Also, the plastic headlight “lenses” on many cars tend to get cloudy and develop micro-scratches over time. This reduces the efficiency of the low beams, and instead of fixing the problem, many drivers of older cars simply drive with their high beams on, which creates even more glare for everyone else.

Nothing is really repairable, of course, so replacing these parts is out of the question — it’s prohibitively expensive for many owners of older cars to replace the whole headlight units, especially since there are no penalties for driving around like this. Polishing the lenses is risky and usually only a short-term solution.

> Nothing is really repairable, of course, so replacing these parts is out of the question

As regards the cloudy/micro-scratched headlamps, if one is willing to do so there are numerous polish kits that can restore that "new from the factory" clarity for either an amount of elbow grease, or some time with a drill spinning a polish wheel (depending upon which kit is purchased).

In the UK, a car with cloudy headlight lenses will fail its annual roadworthiness check, and the owner will have to pay for the lenses to be polished.