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Far ahead points of light appeared and drew closer, shifted down to
the road or remained in high cones, glaring in the eyes of the
three squinting out the windshield, the dimmer clicking on the floor, the woman behind the wheel saying: “Son-of-a-bitch."

It is an excerpt from the novel Fat City by Leonard Gardner.

Does this paragraph mean " the car approaches to the reflective high cones which sometimes hide behind the slope of the road and sometimes appear in front of them. Suddenly, the driver confronts some of these cones and puts her foot on the dimmer switch on the floor to dim the headlights because its light is reflected by the cones and blinds them?"

In this paragraph, the author, instead of seeing these things through their eyes , he sees them through the eyes of the beams of light. Am I right or I got it wrong?

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  • 2
    This isn't an established phrase in English. I'm guessing cones refers to the shape of the light beams, but you haven't provided enough text to tell what the source of the light actually is.
    – the-baby-is-you
    Commented Oct 17 at 3:21
  • 2
    As @the-baby-is-you points out, there is too little context to say for sure. But it seems for all the world to me as though the author is referring to the oncoming cars’ high beams (which are high both in intensity and in their angle above the ground).
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Oct 17 at 3:27
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    She says it to other drivers who haven't dipped their headlights (as we say in British English), the polite thing to do when you see an oncoming car. The passage puzzled me at first, because the switch for dipping the headlights is never on the floor in British cars.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Oct 17 at 8:41
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    @KateBunting "the switch for dipping the headlights is never on the floor in British cars" Not strictly true. It isn't on the floor in modern cars, but it often used to be in cars made up to the 1950s. Steering column mounted controls for lights, washers, wipers etc were not introduced till then. I can still remember my father's car having various switches for such controls scattered around the dashboard. "Fat City" is set in Stockton, California in the mid-1950's so it's quite plausible that the dip switch was floor mounted.
    – Peter Jennings
    Commented Oct 17 at 9:54
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    These floor-switches used to be metal cylinders about an inch in diameter and an inch proud of the floor, with a spring mechanism inside. You'd press down on them with the left foot in the US, where the right foot is for the accelerator and brake pedal and the left foot has either nothing else to do or is working the clutch pedal if the transmission is manual-shift. These switches were still used into the late 60s. I had a 1967 Dodge Coronet with one.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 17 at 11:43

4 Answers 4

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OP's query is on an excerpt from the novel Fat City by Leonard Gardner.

What is the meaning of "remained in high cones"? Far ahead points of light appeared and drew closer, shifted down to the road or remained in high cones, glaring in the eyes of the three squinting out the windshield, the dimmer clicking on the floor, the woman behind the wheel saying: “Son-of-a-bitch."

We have to consider that this novel was written in 1969 and the story is set in Stockton, California.
My understanding is based on the excerpt OP provided, as I couldn't find anything on the setting.

Here's phrase by phrase explanation:

1. "Far ahead, points of light appeared and drew closer":.

  • Points of light refers to the headlights of an approaching vehicle. (They saw a vehicle/ car coming from far and it came closer to them)

2. "shifted down to the road or remained in high cones":

  • The oncoming driver put the headlight in high beam. High cones refers to the shape of the high beam.
  • but sometimes he would shift to low beam.

3. "glaring in the eyes of the three squinting out the windshield":.

  • As the oncoming car was in high beam, it hurt the eyes of the three occupants of the woman driver's car, making them squint. (squint = to look at something with your eyes almost closed)

4. "the dimmer clicking on the floor":

  • It's possible that the dimmer switch was operated by the foot. The woman driver operated the dimmer switch (clicking means switching on and off hence flashing her headlights). This was done to alert the other driver.

5. "the woman behind the wheel saying: 'Son-of-a-bitch'":.

  • She showed her annoyance at the other driver's high beams.

"Driving with high beams towards oncoming traffic is prohibited, as it can blind other drivers."

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  • Operating the dimmer switch when you see headlights ahead is simply common courtesy, not an expression of anger or warning — it keeps your high beams from blinding the other driver. Flashing the high beams can mean anger or a warning, but they're not doing this in the passage.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Oct 19 at 13:55
  • @PeterShor The woman driver is flashing and also swearing at the other driver. This shows her irritation because of the high beam.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Oct 19 at 14:03
  • She's flashing her lights at him in order to tell him to dim his headlights.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Oct 19 at 15:46
  • @PeterShor I edited my answer according to your interpretation. I found flashing the headlights has different meanings in Dubai and India.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Oct 19 at 15:53
  • @JamesMarathai: in the U.S., we do indeed flash headlights to warn people of speed traps, and sometimes other dangers. But in this case, she's clearly telling the oncoming car to dim its headlights. And when they don't, she gets angry.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Oct 19 at 18:05
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Question: What is: remained in high cones?

In regular speech, we say: keep high beams on. [turn them off]

When to Use Your High Beams You should only use your high-beam headlights when it’s difficult to see and no one is front of you, you’re at least 200 feet behind a vehicle and its back lights aren’t illuminating the road enough for you to see, or you’re at least 500 feet from oncoming traffic and need the high beams to see the road.

High Beams

Why do high beams make cones of light?

headlights + cones of light

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Just an additional factoid. Floor mount foot-operated high-beam on/off toggle switch with internal spring mechanism. Only the cylinder cap protruded above the floor. Diameter was about one inch.

floor-mount high beam switch

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  • A nice touch, but this was in no way the question, and the OP was clear to begin with on the concept of a floor switch affecting the headlights.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Oct 17 at 15:08
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    Very interesting fact. Thanks. And it's the only way to post a picture even though it doesn't answer the question. That's no big deal.
    – Lambie
    Commented Oct 17 at 15:27
  • @AndyBonner Really, I thought the question was all about dimmer switches and their operation. Thanks for clearing things up for me. Seriously, do you really want to become yet another stackexchange army ant?
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 17 at 15:40
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    Thank you for the information.
    – Soroush Gh
    Commented Oct 17 at 21:17
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The cone-shaped area lit by full beam headlights. It's a strange sentence, but novelists like to play with words.

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  • Thank you so much.
    – Soroush Gh
    Commented Oct 17 at 21:31

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