Remember when car headlights were not blinding?

I do.

I have never held myself out as the greatest driver in the world. But I believe I am a very safe driver.  At least that’s what I tell my insurance agent.  As such, I know that headlights are very important.  I try to keep my night driving to a minimum, typically only when I have to go to the supermarket or the convenience store for toothpaste or something.

Also, having taken physics in high school and gotten like an 85, I know that the more light that is projected, the better one is able to see.  And be seen.

But at some point the headlights of the other cars become so strong that it actually becomes harder to see at night.  Have you seen some of the headlight that have lately?  The other night I was driving to the store for some Cheerios and suddenly my rearview mirror filled with a bright white light.  I pulled over the side of the road and waited for the Terminator to come through from the future and demand my clothes and car.  But it was in fact just another sport utility vehicle with fancy headlights.

How did mounting lighthouses onto the front of cars past safety tests?  Probably because the tests were done from only the perspective of the driver.  The engineers in their white coats did not do the tests from the perspective of bespectacled drivers on their way to get Cheerios in the dark of night.  Maybe they did not have enough money.

And so I try to avoid driving at night, not because of the dark, but because of the light.