Plain dippy

We've just returned from driving the A470 between Llanrwst and Glan Conwy.  The rain was clearly staking its claim to a place in Guinness under the ‘biblical deluges’ section, and visibility must have been a good twenty feet.  Some years ago legislation was passed making it an offence to drive without dipped headlights when visibility dropped below a certain threshold.  Now, virtually no driver is capable of determining the distance they can see whilst driving. Partly, this has to do with the brain’s capacity for compensation, partly to do with the fact that visibility is rarely a static measure.

The history of dipped headlight legislation is fascinating in and of itself.  In Hansard, 1963, we learn that

Dipped headlight experiments are being conducted in various parts of the country and will continue until the end of March. In Birmingham, there has been a welcome reduction in the number of road accidents this winter compared with last. It is, however, too early to say in what way and to what extent the experiment there has been a contributory factor. The results of this experiment will be fully studied by the Road Research Laboratory.

Such was the urgency with which the Government of the day pursued this that, in 1974 - eleven years later - Hansard reveals that Lord Swansea asked  Her Majesty's Government

what has been the effect on the accident rate of the use of dipped headlights after dark in those towns where their use has been encouraged; and whether they will make the use of dipped headlights compulsory after dark on all roads, whether lit or not, which are subject to a speed limit of more than 30 mph.

This produced the usual assortment of ignorance, hearsay and myth, with Lord Melchett’s asinine contribution being to observe

I can assure noble Lords that Her Majesty's Government will not be coming to any hasty decisions,

a somewhat redundant comment, given the eleven year gap between action and investigation  at that point.

What was worrying at that time was that Northern Europe was fast making dipped headlights compulsory 24 hours a day, despite the welter of objections from folk muttering about ‘dazzle’ and ‘reflections’.  One wonders why no one had grasped the real point: that the main function of dipped headlights is not to show you where you’re going;  they’re not that good at that, anyway.  Their real use - as motorcyclists have known for years - is to let others know you’re there. And that’s what so many people on the A470 in torrential rain don’t seem to understand.  When a line of vehicles approaches you in dreadful weather, they should all have their dipped beams engaged.  Those that haven’t will be all but invisible until they’re quite close.

Why people don’t comprehend this simple fact, and why they persist in the arrant stupidity of using only their sidelights or nothing at all is a mystery.  Being seen allows other vehicles to react in good time, pedestrians to make greater allowances and increases the overall safety of the vehicle and its occupants.  Not using them  - for whatever reason - increases the possibility that you’ll have an accident. But then, there will always be those who think only of themselves.