My ickle Fiat has a height switch on the dashboard for the headlights. I tend to have it set to the high position purely because every other oncoming vehicle dazzles me, so I can dish it back with attitude.

Not a very good attitude, I admit, but it has the side effect of also providing a decent amount of illumination when dipped and on dark roads.

I don't know what the exact law is, but it really bugs me that some vehicles have lights so bright they may as well be on full beam because they're just as dazzling.

It's made even worse when it's an enormous monster truck like an X5 with them mounted about head height.

My usual reaction is to cover my eyes and run them off the road, then beat them to death with their severed limbs.

I find Audi are the worst culprit for dazzling atm.

As for headlight beam adjustment, they should generally be set at the highest setting (lowest number) unless you have heavy goods in the boot or are towing, in which case the other settings would be more appropriate.

Just picked up some common-or-garden filament type from Halfrauds.
I'll probably go ahead and get some LED ones for the white reverse lights, but the main rear/brake light are a dual filament bulb, so I'll need to do more hunting into an LED that'll mimic that behaviour. Might go and do the side lights on the rear as well though.
My main head lights are sealed units like this which are replaced in their entirety, in a most non-European fashion, I must say.

No they're set to the low position

Look like Westmoreland units. Commonly used over here on commercial vehicles throughout the 80s and 90s and also on extremely rare Westie front ends on Yank Mk2 Golfs. If they are said unit, they can be upgraded, as I've seen it done.

You with your IAM membership too. You should be ashamed. I thought the idea was defensive driving, not offensive…

I'm lapsed. A free agent.

Call it self-defensive driving.

Self-defensive until someone is dazzled, swerves and crashes into you, someone else or a ditch.

I know a lot of cars have auto-wipers that sense rain, but do any have auto-dimmers for headlights?

This is true, though it's more likely me that will be the victim.

I only drive once a week down a road that requires full beam. All my other journeys are in broad daylight, or on fully lit roads.

Sadly, with the driving standards these days, it doesn't take much to push me beyond my usual placid mindset while behind the wheel of a car. Most of the time I try to keep myself out of mischief, biding my time, taking care not to get into or cause trouble. Sometimes, though, trouble finds me no matter how hard I try to avoid it. It's at times like that when I want multi-megawatt lights, machine guns and a howitzer, or wish I was driving some beefy old wreck of a Toyota pickup where I simply wouldn't care who or what hit me because they'd be worse off.

It's times like that when I really wonder whether I actually enjoy driving as much as I think I do.

Matt, auto-dimmers was a feature of most Cadillacs in the 1950s. Incidentally, I find the concept of the auto wipers (and auto lights) most odd. I've followed cars where the lights flick on for an instant when they go under a bridge. I'd resent my car doing that.

If people want auto everything in a vehicle, why don't they catch a bus?

The Cadillac version was called the Autronic Eye, and was indeed available in the 50s.
Another thing the 'merkins did first in cars.