Fuck your headlights

So every time I drive my little car at night I'm filled with ungealthy rage afterwards and every time I think about what possible actions to take. This time I swore that I'd share some of my thoughts in order to help the movement gain more momentum. What comes is a collection of more or less well thought out ideas, don't take them too seriously.

1. This is not really a political fight, it's about making the world better for everyone. We don't want to take away anything from you. We should try to not get the majority of people into a defensive position but rather educate about the problems and changes in lighting.
2. Words are powerful. We need a word or wordmark that is easily understandable and that has a negative connotation without being too confrontational (like fuckyourheadlights).
3. We should be cleverly about our strategy and take into account mass psychology. A big proportion of people have annoying headlights but either don't know it or maybe don't know how to make them less annoying. Make it so that the don't feel like they are the enemy but rather part of the solution.
4. We should use official petitions or similar direct democracy tools if you have them in your country. Be clever and don't blindly start one. First gather a group of people willing to support it and have a good plan. Don't be confrontational, maybe ask for official investigation instead of bans.
5. We should try to have science investigate the issue from a psychovisual point of view. This is all about people and not dry measurements and badly done specs. Try to include drivers eye-level and cars headlight height into the studies. Include spectral issues. White light can have a very different effect than more yellow or reddish light. Petitions could urge for scientific studies instead of bans or direct changes in policy.
6. Include bike headlights, they are often as annoying as car lights. This issue highlights the alignment and height offset as parameters to the annoyingness and allows die hard car users to be included in the fight.
7. The headlights issue is an issue for people in all groups of society. Be inclusive and use all kinds of platforms or media channels to spread the word. Be sure to consider 2. and use a common branding or word mark so small communities find their ways together into a big movement.
8. Create songs, images and jokes to raise awareness of the topic. Don't point fingers but maybe make fun of people who have too bright beams without excluding them.
9. Create material to help people to better align their lights or maybe dim them. Experiment with applying transparent foil to slightly reduce strength or change tint.
10. Create a common signal to show other drivers that their lights are blinding. This could be for example: two short flashes and one long. Include this signal into your propaganda material. On bikes, remove your light and point into the eyes of the other biker until you have their attention, then point on their light. They will mostly understand the issue (unless they are dumb :/).

I hope to have brought up some interesting points for further discussion. What do you think?

I rarely drive at night, mostly because of how strained my eyes get from these lights.

But I recently found a solution. I was shopping for reading glasses, and got the kind with the blue light blocking feature. It's sold for those sitting at a computer or looking at a screen before bed. But I put these glasses on when I had to drive at night, and they saved my eyes.

I know the ideal would be to not have all these headlights on the road, but in the meantime, give this a try and share this info with others 🤓

So, in front of our kitchen window, over 200 meters away, there's this place where they keep buses when they're not in use. A part of the building is a parking lot, for the bus drivers own cars.

And then there's this fucker. Every evening they get into their car and turn on those horrible headlights that hurt my eyes, from 200+ meters away, which is very fun when the kitchen is dark. They're so bright that if the curtains are open and it's entirely dark inside, they illuminate the entire room.

I made an illustration of this:

Anyone else?

Modern headlights are too bright. That's just the reality of driving in this day and age. But is it simply an American problem, or is this a global issue? Why are headlights getting brighter in modern cars? Is this even legal? What are the dangers of LED headlights? And what can we do about this worrying trend? In this month's Roman Report, we'll talk all about LED headlights, why people are sick and tired of them, and why there's reason for hope.

How to Adjust Headlight Alignment: https://cluballiance.aaa.com/the-extra-mile/advice/car/how-to-adjust-headlight-alignment

inside an LED matrix LASER headlight

And followup:
Powerful LASER from car headlight

by DiodeGoneWild

Someone made this nice protest song!

Blinded by the light (and not in a cool way)

Contact me if you want an mp3 or similar.