As an old fogy who's first car had no automation apart from the points and coil providing a spark. Since then I have owned and maintained, mainly my three daughter's, cars with increasing levels of electronics and complexity.  In every case there have been problems caused by damp, connection problems and hardware errors in the clever electronic bits. Given the hostile environment of a car, especially as it gets older, I do not see any attempt being made to ruggedise components by design or manufacture. Many car designs appear to be made to fail with all the connections and computers located where they will get wet when the sunroof drains block or a seal gets damaged or mislaid during maintenance with no attempt being made to damp proof the components. I worked on one car where there had been recalls to stick bits of polythene sheets to stop condensation entering  multiple computers

The result is that I am concerned  that all these "aids" stand a chance of failing to danger when the car is older irrespective of maintenance. Even if they fail will the driver be expecting them to work and have an incident as a result. I read the odd aircraft accident report and if aircraft systems can fail with all the redundancy,  regulations, testing and strict maintenance schedules and procedures what chance does a car built the lowest price stand when it is few years old.

My sister in law recently got rid of her new car as she could not work out how to work all the aids that made her feel she had no control over the car and kept sounding warning sounds that she did not know what they were for  and distracted her from driving. 

I read that people are now questioning the safety of the touch screens for basic controls when compared to simple switches or rotary controls. I must admit I have to look away from the road to alter my heating in my car which I never had to do with the old rotary controls with set positions. 

I feel that progress is often being made for the sake of progress rather than safety.

It is not just the glare that is the issue.  A lot of car coming out of the factory or the main dealer showroom have the lights set at the wrong height and the wrong beam angle.  The motor trade are well aware of it, they choose to ignore it. 

That should be picked up at an MOT though surely Sergio? I know they test it on mine as they've picked up on it after I'd had a new headlight installed. 

The problem I have is that my car is rather 'low' to the ground and everyone else seems to have SUV's that sit a lot higher than me. Meaning that their headlights are right in my eyeline anyway... 

It seems to be the social norm nowadays to look after oneself with no regard to how your actions affect those around you i.e. "I'll have the brightest lights on my car so I can see and I don't care if it dazzles everyone else on the road." 

I read a comment on a YouTube video the other day (my guilty pleasure is watching dashcam videos of bad driving, most of the time by those with the dashcam themselves!!! ) where someone said 'Drive like it's a collaboration, not a competition' which I thought was a really nice mantra 

Loading of the vehicle also has an effect. Mine have had adjusters to lower the lights when there is a heavy load at the rear. How many people use this function?

SUVs or CrossOvers have become common place and they have the lights positioned higher on the frame of the vehicle.  4 x 4s can also suffer from this issue.  Some also have self adjusting headlight beam angle.  The cause and effect is the same.  They are blinding the oncoming traffic be it vehicle or cyclist. 

The drivers of these vehicles are sometime aware as people will tell them the lights are blinding, some will have oncoming traffic flash them to make them aware.  I agree that there is a culture of people that look out for themselves and don't care about the impact they have on others. 

As a side note the road surface (lumpy and bumpy) and the amount of potholes makes the glare and blinding isssue worse.

I have the same function on mine and when I am boot heavy (especially for Scuba diving out from Portland Bill)  I will adjust the lights to not be a menace to other road users.  However most other roads users do not adjust it or even know about it.

A typical example is with 4 settings from 0 to 3.  0 is for 1 person in vehicle with half a tank of fuel.  So if they fill up the fuel tank then they should have it set to 1.

For sure MOT should adjust the lights and note in report it was wrong. 

It is not an MOT failure in my book but some unscrupulous mechanics may just fail so they can get another retest fee. 

I think there is a problem also that the beam shape rules assume a filament source and a parabolic refelctor with a glass lens, and if you define the centre of the bright part, the rest sorts itself out, but that is not really the case for LED and gas discharge lamps, nor with badly fogged plastic with any sort of lamp behind it - there can be a lot of 'splash'

Arguably such light would benefit from a peaked hat style hood to give a hard cut off to the top of the beam.

right now gas discharge lamps can  must be self levelling, but that is about it.

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But the beam patterns are intended to put most of the energy below the horizontal in 'dip' many do have quite a bit above that.

LED lamps can have a very sharply defined cut-off above a certain angle.  Which means that nobody should get dazzled on a level road.  It doesn't work so well if the road is hilly.

Certainly they can/could , but as far as I can tell, they don't.

Mike

My new (to me) car has LED lamps, and there is a very sharp cut-off line at the top of the beam.  Anything below that line is much brighter than above it.

My new (to me) car has LED lamps, and there is a very sharp cut-off line at the top of the beam.  Anything below that line is much brighter than above it.

Good, I just wish more did..... it may in fact be be a minority but you do not need that many badly adjusted vehicles to cause a problem.

That and the odd cyclists that have very bright flashing white lights that make it impossible to see what side of the road they are on  as the view  alternates between either a blinding white sheet or total darkness, changing too fast so  the eye is adapted to neither.  Probably OK in a built up area where street lighting means the contrast between the 2 states is less,  but not sensible on a country road.

M.

Cyclists are supposed to (by law I believe) have static lights on their bikes as well as flashing ones if they choose to have them as well. They shouldn't just have flashing lights, especially at the rear and definitely not at the front! How on earth can they see where they're going!

ah but... cycling is not something they can take your licence away for, so enforcement, and for that matter propagation of the rules to cyclists , is pretty weak. Again, it may be a minority, but as with many things, you only need a few to spoil it.

And flashing lights have been permitted since 2005 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/2559/made

Mike.