An argument I’ve been making for a few years now is about a certain piece of technology that we should have by now but don’t.  It’s 2015, and we’ve launched a handful of human beings toward the moon and brought them back, harnessed the power of the atom to flash-murder a few hundred thousand people at once, and cured smallpox.  Science really has no limits.

No, I’m not talking about hoverboards or self-lacing shoes or even flying cars.

Driving along a windy, hilly road in the rain last night, I came across what is essentially my driving nightmare scenario.  I see, for just a split second, a deer on the road ahead in my lane, before the guy coming toward me also sees the deer. His reaction is to put on his high beams. The deer instantly vanishes, drowned out by the light I’m trying to see through.  If I’d blinked in that second, I would just have though it was some random jerk with his brights on, and plowed merrily into the deer that was apparently quite pleased to wander in traffic.

My point here is why did this scenario have to happen? With all of the advancement in vehicle technology – GPS navigation – fuel economy, impact safety, handling, etc. – why is it that we don’t have night vision?  Why do we need anything other than running lights for safety?  At night, in the rain, the lines on the road practically disappear.  Why doesn’t my windshield compensate for this?  I’d rather see that deer in green than have it come flying through my windshield.

And yeah, I understand cost.  But I can guarantee you that all of the aforementioned technology that we already have was developed at significant cost, yet is now considered standard.

So get on it, science.  Imagine all of the light pollution we could cut out if we didn’t have 250 million sets of headlights on the road.