[HN Gopher] Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright
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Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright
Author : YeGoblynQueenne
Score : 614 points
Date : 2025-11-18 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Taek wrote:
| I feel the same way in America, I think there should be stricter
| regulations on how bright a car's headlights are allowed to be
| for it to be street legal. Wouldn't mind having a cap on blue-
| light levels in addition.
| jghn wrote:
| There are regulations. The problem is they're easy to game.
| [1][2]
|
| [1] https://www.theringer.com/2024/12/03/tech/headlight-
| brightne...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443406
| nikanj wrote:
| Usually in USA regulations apply to cars, but everyone drives a
| light truck that's exempt from regulations ranging from
| emission to pedestrian safety
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This is false. Light trucks are definitely regulated.
| Emissions regs do soften a bit for 3/4 ton and up trucks
| (think F250 and up), but the ubiquitous F150 as well as other
| half-tons, as well as mid-size trucks, are all very much
| regulated.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| It's much worse in America, in my experience. Much more
| deviation in cars/sedans/trucks on the road, with different
| road heights each, and MUCH more custom stuff on top.
|
| I'm in Belgium and headlights don't generally bother me too
| much, but a month in California recently had me going "no
| wonder everyone has tints here."
| englishrookie wrote:
| I'm in the Netherlands and I DO find it bad. Probably also
| has to do with my age (early fifties) - your eyes adjust with
| more difficulty the older you get, it seems.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I live close to you and I agree it's bad. But trust me,
| it's way worse in North America (where I also drive
| annually or so).
| phito wrote:
| I do find it bad in Belgium, mostly on big cars like SUVs.
| Another reason for me to dislike them. Unfortunately they are
| getting more and more common.
| JonKF wrote:
| In the UK it's exacerbated by our narrow roads, constant
| drizzle, disrepair of our streets and highways and by the fact
| that it gets dark by 4PM.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| The rising height of headlights in North America is compounding
| the issue as well. At this point a good proportion of vehicles
| have headlights even or higher than the roof on a sedan.
| JohnFen wrote:
| At least in my state, there is a law that restricts the
| location of headlights to between 22 and 54 inches from the
| ground. 54 inches is quite tall, though, I think that a lot
| of cars have roofs that are shorter than 4.5 feet. I'd love
| to see a much lower upper limit.
|
| I don't think there's a limit to how bright they can be. The
| law limits the lights to "70 watts", which I believe is
| intended to limit brightness but misses the mark. I bet the
| law was passed back when headlights were incandescent.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| LEDs are around 10x more efficient than incandescent bulbs.
| A 100W incandescent equivalent LED bulb typically consumes
| 10-12W. A 70W LED would put out as much light as 700W of
| incandescent.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Given idea just how much more light this is:
|
| The designed lighting for a room in my house is 2 x
| 60-watt incandescent bulbs.
|
| The equivalent wattage in 3 x 40-watt led bulbs is equal
| to 2 or 3 fluorescent light fixtures in an office
| building.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| I'd go as far as to say that the height is _the_ issue, and
| it 's becoming global (although, yes, US is the leader).
|
| It's ridiculous that an average SUV has headlights higher
| than an average semi (my own experience) given the latter's
| breaking distance is much greater.
| alistairSH wrote:
| There are a two things contributing to "headlights too bright"
| in the US...
|
| First, SUVs are really tall... If you're in a sedan (or worse,
| a Miata) and get close enough to an oncoming SUV, even well-
| aimed, legal lights are going to feel bright because they're
| pointed down at you.
|
| Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved
| HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed correctly.
| pyr0hu wrote:
| > Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved
| HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed
| correctly.
|
| This, so much this. I'm having no issue with new cars and
| their LEDs. The aftermarket kits that are installed on 1994
| Swifts and Passat B5s are not at all configured properly.
| They just throw it on the car and "yay i can see more" and
| sometimes I even think that they are using their high beams.
| But no, it's just their incorrectly set up lights.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| > I'm having no issue with new cars and their LEDs
|
| funny, its the opposite for me. brand new SUVs are by far
| the worst offenders,
| knome wrote:
| It would be fantastic if it were possible to dictate a
| headlight height for standard lights. just because your SUV
| is twelve feet off the ground doesn't mean the lights need to
| be positioned there.
| fusslo wrote:
| My 2024 outback has no 'high beams'. My low beams are the
| same brightness as high beams. The only difference is the
| field of view. I switch on the high beams on and height of
| the beam increases, but intensity stays the same.
|
| I feel awful about essentially high-beaming everyone unless
| the road is flat.
| yesb wrote:
| They are often aimed too high from the factory
| toast0 wrote:
| > The only difference is the field of view.
