Sometime in my late 20's, I really started to notice how much light affected my night time driving, never mind driving at night in the rain! It just feels like everyone has their high beams on all the time, although that can't possibly be true.

I assume that as the technology gets better and better, headlamps just get brighter and brighter.

IN MASSACHUSETTS, YOU MUSN'T LEAVE YOUR HIGH BEAMS ON ALL THE TIME, IT'S A FINABLE OFFENSE

Bright headlights of a car driving on foggy winter road
Elenathewise
loading...

The good news is that if you are fortunate enough to drive a newer car, truck, or SUV, you probably have one of those auto dimming features that will turn off your high beams when a vehicle is approaching from the opposite direction.

If you don't have that feature on your vehicle, however, here's the deal...

The Code of Massachusetts Regulations, Chapter 540, Section 22, "Failure to Dim," says you must flick off your high beams when you're within 500 feet of a car approaching in the opposite direction -- a considerable distance.

You're also supposed to kill your high beams whenever "substantial" objects, such as other cars or people, are visible within a distance of 350 feet, or whenever you're in a Massachusetts Turnpike Authority tunnel. -boston.com

I mean, let's be honest, the real reason for having high beams on a vehicle is to flash an oncoming vehicle to warn them of police stopping speeders ahead, which IS legal. Freedom of speech, it's considered. Just don't do it in front of an officer? Haha.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

More From WSBS 860AM