> Simple car headlights are plenty to see someone in time to stop at 45 MPH.

That's a common misconception. You will see the pedestrian in time if they are near a street light or wearing something reflective. In complete darkness, if the pedestrian is wearing bright, colorful clothing (say, a yellow jacket), you will see them from 120 feet or so; often enough to react and come to a full stop, but not if the road is slippery or the driver less than fully attentive. And a pedestrian wearing black in the darkness is a dead pedestrian, basically invisible until the vehicle is on them.

I have stopped at 45MPH to a black dude crossing the street in dark blue clothing viable only in my headlights. Night vision degrades with age, but it's simply unsafe to out-speed your headlights and if you can't see you need to slow down.

Now, some mostly older cars have terrible headlights, but that's another story. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/51/3/1 Note Uber hit someone in bluejeans and a pink bike which is not that dark: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/video-rel...

PS: Just Starlight aka no moon and no clouds is plenty of light to see and walk around. I can't read small text, but you really should not be blind at night.

Here's the Finnish road safety council infographic about pedestrian reflectors (required by law in Finland): https://www.liikenneturva.fi/en/road-safety/reflector

They claim a pedestrian without reflectors can be seen from 50 m with low beams. Other source I've seen break it down by the color of clothing; white might be seen from 50 m (160 feet), yellow from 37 m (120 feet), and darker colors even worse, down to black which is visible from a distance too short to react.

High beams are a much different story, of course. And perhaps the numbers for HID lamps on a luxury car are better - at the expense of blinding and distracting the other drivers on the road.

Good lowbeams don't blind other cars. They create a curtain of light that's fairly uniform as bright spots hurt night vision.

At 45 MPH you should stop in under 50 meters in good road conditions. 50 MPH is around 53 meters +/- depending on the vehicle and road conditions.

Reflectors are very useful because they add cushion to that. And believe me that was heavy breaking situation. But, the Uber car did not even start to break.

I think that my eyes are better at night than the camera that shot that footage. It looked like she was wearing dark clothing though.