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There's two major safety issues: You can't see around cars to be able to pass. Okay, so you often don't pass. But much more importantly, car headlights aren't

There's two major safety issues: You can't see around cars to be able to pass. Okay, so you often don't pass. But much more importantly, car headlights aren't symmetrical. The one pointing towards the oncoming lane has a "cut" beam to avoid blinding other drivers while the other has a taller beam to improve visibility of anything entering the road. When you drive LHD in a RHD country, or vice versa, you are blinding other drivers while having low visibility of pedestrians and animals. Technology Connections did a great video about this. His solution was to stop driving his RHD car in low light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8

SoftTalker 3y ago
Headlight regulations seem to be mostly ignored by manufactures of modern cars. Modern LED headlights are insanely bright, and seem to be unfocused or not set up with any kind of "cut" beam. Driving at night is now sort of a game where you get blinded by oncoming headlight glare every minute or two and then hope your night vision recovers in time for you to avoid hitting something you can't see. It might be good for drivers of these cars, but it's terrible for oncoming traffic.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  In driving school we were taught to look at the right shoulder when headlights are coming at you like that. Keeps you from being dazzled and keeps the car in the lane.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Yes, I do that, but some of these new headlights are so bright it's only somewhat effective. In some cases it's people who have installed aftermarket super-bright lights, most of which don't comply with DOT regulations in the slightest but they are still allowed to be sold "for off-road use only." But often enough it seems to be new cars with the stock headlights from the manufacturer.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      My car has a setting with the lights where the brights are always on and theoretically auto dim when a car approaches. I never use it because brights lack peripheral view which is more important than straight on with a lighted road, but I wonder if a lot of people leave it on and the dimming setting just doesn’t work that well for real world conditions.
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
    Whoa — that's simple and brilliant. (Obvious in hindsight, I suppose, like many good ideas.) I do something similar intuitively, but I'm going to start looking at the shoulder much more explicitly now. "Driving school" wasn't a standardized thing back when I got my license — in many places, you can just stroll in, pass the driving test, and be on your way. So I guess I missed all the interesting tips they might share in a formal education environment... Any other learnings from driving school that you find yourself using often?
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Well I did driving school in the US. You had to do it unless you wanted to wait till you were 18 to drive. Lets see we discussed how liability vs comprehensive insurance worked, how stopping distances relate to speed, certain state specific laws that might get you a ticket for not knowing them, plus a lot of in car experience building comfort driving at highway speeds with an instructor, or how to parallel park and ace the maneuverability. Stuff like changing tires and very basic maintenance like checking fluid levels too. This was over a decade ago so they probably covered more that I can’t recall. I will say I am a head and shoulders better parallel parker than a lot of other adults I know. Some people are in their 30s and still do not know how to parallel park, give up, even have me do it with their own car sometimes.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  > avoid hitting something you can't see This is extra fun for those of us living in high deer-population areas!
yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
You can have the headlights converted. Shouldn't be that big of a deal.
stonogo 3y ago
Higher end cars have hardware to deal with this. You activate a setting called "tourist mode" and the headlight reflectors shift to make the beam throw symmetrical. On older cars it's a physical lever under the hood, and on newer cars it's a software setting the dealer must enable.
jaclaz 3y ago
I cannot say in the US, but AFAIK in Europe you need to change headlights (or modify them) to have a license plate (for an imported car), i.e. while having the steering wheel on the "wrong" side is allowed, headlights need to be conforming to the local standard or it won't pass the inspection. Some recent cars have easy ways to modify the beams, but most need some specialized intervention or, in the worst cases, even replacement.
gertrunde 3y ago
IIRC European cars are required to handle this gracefully. Some newer cars (at least 2016-ish onwards, potentially before this) adjust automatically based on GPS location from the navigation system.
thebruce87m 3y ago
Teslas are starting to come with matrix lights - does this solve this problem by making it a software setting?
- dogma1138 3y ago
  No you still won’t be able to see well because of where the driver is located relative to the headlight beams.
- dharmab 3y ago
  Other commenters noted that many European models have dynamic lights that tie this to GPS location.
yreg 3y ago
Teslas are supposed to configure headlights between LHD/RHD automatically based on GPS. Although from my (single) experience of driving to UK it didn’t work.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Headlight regulations seem to be mostly ignored by manufactures of modern cars. Modern LED headlights are insanely bright, and seem to be unfocused or not set up with any kind of "cut" beam. Driving at night is now sort of a game where you get blinded by oncoming headlight glare every minute or two and then hope your night vision recovers in time for you to avoid hitting something you can't see. It might be good for drivers of these cars, but it's terrible for oncoming traffic.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
In driving school we were taught to look at the right shoulder when headlights are coming at you like that. Keeps you from being dazzled and keeps the car in the lane.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Yes, I do that, but some of these new headlights are so bright it's only somewhat effective. In some cases it's people who have installed aftermarket super-bright lights, most of which don't comply with DOT regulations in the slightest but they are still allowed to be sold "for off-road use only." But often enough it seems to be new cars with the stock headlights from the manufacturer.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    My car has a setting with the lights where the brights are always on and theoretically auto dim when a car approaches. I never use it because brights lack peripheral view which is more important than straight on with a lighted road, but I wonder if a lot of people leave it on and the dimming setting just doesn’t work that well for real world conditions.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
  Whoa — that's simple and brilliant. (Obvious in hindsight, I suppose, like many good ideas.) I do something similar intuitively, but I'm going to start looking at the shoulder much more explicitly now. "Driving school" wasn't a standardized thing back when I got my license — in many places, you can just stroll in, pass the driving test, and be on your way. So I guess I missed all the interesting tips they might share in a formal education environment... Any other learnings from driving school that you find yourself using often?
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Well I did driving school in the US. You had to do it unless you wanted to wait till you were 18 to drive. Lets see we discussed how liability vs comprehensive insurance worked, how stopping distances relate to speed, certain state specific laws that might get you a ticket for not knowing them, plus a lot of in car experience building comfort driving at highway speeds with an instructor, or how to parallel park and ace the maneuverability. Stuff like changing tires and very basic maintenance like checking fluid levels too. This was over a decade ago so they probably covered more that I can’t recall. I will say I am a head and shoulders better parallel parker than a lot of other adults I know. Some people are in their 30s and still do not know how to parallel park, give up, even have me do it with their own car sometimes.
HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
> avoid hitting something you can't see This is extra fun for those of us living in high deer-population areas!

