Quarter of motorists fear driving at night because of bright headlights

A quarter of motorists in Britain are apprehensive about driving at night due to glare.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, I used to be a taxi driver for 20-odd years, but I had to give up recently because

00:07driving at night time has just become too unbearable, and I think the solution to it

00:14would be if modern cars had to have them of a certain limit, which you could possibly

00:23do through an MOT test, so anyone who's over the limit can easily adjust their headlights

00:30or whatever so that they fall within legal limits, but it'd have to be set, legal limits

00:38would have to be set to obviously sort this problem out.

00:42Many say modern LED headlights that are too bright are the biggest challenge faced by

00:48motorists today. In fact, 25% of all drivers are said to be driving less at night because

00:55of how bright modern car headlights are. In other studies, 3 in 4 motorists are regularly

01:03blinded by bright headlights. Dazzling headlights contributed to 216 collisions in 2023, with

01:11the home counties just outside London, specifically Kent and Surrey, being the worst affected.

01:19Of course, don't forget that in London, in part due to ULES and notably zero emission

01:25rules for taxis and Ubers, most of the vehicles you encounter on the roads of the capital

01:34will be on the newer side and therefore likely to be equipped with these bright LED headlights.

01:41I am one of the 25%. I've had several near-miss accidents because of these LED headlights,

01:49particularly they're up on four-wheel drives, they get right in your eye and they are dangerous.

01:54And I would vote, I would have them banned tomorrow if I could. And I'm not the only one.

02:00This is a topic of conversation with quite a few friends of mine. They're really dangerous.

02:06So ban them, now.

02:08Especially on wet roads where the glare from the lights reflects, it can be very dazzling.

02:17And I'm sure that would cause many accidents that would otherwise never happen, you know,

02:24if lights were not dazzling. And also I've noticed that yellow lights, which a lot of

02:34cars seem to have, are less dazzling than LED white lights. So if that's another possible

02:42solution.

02:43Yeah, I still do drive at night, but it's never very easy, I find, you know. And as

02:51I say, the simple solution would be to include it in an MOT test. And it's for the government

02:58to sort out.