Driving With Headlights On Safer?

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Nice to see someone express some of the same frustrations I have in regards careless pedestrians. Larry DePuy of Eureka echoes some of the concerns I've written about here before. Among them, people walking across the street without looking for approaching traffic.

He makes a few recommendations, one of which I'll have to disagree at least in part with: Driving with your headlights on.

I appreciate the sentiment as cars with lights on are certainly more visible to pedestrians. However, my own experience suggests it might have the opposite effect in improving safety. As we become more accustomed to cars having headlights on, we also tend to only look for those headlights and not the car itself.

Just a few days ago I was crossing the street going to my house. I usually check the street more than once. I took one look and didn't see any cars within blocks. As I walked across the street I looked again and noticed a car about a block away. I hadn't noticed it the first time because it didn't have its headlights on.

No biggie that time, and it might not be for a paranoid guy like me that crosses the street constantly looking for oncoming traffic. The same can't be said for the so many distracted (and careless) pedestrians that are on the streets nowadays.

I'm not saying we shouldn't drive with headlights on. I just don't know that we should feel obligated to. It might be making the problem worse as it makes the cars with headlights off harder to see, and there's still plenty of those on the road.