[airguitar]

Originally Posted by Yesterdaysnews

I avoid Bangalore like the plague because of its ill mannered traffic

Ah everyone's favourite punching bag - Bangalore! You could have avoided this subjective sentence and focused on what you wanted to convey. We all have opinions too about other cities, but usually hold back from dissing an entire city.

[NutHead1270]

On the way from CKM to HSN, roads aren't marked which makes overtaking difficult, upon which people turn on high-beam. You just have to hang on tight hoping the road is straight, holding on to your dear life .
Most of the time I flash at them continuously till they turn off the high beam (not when there is a car in front).

I believe Manufacturers must provide an auto-off function for high-beam which turns off after a few seconds.

Also, wondering do Matrix headlights help avoid direct glare on oncoming traffic?

[Sam800]

Originally Posted by NutHead1270

I believe Manufacturers must provide an auto-off function for high-beam which turns off after a few seconds.

This will be too dangerous on Indian roads and will accumulate to multiple accidents.

In my last trip on state highways (undivided, 2 lane) , I saw too many village commuters with no backlight/fused backlight on their bikes. Their presence couldn't have been detected if i wasnt on high beam when they were 200m away from me.

Also I passed random cows sitting/standing on the roads which i would've missed if I kept my headlight on dipper near them. Not to forget, these bikers and cattles are equally unpredictable for their movements.

Upper HL in India is needed to us as much as the vehicle in front of us. Only if infrastructure is improved and stray animals are monitored along with proper monitoring of all the lights on any vehicle, then only we can think of driving safer in night

[Rodie09]

Need to get rid of this craze with white led lights everywhere - manufacturers and after market supply - both responsible and governments are just watching. I had started another thread on the white led menace few months back.

Halogen lamps high beams are still survivable for oncoming traffic but LEDs just make you blind. Even from a small scooter. Some have even started to put white LEDs in rear to make it more miserable.

Government or court will wake up one day to put a curb on the white LED menace but it will be too.late by then and too much to clean up.

[itspatra]

Originally Posted by electric_eel

When I moved from Kanpur to Kerala I was pleasantly surprised to find that many here
actually dim the lights when they find an on coming car and sometimes all that one needs is a simple flashing if they forgot to switch back (of course there are some black sheep out there).

True that. When I visited Wayanad for a trip from Bangalore I was surprised seeing people actually following rules and dipping their headlights in towns. Almost all the people there wear Helmets even in Village Limits thanks to the implementation of AI Cameras. The couple times I had my high beams on, and actually felt bad as other had them lowered. It took me a few dips from the other end to come to this reality.

[Yesterdaysnews]

I think the biggest and most impactful thing that will bring about change is to petition the courts to get the police to start implementing fines for high beams in the cities. There is already a fine under the MVA - though it is a dismal amount Rs 100 for first offence and Rs 300 for the 2nd, it will still be a deterrent. In most cities, the police already are out at force in the night with barricades for checking drunk driving. Adding checking and fining for high beams will be easy for them to implement.

We ought to pool in resources and file a PIL in the courts.

There are lawyers out here in Team BHP - could not any of them help with how this could be done?

Many of the cities police departments are active on social media - all of us could keep tagging them on X asking for implementation of high beam rules.

We could also start a change.org petition. Again, could any lawyer help draft a petition and also give insights on if they actually work?

Next would be for us to pool in funds and start campaigns on social media - preferably under the Team Bhp banner. This campaigns could extend to newspapers and other media.

I have no hope in RTOs to check if people know about lowering high beams. All driver licensing check points are shams. Even though the government has now made it mandatory to get a driving license only via a driving school - the driving schools themselves are shams.

I really think fines and eduction will be the most impactful methods.

What does Team BHP admins think of this? GTO, what do you think?

[alphamike_1612]

This reminds me of an incident in 2018 when I rode back all the way from Pondicherry to Chennai via ECR solely with the help of reflectors on the side of the road to guide me.

I couldn't look up for more than 15 seconds without getting blinded by a high beam light. The road being 2 laned with no shrubs in between didn't help. Neither did me being a motorcyclist. I used to hit my high beam switch asking them to dim their lights, but for every 100 vehicles that cross me, 15 would dim their lights.

I don't know if the others didn't care or didn't know they were causing a problem. Being 19, I didn't realise how a small incident that night would have been the end of the road for me. Ofcourse there were times when I desperately wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine (for whatever its worth), but then the road is not the place to show your ego and it's always better to have 1 blinded driver rather than 2 blinded drivers.

I have always been an advocate for proper lighting usage, when I see people around me in traffic lights inside the city with well lit roads having their high beams on, I usually ask them, taking care to not be accusatory but in a "friendly" way, if they can see the road well and if they can, then why the high beam, some of them switch back to low beams, some of them ask me to mind my own business to whom I wish a good day. I have somehow **touchwood** avoided a physical confrontation during these conversations.

