Sir, - I agree with Michael O’Meara that modern LED lights are too bright and need tighter regulation (Letters, September 17th).
I am a rural-dwelling commuter and I see many drivers slowing down considerably, apparently because oncoming traffic is dazzling them, which leads to impatience and poor driver behaviour among those in their wake.
The recent trend for SUV-type vehicles exacerbates this problem as they are higher and therefore their lights are more likely to shine down into the cabins of smaller cars. When SUVs approach up slopes or across bumps on country roads this can be momentarily blinding, even when their lights are dipped, and a genuine hazard.
A related concern is that some modern cars use automatic dipping systems that cannot anticipate oncoming vehicles on country roads, as an alert driver would. These cars dip their headlights only after they come into view of another vehicle. This is inadequate. Dazzling the other driver before dipping your lights is not polite, safe or acceptable.
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Stricter rules are needed. - Yours, etc,
TOM JORDAN,
Dunmanway,
Co Cork.
A chara, - There is a simple idea that might help with dazzling headlights. We could adopt what was French practice for more than 50 years, the famous yellow tinted headlights. Unique and considered a cultural oddity, they did reduce dazzle. They were the law here in France until 1993, sacrificed on the altar of EU harmonisation.
Time to bring back the yellow headlight ?
From the country that gave us the Enlightenment. A glaringly obvious idea, perhaps? – Yours, etc,
CIARÁN MAC GUILL,
Clichy,
An Fhrainc.
