Maine Drivers, Why Are Your High Beams Always On?

I drive from Lewiston to Portland every single day, make plenty of trips to Augusta, and spend a lot of time traveling around Maine.

And lately, especially now that the days are getting shorter, I’ve noticed something that is making nighttime driving feel like an interrogation. 

Why does every other car seem to have it's high beams on in Maine?

Seriously. I’m not talking about the occasional bright headlights. I’m talking about lights so blinding that I’m questioning whether I’m still on the road or being summoned into another dimension. 

So, I have a legitimate question: Is this something new cars are doing automatically, or are people actually driving around with their high beams on? 

Apparently, some newer vehicles have automatic high-beam systems that switch between high and low beams depending on surrounding traffic.

They’re designed to make nighttime driving easier, but technology isn't perfect.

I think that these new systems can sometimes fail to recognize other vehicles or switch the lights off quickly enough. 

When I learned to drive, high beams were for dark stretches of road when there weren't other vehicles around. If another car approached, you switched them off. It wasn't complicated. 

Of course, modern headlights can also be incredibly bright, even when they're technically on low beams. Headlight positioning and certain vehicle designs can make the glare worse, too.

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So, Maine drivers, help me out.

Are your cars doing this automatically, or are we collectively  just forgetting how headlights work? 

Because driving in the dark is hard enough without feeling like I'm being flashbanged on my way to work.