Proper Car Maintenance 101

If one of your headlights burns out, turning on your brights is not an acceptable substitute.

I’ve never seen so many people do this as in Our Fair City. Is there something in the air here that renders one headlight incapable of performance in at least 30% of the cars on the road? And something in the water that makes people think that blinding their fellow drivers is the ingenious solution to this problem? I mean, yeah, turning on your brights makes a light come on in the “broken” headlight. But it makes the normally-functioning headlight strong enough to generate heat, blinding the oncoming drivers as well as the cars unfortunate enough to be in front of you. A new headlight costs maybe $10 or $15, and it’s so simple to install that I’ve done it myself with no tools other than a couple of screwdrivers. Get thee to Auto Zone or Walmart—open 24 hours out here on the east side of town!—and fix your headlight! Stop endangering others on the road just because you’re lazy and/ or inconsiderate. If you’re on your way to fix the disobedient headlight, don’t bother to turn on your brights unless it would be appropriate to use your brights on an independent basis (that is, if both headlights were operating normally and you would turn on your brights, have at it). If you are on a city street, especially one well-travelled by others, you will have sufficient light to find your way to Autozone or Walmart or wherever, and your single functioning headlight plus the orange foglights will be sufficient to alert others to your presence. No need to be an inconsiderate git.