This is a good article that touches on a lot of the nuances of this issue, and I hope people take the time to read it. I'm in the camp that "brightness" is wha

This is a good article that touches on a lot of the nuances of this issue, and I hope people take the time to read it. I'm in the camp that "brightness" is what is people notice, but it isn't necessarily the root cause of the issue. Aiming, leveling, beam height, pattern, lens condition, compliance, etc are all significant contributors to this issue as well. Light on the road is a good thing, the problem is when the light goes in your eyes. Anecdotally, the condition of people's headlights that I observe on the roads in the US is atrocious. Any given evening I can go on a short drive and observe: * overloaded cars (which will point headlights in the air because US cars generally don't have beam leveling) * dirty or obscured lenses (and again, the US doesn't require washers, and rarely does highway patrol enforce even heavily obscured lamps) * broken or damaged vehicles with damaged lamps pointing the wrong direction * drivers with one working headlamp, using high beams as a workaround for fixing their car * drivers who are oblivious to the operation mode of their lamps (either driving with DRLs or high beams on) * aftermarket lamps that don't have a proper beam pattern I think bright lamps would be fine if people used them correctly, and we had better regulations to ensure they put the light properly on the road, but unfortunately you really can't trust US drivers to do things correctly, and the last thing that is politically palatable in the US is to enforce/enact more road safety regulations. And it seems highway patrol is only interested in enforcing speed limits and vehicle registration these days. And in the few states that even bother to inspect vehicles at all often fail to properly inspect headlights.