[Porsche-O-Phile]

They’re ALL bad. Hell, even the emergency vehicles are out of control now. The whole point of having accessory lighting on cop cars, ambulances, etc. is to ensure that people see them and increase safety for responders and motorists approaching or passing an incident scene. They’re now having the opposite effect - the lights are SO bright and obnoxious as to be distracting and to make it impossible to safely approach those vehicles. If a person is walking near one (like a cop, EMT or whomever) there’s NO WAY they’re going to be seen against the visually chaotic backdrop of flashing, hella bright, multicolored lights.

My original comment was about the underlying mindset of ALL people with these things - “screw everyone else, it’s all about me”. That’s what it has become - total self-centeredness and disregard for others. The craze towards every nimrod in a Honda to tow truck driving schlub to minivan jockey having a gazillion lumens of retina-scorching eye destruction aimed at penetrating theough to the back of every oncoming driver’s skull is crazy and unsafe. It’s (like so many other things regarding vehicles) totally unenforced too - yet the popo can make time to sit on their collective asses on the side of the road (at $100 an hour plus bennies) watching road crews lean on shovels or harass commuters for daring to drive 10 mph over the (arbitrary and deliberately low) “speed limit” during rush hour. It’s gotten to the point of total absurdity. There is seemingly NO concern whatsoever about public safety when it comes to vehicle law enforcement - none. It’s certainly not evident. “Inspections” are just fishing expeditions for unscrupulous mechanics to recommend unneeded repairs rather than bona fide safety checks. “For off road use only” accessories are deliberately overlooked and ignored even when it’s obvious they’re used routinely ON road... It’s all a joke.

The lighting craze is one manifestation of this “me first, to hell with you” mentality. The “arms race” that’s been touched off since the mid-2000s with regards to bigger, heavier, higher-profile vehicles is another. In order to “feel safe” in a sea of 4,000-pound SUVs with bumper heights at exactly the window of most “unworthy” regular cars, people feel a need to go out and buy a 5,000-pound SUV with an even HIGHER profile... and on and on it goes to the point of complete craziness. This isn’t by accident - the vehicle manufacturers are quite happily capitalizing on the insecurity of every (rightly!) paranoid driver and targeting ad campaigns for bigger, heavier vehicles at them by touting how macho, how tough and how supposedly safe they are. Hell, why stop there, just sell armored track vehicles and be done with it!

I’m sorry but when people start feeding into this mindset that “I have to ‘protect’ myself by deliberately endangering others”, something is seriously wrong and it’s time to start cracking down on it.