing to do with how they are aimed, or how much gas is in the tank, or how overweight today''''s kids are getting, or anything like that.  
 
If anybody''''s getting flashed a lot and your car is certifiably fine, TRY THIS: Get some new "ordinary" headlight bulbs if possible, drive around with them for a while and see if the flashing behavior stops. I bet that this single cheap effort will ultimately fix a lotta grief.  
 
Edited by sparkycivic, 2016-10-26 11:08:25