Are other drivers trying to tell me something? Am I being really thick?!

[MindYours]

When driving at night if nobody is in front of me or coming the other way I put the full beams on (country lanes) but if there are any cars behind me they nearly ALWAYS flash at me as if I've pissed them off or something. Obviously I turn off the beams straight away...

Full beams don't affect drivers behind do they? Am I missing something here?!

You’re driving 20mph too slowly, that’s why they’re flashing you.

I've had this as well. It's really distracting!

Did you do attempt to find out the reason for it? Or have you just carried on driving despite being regularly flashed at?

With the exception of the occasional boy-racer knobhead, most drivers will not flash you unless there is a safety issue. If you are regularly being flashed by mutiple drivers then there is definitely a problem, and you have a responsibility to either sort it out or stop driving your car until you have done so.

You don't just passively drive around being regularly flashed at and then complain that it's 'distracting'.

I don't think it can be slow driving.... The OP says it only happens when she has full beam on, not other times.

There are plenty of rural roads around me where 40mph would be a safe speed, particularly the single track ones.

There are plenty of rural roads around me where 40mph would be a safe speed, particularly the single track ones

I live semi rurally too and plenty of roads have 40mph limits, I don't know why people are assuming they are all 60. People drive at all kinds of speeds regardless of the limits anyway and routinely flashing other drivers in front of you is not a thing ime

As this has happened with 2 cars now, is there any chance that you are mixing up the signs for fog lamps vs full beam?

So basically no limit but I rarely get up to 50 and that is on one very straight part, the rest of the time I drive between 20 and 40. However I always let EVERYONE past me, as soon as possible, because I don't like to feel the pressure of someone on my tail

20?? You sound like a liability

It could simply be that they're automatically flicking to full beam as soon as the car coming in the other direction has passed and then realising or remembering that you're there and so flicking it off again. I do it sometimes, switch back to full beam on winding country lanes when the car in front is round a bend and then flick back down as soon as I see their rear lights again.

You’re probably driving dangerously slow

40mph is unlikely to be dangerously slow on most country roads. It might be slower than some might like to drive, but on a non-main road it would not normally be considered dangerously slow IME

40mph is unlikely to be dangerously slow on most country roads

I agree.
I drive on country lanes a lot and 40 is plenty fast enough for me at this time of year. If you live in an area where there are deer you are taking a chance if you drive any faster. Deer are really, really stupid and love to hide behind hedges and jump out in front of your car.

Don't get me started on cyclists who don't think they need lights at dusk 😕

My auto full beam does that, it comes on but the minute it senses enough light in front of it (and that can be the reflection from chevrons or some other road sign) then they dip themselves again. It could appear to a car some way ahead that I am flashing when I am not.

What happened to driving? Nothing in my car is set to auto. If the lights need to be on, I put them on. Ditto wipers, fog lights, full beams. When did drivers get so lazy?

Looking at potential new cars at the moment and they all come with stuff I don’t want (park assist/lane assist/auto braking) and not what I do want (sunroof/big fuck off subwoofer in the boot/at least 200bhp).

When I first started driving I used to become so upset because I thought people were flashing me. Turns out it was the bumps in the road. Felt like a right fool!

Agree with couple of previous posters about bumps in the road making it look like other cars are flashing their headlights at you. Years ago I commented on this when me and my now exH were travelling home from Northampton. I asked him why drivers approaching on the other side of the road kept flashing us. He said 'Duh! They're not,it's the bumps in the road'.

I was driving behind a woman on a dual carriageway once and everytime she put her full beam on all her rear lights went off. At the traffic lights I ended up next to her so I told her what was happening and she says "oh, yeah, it does that"....😬

It could be what's happening here..

“ When did drivers get so lazy?”

You don’t have to use the gadgets, they are optional. I use some I find handy, ignore some I don’t. It’s like I am able to make decisions for myself and everything.

Sounds like it's your fog lights rather than full beam!

So you can't "leave them on by accident", as you actually have no direct control of them, which is the whole idea

I can absolutely leave them on by accident. Or, to put it better, if I have the car set for them to come on and go out in the car at dusk, or just before, and drive some way as it gets dark, I can see perfectly well with them so don't think to switch them over to the main lights.

However, it only happened once because people alerted me.

Now my car is just set on the automatic lights so I have DLR in the day and full headlights at night (full headlights does not = beam, I put that on myself as needed).

I’ve never flashed at anyone to get them to speed up. How aggressive and unnecessary Me neither, and I've not noticed it happening to me or others (except occasionally on a motorway but that's more to do with middle lane sitting). I find it vanishingly unlikely that the OP is having people do this to her every time she goes out driving in the dark.

Come on OP, come back and tell us you've checked your lights, we need to know!

I'm way too over invested in OP's car lights

We live in a city with lots of speed bumps and it looks exactly like being flashed as the car behind goes over them. It’s either that or you’ve got a bulb out/ fog light on unknowingly. Full beam for leading car is fine and actually helpful for the cars behind on dark country roads

Do your lights come on automatically?
Often on these cars it's only the front ones and lots of people don't realise that the rear lights don't come on too

I'm a good, experienced driver

And yet here you are asking "Full beams don't affect drivers behind do they?"

Why would the rear lights not come on automatically if the front lights have?

I checked today and mine do. What would be the point in them not coming on?

When I have a idiot behind who keeps main beam on I tweak the rare view mirror so that their beam bounces back and shines on them.