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I must admit the BMW light pattern is particularly abrupt on dip beam. Obviously, when travelling on main beam your focus is generally at the focus of the beam i.e. 50+ yards (50m) down the road then when you switch to dip the focus necessarily changes to about 10-15 yards (10-15m). with normal tungsten or halogen lamps there is enough bleed out beyond the focus distance for you to be aware of objects at least. that does not happen with BMW lights, the cut off is so sharp that its either daylight or pitch black. The intensity of the dip beam is such that the even if there were an ambient backlight the eye would not be able to react acceptably to it. The effect of this intensly controlled focus on dip beam is that at the speeds being travelled say 50, 60 70mph........ on country roads is for the driving control to need to be highly reactive with liitle time to assess the condition and react smoothly. If you want to observe the effect ride a bicycle along the road focusing on a point about 50 yds ahead and then ride it looking at the front wheel - you will end up wobbling all over the place.
The self levelling mechanisms on most cars here in Europe consist of a manual adjustment on the dashboard. Most drivers never use it, they either ignore it, don't know how/where to use it or are unaware of it (my wife being a prime example of the breed). It is only the very expensive cars that have totally automatic headlamp levelling and even they can't cope with the basic bumpy country roads around here. As for the big European wagons with HID......................................
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