[HN Gopher] The War Against Headlight Brightness
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The War Against Headlight Brightness
Author : pavel_lishin
Score : 23 points
Date : 2025-01-10 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theringer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theringer.com)
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Headlights are now entirely too bright. The base lights are
| brighter than the bright lights from not that long ago. If you're
| in a car and a truck is coming the opposite way...you can't see
| anything. It's incredibly dangerous. I have terrific vision and
| now try to limit driving at night.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I think the issue is more about the angle of the lights than
| their brightness. lowbeams are only supposed to illuminate a
| fairly short distance in front of the vehicle. this is a big
| problem with lifted trucks. the owners don't bother to realign
| the lights.
| ToDougie wrote:
| Lowbeams on sedans are blinding me in my small truck (not
| lifted, headlights aligned as intended). Something must be
| done.
| taeric wrote:
| For a while, I assumed I was just having vision troubles as I get
| older. Then I started thinking that the roads around here are
| just poorly graded so that headlights are constantly in people's
| faces.
|
| That stat showing the average brightness of lights, though,
| certainly seems to line up all too well with what I have been
| experiencing. Baffling how bad it is now. Driving at night is
| much more annoying because of it.
| nharada wrote:
| Me too! I was thinking maybe my eyes had just degraded
| immensely from age 16 to 30
| teeray wrote:
| Every time this comes up, someone comes in telling us how
| adaptive headlights will save the day now that they're finally
| approved. Here's the issue: this problem exists today, and
| stuffing ever more computers in newer cars is not going to fix
| all the jacked-up F-150s with retina-searing aftermarket
| replacement bulbs, and the new cars rolling off the line without
| adaptive headlights (which will soon become used cars on the road
| for many years to come).
| Aurornis wrote:
| > "With complex arrays of LEDs and of optics," he said, "car
| companies realized they can engineer in a dark spot where it's
| being measured, but the rest of the field is vastly over-
| illuminated. And I've had now two car companies' engineers, when
| I played stupid and said, 'What's the dark spot?' ... And the
| lighting engineers are all fucking proud of themselves: 'That's
| where they measure the fucking thing!' And I'm like, 'You
| assholes, you're the reason that every fucking new car is
| blinding the shit out of everyone.'"
|
| Can anyone find an example of what they're talking about?
|
| I'm not an expert at all, but I thought headlight regulations
| defined multiple zones rather than small spots. Like this image
| shows: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Light-pattern-size-
| and-i...
| whatever1 wrote:
| Listen to me.
|
| LCD film on the windscreen. Camera for driver-eye tracking,
| Camera for headlight tracking.
|
| Dim just the area (a good algo would yield a small patch) that
| blinds the driver.
| ge96 wrote:
| I'm not sure if my lights are weak or normal lately. I'm not sure
| how much of the road you're supposed to illuminate without it
| being brights. My lights are yellow too wonder if white would
| make a difference.
|
| That's pretty funny, lights so bright it can x-ray a deer.
| kube-system wrote:
| This is a good article that touches on a lot of the nuances of
| this issue, and I hope people take the time to read it.
|
| I'm in the camp that "brightness" is what is people notice, but
| it isn't necessarily the cause of the issue. Aiming, leveling,
| beam height, pattern, lens condition, compliance, etc are all
| significant contributors to this issue as well.
|
| Light on the road is a good thing, the problem is when the light
| goes in your eyes.
|
| Anecdotally, the condition of people's headlights that I observe
| on the roads in the US is atrocious. Any given evening I can go
| on a short drive and observe:
|
| * overloaded cars (which will point headlights in the air because
| US cars generally don't have beam leveling)
|
| * dirty or obscured lenses (and again, the US doesn't require
| washers, and rarely does highway patrol enforce even heavily
| obscured lamps)
|
| * broken or damaged vehicles with damaged lamps pointing the
| wrong direction
|
| * drivers with one working headlamp, using high beams as a
| workaround for fixing their car
|
| * drivers who are oblivious to the operation mode of their lamps
| (either driving with DRLs or high beams on)
|
| * aftermarket lamps that don't have a proper beam pattern
|
| I think bright lamps would be fine if people used them correctly,
| but unfortunately you really can't trust US drivers to do things
| correctly. And it seems highway patrol is only interested in
| enforcing speed limits and vehicle registration these days. And
| in the few states that even bother to inspect vehicles _at all_
| often fail to properly inspect headlights.
| glimshe wrote:
| I've noticed this. My car has one of these bright headlights (I
| had no idea when I bought it). Its a lot easier to see in dark
| streets, I'll admit that. But my car also has some electronics
| that turn headlights down when another car is coming my way.
| Maybe that's the solution?
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| No, fuck your automatic headlights too. By the time your car
| detects my car, you've already been blinding me for at least a
| few seconds.
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(page generated 2025-01-10 23:01 UTC)