1
Idiot lights on the highway
22 October 2011
Drove to Thornbury and back last night: a beautiful, clear fall night, dry and cool. A lot of traffic was on the road along Highway 26, many of them with their idiot lights* angrily blazing at oncoming traffic.
For those who might not be familiar with the changing nature of North American slang, or perhaps are not themselves drivers, 'idiot lights' in this case refers to the extra set of headlights placed either between or below the main set. They are called idiot lights for one, or both, reasons:
Idiot lights are common on SUVs (gee, there's a surprise). They are also common on pick-up trucks (not unexpected, since most SUVs are really just pick-up trucks with a passenger cab and a bunch of high-tech gadgets to distract the driver from the road).
But in recent years, I've noticed these annoying lights on more and more passenger cars.Fog lights they were once called before the became so popular.
Idiot lights are often promoted (by car dealers or people who sell add-on kits but never, it seems, by safety advocates) as nighttime or bad weather vision enhancers. Piffle! Well, that might be true, but only if they pointed down towards the road. Most - in the 99.99 percentile range I'd suspect - point out and often up, like the regular headlights. Which is right into the eyes of oncoming drivers - four headlights in your eyes instead of two. Plus they add glare on wet pavement that makes it harder to identify lanes and road markings.
Why not just bolt a searchlight onto the hood of the car? When you're not annoying other drivers you could use it to search the sky for flocks of enemy bombers on a night raid.
The sole purpose of these idiot lights, I conclude on the empirical evidence, is to annoy oncoming drivers and reduce their vision. And it works.
You used to have to turn on your high beams at close range to get this effect; now you can buy a vehicle with it built right in. Now you can annoy other drivers with both your high beams and your idiot lights in tandem. Think of the extra fun you can have!
And to really irritate your fellow drivers, you can replace standard bulbs with high-intensity bulbs (HIDs) to effectively double or triple the blinding effect! As noted on ridelust.com:
This behaviour is not simply antisocial, ignorant or egregious bad manners (although it is also all of these). It's dangerous****, just like someone driving towards you with high beams on - your eyes take longer to adjust to the change in lighting and in that interim you have a much greater chance of missing something on the road. Like a deer or a pedestrian. When they're behind you, their brightness reduces your own night vision looking ahead and again reduces your ability to see into the dark. The potential for an accident increases dramatically during these moments.
In an urban setting, with regular, overhead street lights as well as ambient lighting from businesses, houses, malls, electric signs and so on – idiot lights really prove their name. Why would someone need additional luminance in such an already bright setting like a suburban street or a mall parking lot? Well, to irritate other drivers, of course.Just like driving on well-lit urban streets with high beams on.
Last night, we passed numerous oncoming groups where vehicles with idiot lights were clumped several in a row, one after another like a parade of angry, hostile drivers. I suppose it gave these drivers a double opportunity:to annoy both oncoming drivers and the driver in the vehicle ahead.
I know from my own driving that having a driver following closely with idiot lights on is extremely irritating because it make looking in rear-view mirrors difficult or even painful. These bright lights force you to you adjust your mirrors so the lights don't shine directly into your eyes, thus greatly reducing the effectiveness (and visual range) of your mirrors. Plus the brightness behind draws your attention from the road ahead.
So you have to wonder why none of them turned their idiot lights off so as not to blind the driver ahead. They can’t claim to be ignorant of the effect because it’s evident to any driver every time a car with idiot lights approaches or follows you. They can’t claim not to notice how these lights reduce night vision: in such a group every car followed by one with idiot lights has to be aware of the effect. So they obviously don't care about the safety of the other drivers on the road.
As I age, my night vision worsens. Not particular to me, of course: it's true of all of us.Our eyes' ability to adjust from bright glaring light to the dark and still retain clarity is slower. Given that this area's demographics show a higher-than-average number of seniors, I expect I'm not the only one up here who notices this growing problem. Having more light on the road in front of me certainly improves my vision, but I can't be the only driver who notices that having that much more light from an oncoming vehicle reduces my own range of sight.
One can’t possibly argue that one’s own idiot lights have none of the dangerous, annoying, road-rage-enhancing effects that everyone else’s idiot lights have. So why not turn them off? The only answer can be that they are either too stupid to know how to turn them off, or they are deliberately trying to irritate or blind fellow drivers. Hence the name: idiot lights.
