A Short Rant about Modern Car Safety
I've noticed nearly all new cars these days incorporate safety features which seem to benefit only their own drivers in isolation. Are we not looking at the net safety of everyone on the road?
Headlights
Why are headlights so bright these days? It seems I'm not the only one to hold this opinion.
I suppose it doesn't help that I drive an MX5; my eyeline sits below that of nearly all other drivers on the road.
But still, I shouldn't be unsure if I'm being flashed every time the guy behind me goes over a small bump. Also (and worse in my opinion), it should never be ambiguous as to whether someone has their full beams on or not. Sometimes you actually can't tell, it's crazy. And it definitely doesn't do anything to ease the pressure I feel when someone's tailgating me down a rural road at night.
Blind spot indicators
I'm talking about those little lights on the side of wing mirrors which light up when a car is in your blind spot on the lane next to you.
Great idea. Super useful. But why did they have to be orange??? These could be green or blue or something.
A lot of cars already have orange lights on the ends of their wing mirrors: indicators. I have, on at least two separate occasions in the past, briefly mistaken these lights coming on for someone indicating.
Size
Bigger, more massive cars are much better off than smaller, more economical cars whenever they find themselves colliding with each other. That's just the physics of it.
As the average car on the road gets bigger and bigger, more and more people (mainly those with small cars like myself) are incentivised to fork over more money to buy bigger cars, as to not be at this disadvantage.
An increased range of car heights also exacerbates the headlight brightness issue.
I understand this is more of a problem in America than in my native UK, but we're definitely on the same trajectory.
That's all. Rant over.