|
| That's normal. Low beams are aimed low and often have a
| illumination pattern reducing light over the median, high
| beams are aimed high and uniform illumination. Very often,
| they're the same intensity.
| fusslo wrote:
| Thanks, previously the only other car I had was a 1995
| volvo which used additional bulbs when the high beams
| were engaged. Intensity and field of view were increased.
| The outback's headlights were very confusing to me since
| I leapt through like 3 generations of cars
|
| I wonder if it became normal around the time everyone
| started complaining headlights were too bright
| toast0 wrote:
| Most vehicles with dual-filament bulbs will turn off the
| low beams while the high beams are on, but looking
| around, I see it's mixed for vehicles with dual bulbs; US
| standards don't require it one way or the other --- you
| can meet the high beam requirement with separate bulbs or
| with both bulbs in concert.
|
| I think complaints about headlights really started when
| different bulb types came out. HID, projector, and LED
| bulbs all cast qualitatively different light than the
| ubiquitous tungsten halogen bulbs that preceded them. A
| lot of these put out a lot of blue, especially in the
| fringes that I find very objectionable, and the lumen
| output seems to have increased quite a bit, as well as
| the spread.
|
| Halogen bulbs were tightly constrained by power limits
| and output requirements; but the other types can hit the
| output requirements at well under the power limits, so
| they can cast a wider field of view (which is nice), but
| may need to be brighter in more of the the wider field of
| view to hit the output requirements in the central
| portion, and that additional brightness is more likely to
| cause glare. Of course, all of our eyes have aged as well
| which makes night vision more difficult, especially with
| light variance. I remember my parents sometimes
| complaining about other vehicle's lights when I was young
| and thought everything was fine, but everyone was using
| halogen lights back then.
| bri3d wrote:
| This is how almost all cars with HID bulbs work, because
| HID bulbs can't be toggled on and off - they need time to
| warm up and have a limited number of arc initiation cycles
| before they wear out. So there's a mechanical shutter which
| changes the cut-off distance. Generally, there is also a
| leveling sensor which adjusts the cutoff when the car
| starts up, to account for suspension sag differences and
| load.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| High also refers to the lack of beam cut-off or masking[1],
| not only the intensity. In UK English, the terms are "full
| beam" and "dipped beam" to reflect this.
|
| [1] For older US cars, it was more about intensity as the
| masking sucked. I don't think it's that relevant to this
| discussion but you can look up "DOT vs Euro headlights" if
| it interests you.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved
| HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed
| correctly.
|
| This is the biggest problem. Even talk SUV headlights from
| the factory must meet standards for masking off light and the
| angles at which they can illuminate.
|
| But when people buy LED retrofit kits and jam them into
| reflectors not designed for those bulbs, the reflectors don't
| mask properly. Light spills everywhere.
|
| I would bet that nearly all of the "headlights are too
| bright" complaints are coming from people seeing LED retrofit
| kits.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Aren't there any checks for that?
|
| In EU most DMV equivalents check headlights yearly to catch
| illegal illumination envelopes (along with other safety-
| related aspects, brakes and whatnot).
| yesb wrote:
| Only a handful of US states have any type of safety
| inspection
| eszed wrote:
| The only one I've experienced (Massachusetts) wouldn't
| catch any of what we're discussing in this thread. They
| put it on the emission testing machine, walked once
| around the car, maybe checked the brakes, and that was
| it. It was in no way comparable to the UK's MOT test,
| which is a proper inspection.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Headlight function (including aim) is on the MA vehicle
| inspection: https://www.mavehiclecheck.com/motorists-
| basicinfo
|
| Whether it's done carefully or not, I doubt, though I did
| fail one year for headlight lenses too cloudy, requiring
| a fix and reinspection.
| alistairSH wrote:
| In theory, yes. But, it's state-by-state, enforcement at
| drive-time is next to zero (unless the cop just wants to
| hassle you), leaving it to either annual or time-of-sale
| inspections that are easily gamed (slip the mechanic a
| $20).
|
| Heck, people will reinstall stock parts for inspection
| then swap back to the illegal parts. Common with
| emissions stuff as well.
| toast0 wrote:
| Most US states don't have an inspection regime. Of those
| that do, it's often just for emissions (and with 2001+
| cars, it's increasingly just confirm the check engine
| light shows up in the light test and turns off when the
| engine is started, plus check that the emissions computer
| says ready for test). The driving public does not want to
| pay for safety inspections.
|
| But yes, if there was a safety inspection, it should
| include verifying that lights function and that
| headlights are aimed appropriately. A brightness test
| might be too complex, but safety inspection would be the
| place to do it.
| cpburns2009 wrote:
| How many people are really getting after market headlights
| installed on their SUVs? There's too many vehicles with
| blindingly bright lights for that to be the cause.