Idiot lights contribute to road rage over their brightness and glare. See weeklygripe.com, drivers.com and kijiji.ca for sample discussions of road rage caused by idiot lights. Lots more of these articles are online.This is not a new or arcane topic. The irritating effect of these lights and their high annoyance factor is common knowledge.
Unfortunately, it seems Canada is not governed by the same sort of rules about idiot lights as the UK Highway Code, where it states, "You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves." If Canada has such rules, then they are NOT being enforced by police!
This trend to see idiot lights placed on a larger range of vehicles worries me because using them in normal driving conditions is clearly antisocial, and shows a trend towards even greater uncivility***** in our already suffering culture and community. It could also lead to a storm of accidents in the near future if this annoying trend continues.
So please, turn off your idiot lights when there are other drivers on the road. Prove me wrong: prove that we are not increasing uncivil, uncaring and selfish culture. Prove that you're not among the idiots who can't operate a simple switch. Prove that you care about the safety and wellbeing of your fellow drivers and turn the idiot lights off.
~~~~~
* The term is also used to refer to dashboard lights that display obvious or unnecessary information. Years ago, what we call idiot lights today also used to be called "fog lights" but that seems to have fallen out of favour because bad drivers use them in any weather and never turn them off. They were also known as auxiliary lights or even 'driving lights'. The US DOT is looking into ways to regulate idiot lights, noting: "The drivers' dependence upon artificial lighting and the lesser field of view at night are factors that contribute to this greater safety risk. In these circumstances, glare, whether at the levels that are annoying or disabling, increases the stress for drivers. Increasing stress for drivers in a more dangerous nighttime environment has adverse safety consequences, even if those consequences can not be precisely quantified. Many remedies for glare work by reducing the driver's vision of the driving environment; for example, switching mirrors to the nighttime driving position or averting one's eyes to the right shoulder instead of the middle of the road. It is reasonable to assume that reducing vision will lessen the amount of warning a driver has of particular risks, and that, in at least some cases, less reaction time will result in more crashes. Accordingly, NHTSA believes increased glare is something the American people are experiencing, and that this glare raises important safety concerns that need to be addressed thoughtfully and effectively.".
** What would you call someone who bought a radio that could only tune to one station? A microwave oven with only one time setting? An electric frying pan with only one heat setting? Or a TV that only got one show? The same thing you’d call a person who bought a car with lights that can’t be turned off! Ditto if you installed them as aftermarket lights without an off switch. But what worries me more are the drivers who CAN turn theirs off, but won't.
*** They could equally be called ignoramus lights, bozo beams, uncivil lights, annoyance lamps, impolite beams, road rage lights, jerk beams or jackass lights, but idiot lights seems to serve the description well. Ironic that they're also "head lights" since drivers don't use their head when they keep these lights on.
**** Headlights can be adjusted, of course, by anyone with a screwdriver and five minutes of spare time. Even a fumble-fingered fool like me can do it. Any car dealer can do in when you take your vehicle in for servicing. From carjunky.com:" Every driver knows from experience that being blinded by another car’s headlights is not only annoying but also dangerous since it results in vision being impaired. Straightening the headlamps out may be a little time consuming, but it is worth the effort." But, I argue, idiots won't give that extra effort because then they wouldn't be able to annoy others so easily!
***** Civil behaviour has been in decline for decades. The accelerating devolution is due in large part to the collision of popular culture, mass media, technology, political posturing, and the automobile all within a very short time. Yes: the family car. As Stephen Carter points out in his book, Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy, the automobile created the illusion that we travel alone. While public transit requires people to follow at least basic rules of social interaction and crowd behaviour, cars isolate us from the others on the road and we behave as if the road was our private property and all others on it trespassers. We behave in an uncivil, antisocial manner when we drive because we are under the illusion we are in private, not on a public thoroughfare with others. With idiots lights on, our lack of empathy for fellow humans becomes highlighted (if you'll excuse the pun) because it's clearly a deliberate behaviour, not an inadvertent one.
I originally wrote this piece as a post in my forum back in late 2009. I revised it for the blog because last night showed me the problem has only gotten worse.
For those who might not be familiar with the changing nature of North American slang, or perhaps are not themselves drivers, 'idiot lights' in this case refers to the extra set of headlights placed either between or below the main set. They are called idiot lights for one, or both, reasons:
- They cannot be turned off.**
- They are annoying to oncoming drivers or drivers being followed, but the owner of the vehicle refuses to turn them off.***
But in recent years, I've noticed these annoying lights on more and more passenger cars.Fog lights they were once called before the became so popular.
