How bright do vehicle headlights have to be to see when driving at night?
The headlights on new vehicles and off-road vehicles today are extremely blinding at night, especially to older drivers wearing bifocals or other vision-enhancing glasses. Whatever happened to the headlight-intensity test the Division of Motor Vehicles used to perform during our vehicles’ inspections? The use of off-road lighting bars, high-intensity fog lights and those new high-output headlights on vehicles, coupled with other related lighting apparatus, are dangerous to other drivers trying to navigate the road at night. When coming toward one of these vehicles with high-intensity lights at night, drivers are blinded for at least five to 10 seconds, which could lead to a catastrophic incident.
Something needs to be put into law by the Delaware Department of Transportation addressing this issue, as it is getting out of hand.
Changing gears, the state of Delaware could save a lot of taxpayers’ money by doing away with stop signs, speed-limit signs, painted double yellow caution lines on the roadway, etc. No one abides by them, so why have them? Del. 15 (Canterbury Road) is a racetrack in the morning. I’ve never seen the out-and-out blatant disregard for driving courtesy as I have witnessed on this stretch of roadway. Everyone’s in a hurry these days. Maybe if they’d get a little earlier start in the morning, they wouldn’t have to drive like a bat out of hell.
Kevin Register
Camden
