I do deactivate mine most of the time (button on end of indicator stalk). As quick as they do react, I have been flashed a few times so tend to keep them off unless absolutely necessary. Obviously all adaptive headlights are LED so are pretty good on dipped beam anyway. Sometimes I find it worse constantly switching between main and dipped lights.

Edited by davecooper on 22/01/2025 at 18:42

Like all things on modern cars they may have auto full beam and many drivers simply aren't aware.

Both our cars have this function (on one it has to be activated every time, on the other it is auto if the lights are on auto setting). On dark roads full beam activates automatically and it deactivates when another car approaches, but it needs to 'see' the other vehicle lights first so the other car has to be heading towards the vehicle.

This may be later than experienced drivers are used to. When deactivating manually you can see the other car earlier so the full beam is off before the other vehicle is close.

By flashing your lights you may have helped in deactivating the auto full beam function,

My swift has auto high beam, reacts quicker than I can, the trick with on coming cars with badly adjusted lights or those that drive around on high beam is not to look at them, just glance left, you'll still where going in your peripheral vision, try it, it does work.

This may be later than experienced drivers are used to. When deactivating manually you can see the other car earlier so the full beam is off before the other vehicle is close.,

As an 'experienced' driver, when night driving, if there aren't too many cars about, I can usually dip my main beams before oncoming cars' lights appear over the 'horizon'. I doubt these modern gizmos would do that ?

Totally agree - the recognition of approaching cars by auto dipping lights is only activated when the oncoming lights are visible, which means you've blinded someone before your lights are dipped. I always deactivate my auto dipping lights, there's no situation when they are better than doing it manually.

>It could just as easily be that their 'dipped' lights were badly adjusted (manually or auto light adjustment not working [properly]), especially if the car had brighter modern lights.

I can just imagine the driver quickly getting out of the car and adjusting the headlights after being flashed.

A dangerous stretch of road in my area had active (LED) lights fitted in place of cats eyes a few years back. You still had to use lights obviously but they were brilliant. Then four kids were killed in an accident on this stretch, partly because the driver decided he could drive without headlights. Soon after, the LED's were gone and replaced with cats eyes.

Based on my experience all H4 lights should be banned as being dangerously inadequate away from urban areas with proper street lighting.

So what remedy do you suggest ? All cars with H4 lamps 'grounded' after lighting-up time ? Older cars can't easily be fitted with modern LEDs ?

Shocking that anyone drives on high beam when there is other traffic nearby - either direction. I wonder where (& if & when) these people learnt to drive.

Thanks to the i**** bureaucrats who draw up these 'safety features' new cars now have headlights which default to full beam,because they are supposed to have clever sensors that dip them when they detect an on-coming car.

We all know how 100% accurate and reliable electronic gadgets are, don't we?