Idiot lights are often promoted (by car dealers or people who sell add-on kits but never, it seems, by safety advocates) as nighttime or bad weather vision enhancers. Piffle! Well, that might be true, but only if they pointed down towards the road. Most - in the 99.99 percentile range I'd suspect - point out and often up, like the regular headlights. Which is right into the eyes of oncoming drivers - four headlights in your eyes instead of two. Plus they add glare on wet pavement that makes it harder to identify lanes and road markings.
Why not just bolt a searchlight onto the hood of the car? When you're not annoying other drivers you could use it to search the sky for flocks of enemy bombers on a night raid.
The sole purpose of these idiot lights, I conclude on the empirical evidence, is to annoy oncoming drivers and reduce their vision. And it works.
You used to have to turn on your high beams at close range to get this effect; now you can buy a vehicle with it built right in. Now you can annoy other drivers with both your high beams and your idiot lights in tandem. Think of the extra fun you can have!
And to really irritate your fellow drivers, you can replace standard bulbs with high-intensity bulbs (HIDs) to effectively double or triple the blinding effect! As noted on ridelust.com:
Quote
"HID headlights are merely a stepping stone into the world of irritating driving habits, and just because your Xenons are so bright they've triggered epileptic seizures doesn't mean you've achieved your full jerk potential. A more aggressive tactical maneuver than simple HID's, fog lights elevate jerkdom to a whole new level... The second that sun slips below the horizon, you should be lighting those bad boys up like it's 1964 and you're patrolling Saigon for Vietcong insurgency.
If you find that your OEM fog lights aren't enough to illuminate every crevice of the Earth, consider investing in a high-density aftermarket roof-mounted lightbar. Remember: if your lights aren't capable of guiding a shipping barge safely into port, you just aren't trying hard enough."
If you find that your OEM fog lights aren't enough to illuminate every crevice of the Earth, consider investing in a high-density aftermarket roof-mounted lightbar. Remember: if your lights aren't capable of guiding a shipping barge safely into port, you just aren't trying hard enough."
This behaviour is not simply antisocial, ignorant or egregious bad manners (although it is also all of these). It's dangerous****, just like someone driving towards you with high beams on - your eyes take longer to adjust to the change in lighting and in that interim you have a much greater chance of missing something on the road. Like a deer or a pedestrian. When they're behind you, their brightness reduces your own night vision looking ahead and again reduces your ability to see into the dark. The potential for an accident increases dramatically during these moments.
In an urban setting, with regular, overhead street lights as well as ambient lighting from businesses, houses, malls, electric signs and so on – idiot lights really prove their name. Why would someone need additional luminance in such an already bright setting like a suburban street or a mall parking lot? Well, to irritate other drivers, of course.Just like driving on well-lit urban streets with high beams on.
Last night, we passed numerous oncoming groups where vehicles with idiot lights were clumped several in a row, one after another like a parade of angry, hostile drivers. I suppose it gave these drivers a double opportunity:to annoy both oncoming drivers and the driver in the vehicle ahead.
I know from my own driving that having a driver following closely with idiot lights on is extremely irritating because it make looking in rear-view mirrors difficult or even painful. These bright lights force you to you adjust your mirrors so the lights don't shine directly into your eyes, thus greatly reducing the effectiveness (and visual range) of your mirrors. Plus the brightness behind draws your attention from the road ahead.
So you have to wonder why none of them turned their idiot lights off so as not to blind the driver ahead. They can’t claim to be ignorant of the effect because it’s evident to any driver every time a car with idiot lights approaches or follows you. They can’t claim not to notice how these lights reduce night vision: in such a group every car followed by one with idiot lights has to be aware of the effect. So they obviously don't care about the safety of the other drivers on the road.
As I age, my night vision worsens. Not particular to me, of course: it's true of all of us.Our eyes' ability to adjust from bright glaring light to the dark and still retain clarity is slower. Given that this area's demographics show a higher-than-average number of seniors, I expect I'm not the only one up here who notices this growing problem. Having more light on the road in front of me certainly improves my vision, but I can't be the only driver who notices that having that much more light from an oncoming vehicle reduces my own range of sight.
