I don’t want to be that guy, but I’ll spin my propeller hat and be that guy real quick-
That sounds like one of those "I wish I didn't know this, but it has bitten me before..." kind of things lol
I'll toss in an opinion, the DOT stuff should be good quality and good cutoff, not a guarantee, but a pretty good indicator. Non-DOT stuff may perform well, but may not, and it may get expensive to save that money.
As far as headlights in general, brighter doesn't equal better in every case. Our eyes are amazingly adept at adapting to low light levels, until we get something that triggers us to adapt to bright levels. The best trigger for that is a point source of blue colored light. Get rid of blue, purple, or "bright white/Daylight" LED's in your cab if at all possible. Even just a small blue LED on a phone charger or something can force your pupils to shrink. To Ricko's point, oncoming headlights are increasingly blue point sources that kill our nightvision. Lower temperature/Kelvin headlights help mix your natural night vision and help to not kill other motorist's vision either. If your local government in installing LED streetlights, request that they go for yellow-ish lights vs blue/bright white. Thankfully most manufacturers are offering more streetlights in the lower range and making those more of a default option, but the "Daylight" lights are still common.
It isn't much, but each of us trying to do a little bit to get out of this stupid cycle of blue colored, blinding, badly aimed headlights may eventually make a positive impact.
