It's much worse than "a few seconds". At the IDA conference I attended, a vision specialist pointed out after you have been temporarily blinded (e.g., by driving by a gas station lit with "glare bombs"), your peripheral vision may remain disabled long after you think you can see again. This is because when part of the retina is disabled, the brain interpolates with a plausible image. (This is why you can't see your "blind spot".) The trees, houses, and sidewalks you think you are seeing passing by in your peripheral vision may be nothing more than extrapolations from other parts of the retina that are still working. However, if there is a child over there about to dart into the roadway, you won't see him if his image falls on the part of the retina where this interpolation is happening. When the child's image moves onto part of your retina that does work, he will seem to pop up out of nowhere.
Yes those are horrid!
Another thing that's bad are some of these cars that have either fog or parking lights (I'm not sure which they are) that are circular and set very close together between the headlights.
On more than one occasion when it was rainy/foggy I judged the car to be farther away than it was because these lights appeared as if they were headlights at a greater distance. Scared the beejeebees out of me when I realized how close they really were.
That said, I find nothing wrong with doing something so we can enjoy our night skies. I moved to a rural area five years ago and each year the "orange light" encroaches.