The glare of publicity

You don't need to be a vision scientist to work out that high intensity discharge (HID) headlights are a menace, but, as they say, it helps.

It certainly helps to be an expert when trying to raise any issue in the national media, as demonstrated by Geoff Roberson on the BBC's The One Show recently (see News). And herein lies the power of the profession.

I have lost count of the number of people who have mentioned to me the difficultly they encounter when dazzled by HID headlights. The problems created by these unnecessarily bright lights are exacerbated by their use on ludicrously overlarge urban 4x4s driven by, well, the kind of people who drive urban 4x4s. But that's just conjecture, it takes an expert to really get an argument going.