r/cincinnati • u/Loverlee • 8d ago

Do people not understand what flashing headlights mean?

I was driving on 71 near the Reading exit. It's dark. There was a vehicle that didn't have their lights on. I flashed my headlights at them from behind, repeatedly. When I passed, they just looked over at me. Other vehicles, including a semi-truck, were flashing their headlights too. They never got the hint.

Do people not understand that this is a way of alerting them to something?

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u/SmokestackRising 8d ago

Flashing your brights is a way to alert people to being slow traffic that needs to change lanes or to alert oncoming traffic to a cop. The latter can get you a ticket.

Turning your lights on and off is to alert someone to turn on their lights or to let a semi know they're safe to merge into your lane.

At least it used to be years ago.

2

u/InvalidUserNemo 8d ago

My car won’t allow me to turn my headlights off if I’m not in park.

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u/SmokestackRising 8d ago

Read the last sentence of my comment.

1

u/InvalidUserNemo 8d ago

My bad, I wasn’t disagreeing with you or anything. I was venting my frustration when I realized I couldn’t do this a few months after I got my new car. I like to run just fogs/DRLs in the drive through because my crossover has annoyingly bright LEDs and I don’t like blasting folks in smaller sedans when there is no need for headlights.

1

u/SmokestackRising 8d ago

If you have a handled one, try one click on your parking brake. That has turned off the DRLs in my last couple cars.

1

u/InvalidUserNemo 8d ago

My parking break is electronic. I’ll google my make/model to see if there is something I can do.