yakshaving_jgt 3y ago

You can have the headlights converted. Shouldn't be that big of a deal.

stonogo 3y ago

Higher end cars have hardware to deal with this. You activate a setting called "tourist mode" and the headlight reflectors shift to make the beam throw symmetrical. On older cars it's a physical lever under the hood, and on newer cars it's a software setting the dealer must enable.

jaclaz 3y ago

I cannot say in the US, but AFAIK in Europe you need to change headlights (or modify them) to have a license plate (for an imported car), i.e. while having the steering wheel on the "wrong" side is allowed, headlights need to be conforming to the local standard or it won't pass the inspection. Some recent cars have easy ways to modify the beams, but most need some specialized intervention or, in the worst cases, even replacement.

gertrunde 3y ago

IIRC European cars are required to handle this gracefully. Some newer cars (at least 2016-ish onwards, potentially before this) adjust automatically based on GPS location from the navigation system.

thebruce87m 3y ago

Teslas are starting to come with matrix lights - does this solve this problem by making it a software setting?

dogma1138 3y ago
No you still won’t be able to see well because of where the driver is located relative to the headlight beams.
dharmab 3y ago
Other commenters noted that many European models have dynamic lights that tie this to GPS location.

yreg 3y ago

Teslas are supposed to configure headlights between LHD/RHD automatically based on GPS. Although from my (single) experience of driving to UK it didn’t work.