I find this problem to be most severe as a pedestrian - when my eyes have adjusted to the darkness (even if I'm carrying a flashlight, it pales in comparison) and a modern car is oncoming, I cannot see _anything_. Out here in the sticks where there are no sidewalks I can either take it on blind faith that the driver has seen and will avoid me, or I can step way off into the ditch (but not everyone has that option).
Thanks to automatic high beams, its a problem in residential urban areas too. My neighborhood does not have much in the way of streetlights, and automatic high beams operate by detecting whether there is significant oncoming light. That means that in my neighborhood, cars with AHB always have their high beams up when there isn't oncoming car traffic. They also tend to function really badly around road curves in residential areas, where they'll affect other drivers.
PSA: Turn off your automatic high beams, they aren't worth it the damage they do to the rest of us.
Yeah. When I ride my bike in the sticks and pass walkers in the dark, I try to disable my headlight a few seconds before I pass them. Otherwise all they see is a bright light approaching. Disabling the lights for a moment seems better than one party not seeing anything. (Or both parties, e.g. two bikes, or runners with forehead LED light.)
After all, even in the countryside the darkness usually is far from complete. You still see quite a few meters without any headlights. Though the tradeoff would be different for cars with their much higher speed.
If your front light is correctly aiming down, there’s no need to disable the light. Modern bicycle led front lights are most often incorrectly set up, though.
I can control the angle, but permanently aiming it down so far that it can't get in anyone's eyes is completely impractical. You would only see what's directly in front of you and you would miss a lot of stuff.
Just chuck in the old non LED lights. When I'm walking around town at night, it's only the cars with new bright white LEDs that are super bright and blind me.
It's a relief when an older car come by with orange'y lights.
Even during the day, the other week I was driving and some small mini had super bright white lights on, no need for them, it was bright day out.
Even just the normal "day" lights on new cars can be too sharp/bright. It's ok if I don't look at them directly, but if I accidently check that way it's distracting.
