What is it with high beam headlights and not knowing when to switch them to low beams?

It has always bothered me when approaching traffic rides with the high beams on and for some reason refuses to switch them to the low beam mode of operation when traffic approaches. That seems to me a common courtesy, one that seems to have long since gone by the way side. I know for a fact there is a law against bright lights in Indiana, more on that in a moment. I live in Florida where several of the laws governing vehicles and there operation seem to be lacking. Even some equipment in vehicles is optional, such as turn signals, another peeve of mine by the way. It is difficult enough to operate a motor vehicle but when the rules are skewed it becomes exponentially more challenging do so safely. Turn signals, or directionals or flashers or whatever you want to call them are more for other peoples safety. They help cars following you decide how close they can tailgate you and they also warn cars in front of you as to you intentions, I am going to turn here in front of you now for example. So living in Florida has prepared me, somewhat, for this and the lax state of peoples driving courtesies.

Let’s go back a little to talk about lights on vehicles. When I was younger and in high school we used to put switches on the brakes lights, switches on the brake lights you ask? That allowed us to make a quick turn, if by chance there was someone else chasing us, say onto Possum Hollow Road by Kiser lake and that person would never see the tail lights or the brake lights come on. There were some indiscretions in my youth, I will not deny them but look at how I turned out – right? Anyway I am just saying that I am familiar with the wiring on vehicles, going to Ohio High Point Vocational school for auto mechanics and being interested in electronics has allowed to jump right in and get it, when it comes to cars. Some time ago, for unknown reasons, car manufactures stopped placing the high beam, low beam switch on the floor to the left of the brake pedal. Some propeller head figured they could save 13.987 cents per unit if they moved it to the turn signal knob, so that is the path they took. STUPID if you ask me, and they did not by the way ask me because here I am telling them anyway. A simple trip through the south and they would have quickly realized that people already do not use the turn signal knob, they would have known that putting additional controls on the same knob would prove fruitless but NO they went and did it anyway.

So as I said earlier about Indiana and their rules. Some time ago I was stationed north of Chicago and I was there for about 9 months going to schools. Anyway being from Ohio, a scant 4-5 hour drive away I traded duties, bought some one off and was able to travel home almost every weekend. I remember class would get out around midnight and off I would go into the darkness. Indiana is where I learned another lesson about driving, never let the tank go below a quarter tank. I remember passing a gas station with a quarter of a tank and out on route 30 there is NOTHING and damn if I did not run my Jeep out of gas and ended up walking A LONG way to find gas and was able to pay someone to drive me back to nowhere where my Jeep was. To this day I very rarely let the tank go below a quarter and I live the city now where there are gas stations on every corner. So on one seemingly uneventful trip home we are tooling down the divided highway and a car was approaching with their high beams on, so I flash my high beams. No joy, so I flash them again, leaving them on high for just a little longer, still no joy. The third time I leave them on for like 5 seconds and still no joy. Now if I would have had any brains in my head I would have let it go at that but NO I could not do that, I had been disrespected and a toll would have to be paid. As I mentioned I was driving a jeep and across the top of the jeep were 8 KC daylighters at 100 watts a piece for a total of 800 watts total. I figured with those and two high beams at the legal limit of the time of 55 watts each I was pushing 910 watts a lighting, almost sufficient for normal nighttime driving, almost. In addition to that I had convinced a friend of mine that worked at Grimes, they made aircraft landing lights among other airplane related items, that I needed some of those lights. He was able to provide me the lamps but no mounting for them, no worries a metal fabricator outside of Chicago whipped them out for about 50 bucks a piece and voila 2 aircraft landing lights were mounted on the front bumper. So now I have the 910 and an additional 1500 per lamp for a total of 3910 watts of piercing halogen light available to me to drive at night. It was so bad I had to install a separate alternator and battery just to keep the lights operational. Stupid things we do as kids huh? So there I was, faced with Mr. bright lights at about 3am in the middle of Indiana and what was I to do? I flip all the switches to the on position and I could see that it was a cop car as clear as if it were the middle of the day, and he was still over a mile away. Well you can imagine his surprise when night turned to day and I found that it startled him about $390 worth because that is what the ticket cost me.

Well I do not have nearly that much light available to me anymore, I drive a minivan or my old 58 ford jalopy and neither of them would look right with a light bar across the roof and I am not even sure KC daylighters are even still sold. Somedays I wish I still had them because for some reason people still ride around with their high beams on and after “the incident in Indiana” as it has become known I will rarely flash even my normal high beams to get someone to turn theirs down. I guess I will have to suffer through, I mean I am already used to no turn signals so why has it been so difficult to get past the high beam issue?

Well if I can ask one favor of you, PLEASE use your damn turn signals and stop using your high beams when you are cruising around in town!