You are driving at night and meet an oncoming car with its high beams lit. What should you do?

Why A is correct

Two sets of high beams do not cancel out — they blind both drivers at once, and whoever recovers slower is steering two tons of car they cannot see the path of. Night vision also returns far more slowly than most people assume, so the few seconds of glare can cover the length of a football pitch driven effectively blind. The technique that actually helps is where you put your eyes: once your own beams are dipped, watch the right edge line or the right kerb and let peripheral vision handle the rest. That keeps you tracking your lane without staring into the glare, which is the instinct that gets people into trouble.

Why the other options are wrong

B. Flash your lights repeatedly until they dim theirs

Flashing back turns a few seconds of glare into several hundred metres of it, for both vehicles. Even if it works, you have spent that whole stretch seeing less than you needed to.

C. Leave your own high beams on so you can still see the road edge

Keeping your beams up guarantees that neither of you can see the road. Whatever advantage you think you gain by lighting your own lane is spent several times over by leaving the other driver unable to hold his.

D. Pull onto the shoulder and stop until they have passed

Stopping on the shoulder is dangerous in its own right and is not what the situation calls for. Maintaining a controlled, steady course with dipped beams is both safer and far less disruptive to the traffic behind you.

On the road

A two-lane county road after dusk, and every third car leaves its high beams up. The driver who survives it best is not the one who retaliates but the one who has already dipped, locked his eyes on the white line at the right edge, and tracked that line until the oncoming car is well past.

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