The apathy here is that police vehicles in Chennai are few of the most horribly driven and maintained vehicles (both personal vehicles of officers and government issued vehicles). I don't know how effective policing can be when the enforcer themselves don't have any clue about the rules.

That said,helmets are now a staple across the city including police officers, so there is hope, albeit far far away.

I was blessed in that my father and every other driver in my family's employ taught me lighting etiquette when I learnt to drive; that I was fascinated by the silence that descends on highways in the dark with overtaking solely done with the help of the pass switch was an added bonus.

Another bonus is that being the motorcyclist and hence the "smaller vehicle", the few people who respond to your request and dim their lights make you want to be them, when you drive the "bigger vehicle". Ofcourse the other side of the coin that one can become the aggressor when shifting to the "bigger vehicle" is also a very much possible reality.

Back in college, trading vehicles being a common affair, whenever I found the light stalk to be in high beam, I used to tell them not to use it as the default and instead use it as and when needed. Ofcourse this didn't always go the way I envisioned it to, but I take solace in the fact that there are a few drivers out there, who are now better drivers because I tried.


I wholeheartedly support this initiative although I am clueless as to how much can be achieved.

[PGA]

I think this high beam culture is just another manifestation of our general poor driving culture. So that makes it a social problem and not an individual issue and therefore needs to be addressed at that level.

Social issues are to be resolved by our leaders ie political, social et al. But do you think anyone is impacted by the way the things are going on the roads. Coz they do not drive, self driving is for aam public. Policy makers/ leaders all types in our country are driven around, if of a little higher stature, will have uniformed guy accompanying for traffic clearance or at the best will have a police pilot vehicle which will jump red lights and weave through the traffic and will have eight halogens on, to shadow even the daylights.

So redemption from the problem is still a little distant away, till the time we do not demand rule of law and not the rule of jugaad.

[ex-innova-guy]

I follow a very simple procedure. Since I travel quite a few times in rural areas where there are 2 Laned Road, I use the high beams or else I can hardly go above 60kmph safely. Whenever I encounter an oncoming car, I just simply switch to low beam and 70% of the time the other one does the same. In cases when he/she doesn't, I reduce the speed while giving them the same treatment. While negotiating turns an oncoming car with high beams can catch you quite off guard and thus when I see light approaching, I just use the upper-dipper and they subsequently switch to low beams. So it works well most of the time.

[RMN]

While I agree that people need to grow some sense and use the high beam wisely, that's not practical cause

1. only a small % of the population will grow than sense
2. primary reason people built this habit is due to the extremely poor roads and lighting! There are plenty of roads in Kerala with street lights.....that don't work.

Also, its going to be difficult to enforce this law and even prove it. The lux meter isn't the right solution either, you can have all the brightness in the world without affecting oncoming traffic if it's in a proper headlamp!

[shyampsunder]

No hope for any enforcement on this issue in my opinion.

I always drive with a low beam within city limits but my high beam is set at the highest position. If someone does dazzle me, a couple of strokes of alternating between high and low beams will automatically result in the oncoming vehicle lowering the beam. Don't see any other way out.

[DrAakash]

A great idea, and I'm all in on it even though the impact may be quite limited. There are simply too many morons on the road.
A better way according to me would be to get it implemented centrally as a safety initiative as the airbags were, recently. All cars must come fitted with sensors that could do this automatically when an oncoming vehicle is detected. Shouldn't be too difficult for manufactures as well.

[Yesterdaysnews]

In Chennai, in my opinion 80 % + go on low beams in the city. In Bangalore, I’d peg it at about 60% who go on low beam.

Even 10% people going on high beams ruin driving pleasure + is hazardous. I think safety is just not about getting blinded and crashing into something - it’s also about not getting frustrated and tired while driving.

As a few have pointed out, a lot of people don’t know that low beams are meant to be used.

It’s not difficult for cops to spot and issue challans for high beam users.

I still strongly think education and implementation is the key.

[SidharthaN]

Being a biker and a driver, I feel there is gross targetting of LED Auxiliary Lights on two wheelers. With confusion across states on the applicability, us bikers are stranded and have to do with inadequate headlights. We cannot fix Auxiliary lights for additional output.When car guys can enjoy the leverage of LED/HID lights for safety why cannot bikers enjoy the same privileges.

[Yesterdaysnews]

Originally Posted by SidharthaN

Being a biker and a driver, I feel there is gross targetting of LED Auxiliary Lights on two wheelers.

Could we please stay on topic here? We are not debating head lights or additions. We are talking about using high beams appropriately.

Thanks.