One can’t possibly argue that one’s own idiot lights have none of the dangerous, annoying, road-rage-enhancing effects that everyone else’s idiot lights have. So why not turn them off? The only answer can be that they are either too stupid to know how to turn them off, or they are deliberately trying to irritate or blind fellow drivers. Hence the name: idiot lights.
Idiot lights contribute to road rage over their brightness and glare. See weeklygripe.com, drivers.com and kijiji.ca for sample discussions of road rage caused by idiot lights. Lots more of these articles are online.This is not a new or arcane topic. The irritating effect of these lights and their high annoyance factor is common knowledge.
Unfortunately, it seems Canada is not governed by the same sort of rules about idiot lights as the UK Highway Code, where it states, "You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves." If Canada has such rules, then they are NOT being enforced by police!
This trend to see idiot lights placed on a larger range of vehicles worries me because using them in normal driving conditions is clearly antisocial, and shows a trend towards even greater uncivility***** in our already suffering culture and community. It could also lead to a storm of accidents in the near future if this annoying trend continues.
So please, turn off your idiot lights when there are other drivers on the road. Prove me wrong: prove that we are not increasing uncivil, uncaring and selfish culture. Prove that you're not among the idiots who can't operate a simple switch. Prove that you care about the safety and wellbeing of your fellow drivers and turn the idiot lights off.
~~~~~
* The term is also used to refer to dashboard lights that display obvious or unnecessary information. Years ago, what we call idiot lights today also used to be called "fog lights" but that seems to have fallen out of favour because bad drivers use them in any weather and never turn them off. They were also known as auxiliary lights or even 'driving lights'. The US DOT is looking into ways to regulate idiot lights, noting: "The drivers' dependence upon artificial lighting and the lesser field of view at night are factors that contribute to this greater safety risk. In these circumstances, glare, whether at the levels that are annoying or disabling, increases the stress for drivers. Increasing stress for drivers in a more dangerous nighttime environment has adverse safety consequences, even if those consequences can not be precisely quantified. Many remedies for glare work by reducing the driver's vision of the driving environment; for example, switching mirrors to the nighttime driving position or averting one's eyes to the right shoulder instead of the middle of the road. It is reasonable to assume that reducing vision will lessen the amount of warning a driver has of particular risks, and that, in at least some cases, less reaction time will result in more crashes. Accordingly, NHTSA believes increased glare is something the American people are experiencing, and that this glare raises important safety concerns that need to be addressed thoughtfully and effectively.".
** What would you call someone who bought a radio that could only tune to one station? A microwave oven with only one time setting? An electric frying pan with only one heat setting? Or a TV that only got one show? The same thing you’d call a person who bought a car with lights that can’t be turned off! Ditto if you installed them as aftermarket lights without an off switch. But what worries me more are the drivers who CAN turn theirs off, but won't.
*** They could equally be called ignoramus lights, bozo beams, uncivil lights, annoyance lamps, impolite beams, road rage lights, jerk beams or jackass lights, but idiot lights seems to serve the description well. Ironic that they're also "head lights" since drivers don't use their head when they keep these lights on.
**** Headlights can be adjusted, of course, by anyone with a screwdriver and five minutes of spare time. Even a fumble-fingered fool like me can do it. Any car dealer can do in when you take your vehicle in for servicing. From carjunky.com:" Every driver knows from experience that being blinded by another car’s headlights is not only annoying but also dangerous since it results in vision being impaired. Straightening the headlamps out may be a little time consuming, but it is worth the effort." But, I argue, idiots won't give that extra effort because then they wouldn't be able to annoy others so easily!
***** Civil behaviour has been in decline for decades. The accelerating devolution is due in large part to the collision of popular culture, mass media, technology, political posturing, and the automobile all within a very short time. Yes: the family car. As Stephen Carter points out in his book, Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy, the automobile created the illusion that we travel alone. While public transit requires people to follow at least basic rules of social interaction and crowd behaviour, cars isolate us from the others on the road and we behave as if the road was our private property and all others on it trespassers. We behave in an uncivil, antisocial manner when we drive because we are under the illusion we are in private, not on a public thoroughfare with others. With idiots lights on, our lack of empathy for fellow humans becomes highlighted (if you'll excuse the pun) because it's clearly a deliberate behaviour, not an inadvertent one.
I originally wrote this piece as a post in my forum back in late 2009. I revised it for the blog because last night showed me the problem has only gotten worse.
