The drive for ever-brighter lights also ignores the safety of the road users without lights, who become increasingly harder to spot. An example of road users without lights: people.

I know it's unfashionable to give a shit about people when you're driving a car, particularly people on foot, who if they were at all important enough to care about would surely be driving a car, but - well, what can I say? Bleeding heart, that's me.

You appear not to have read the part about BMW's new pedestrian spotlight feature. Which may raise another issue about deer (or people) freezing in the spotlights.

It's not the obscuration of pedestrians from the driver with the bright lights, it's the obscuration of the pedestrian from the other driver being blinded by the super bright headlights. In the brightness the pupil closes and the driver looses any night vision. If you were approaching this situation from the other direction it could be extremely difficult to see the reverse-spot lighted pedestrians.

Also the obscuration of everything from the pedestrian. When walking, if you have a car coming upfront it's there for a long while (since it might be fast but you're always slow), and at night your night vision goes away for a very, very long time. Having to stop, close your eyes and turn around every time you hear a car closing in does not make for efficient or fun walking about.

That may explain the deer in the headlights phenomenon, if real. They could be waiting for their eyes to readjust. Agree that this feature would be undesirable for pedestrians (and cyclists, if also targeted). And I suspect the spotlight is unlikely to avert any more than a small number of accidents. However, it seems quite a strong sales feature for BMW - enhancing the driver/owner's sense of control.

I was under the impression that deer freeze whenever they feel threatened by anything. Freezing when spotlighted is just a particular case of how deer always react to threats.

NB: "highway" doesn't mean multi-lane controlled-access expressway or freeway. It's any road open to the public, though generally between towns (as opposed to a local surface street). In the UK it can refer to footpaths as well as vehicular roads.