| jcranmer wrote:
| When my taillight burned out, I went to the local
| autoparts store to get a replacement. The first light I
| picked up had printed on the packaging, in not-terribly-
| visible writing, "For Off-Road Use Only." I had to go
| back and hunt longer for the light that was legal for
| road use.
|
| There's probably a decent contingent of people replacing
| their lights with out-of-spec lights not realizing that
| the lights are not actually road-legal.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That's not how it works. They can write whatever they
| want on the packaging. It's the final assembly that's
| compliant. They're covering their ass in case you put
| their 5W bulb in some application they've never heard of
| where it technically fits but a 2.5W bulb was supposed to
| be used or something.
|
| It's like how aftermarket brake hoses all say "off road
| use only" despite pretty much all of them vastly
| exceeding the FMVSS for brake hoses.
| yesb wrote:
| The correct bulb will not say that, aftermarket LEDs do.
| The light reflector housings are designed and tested for
| specific bulb standards. There are LEDs which try to
| output light from the same place as the filament in the
| bulb they are mimicking. But there is no guarantee they
| function properly, hence the warning and illegality.
|
| If you swap one side and walk around your car, you may
| see that they are significantly dimmer than the stock
| bulbs from some or all angles. Or it may work fine. Often
| times the aftermarket LED dual intensity tail/stop lights
| have barely any difference between the two brightnesses
| which is egregiously unsafe
| thewebguyd wrote:
| I used to think it was a lot of people doing it. I drive
| an older car with what I call "normal" brightness
| headlights, and the warm color too instead of the
| annoying blue/white.
|
| But then I had to rent a newer car, and it came stock
| with super bright blue/white headlights. They were so
| bright to what I was used to I had to double check the
| high beams weren't on. The standard lights were as bright
| as my old car's high beams.
|
| Lights in newer cars are literally just that bright, and
| I think it's a result of car safety culture being a
| matter of "I only care of the car protects me" instead of
| "the car should also be safe for others on the road as
| well"
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| I mean, I have those types of lights on my car, but I am
| VIGILANT about checking that they have a slight DOWNWARDS
| slope (and I'm in a relatively low sedan to begin with).
| There's a T-intersection near my house with a retaining
| wall at the end - very convenient for checking the angle.
|
| Even when I upgraded my old car to HIDs (because I could
| barely see anything over the other cars), I checked over
| and over to make sure I was low enough. Also, I ensure I
| never light up the TOP crease of the trunk of any sedan
| behind me. If I light up anything inside another car,
| it's bad.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Lights in newer cars are literally just that bright,
| and I think it's a result of car safety culture being a
| matter of "I only care of the car protects me" instead of
| "the car should also be safe for others on the road as
| well"
|
| This theory can't work on its own terms. It'd be hard to
| make the car _less_ safe for the driver than by
| automatically blinding oncoming traffic. Brighter
| headlights aren 't a safety improvement _for anyone_.
|
| They represent car manufacturers unilaterally making the
| product worse for the sake of having a worse product,
| just like the replacement of physical buttons with
| touchscreens.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Most Teslas come mis-aimed from the factory and expect
| their owners to "calibrate" them - they just never tell
| them that.. Guess how many owners actually figure it out?
| A vanishingly small percentage.. (or they're all assholes
| who want to blind others on purpose)
| yesb wrote:
| Those are some of the most offensive lights but I wouldn't
| say it's the biggest problem. SUVs and trucks often have
| their headlights at the absolute highest point allowed and
| it's not uncommon for drivers to install lift kits which
| raise the lights even higher. If you're in a standard
| sedan, headlights pointing into your eyes is pretty
| unavoidable. Even a small vehicle that's oncoming and on a
| steeper incline than you may shine their bright headlights
| into your eyes.
|
| There are no government agents going around inspecting all
| the vehicles coming off the factory line. Anecdotally, my
| friends Tesla has completely horizontal headlights from
| new. I could see oncoming drivers faces illuminate and
| wince in pain. A quick adjustment in the settings fixed
| that, however the majority of drivers are ignorant of the
| fact that headlights are usually adjustable.
|
| Not sure there is any real solution other than going back
| to halogen lights or requiring sophisticated anti-dazzle
| systems.
| esseph wrote:
| No, new cars are actually just ass.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I would bet that nearly all of the "headlights are too
| bright" complaints are coming from people seeing LED
| retrofit kits.
|
| Disagree. The "too bright" headlights are new cars. And
| sedans as well as trucks SUVs.
|
| Another big problem is that the lights are much closer to
| "point source" than older headlights which were 4-6" in
| diameter. A modern headlight is more like a 2" or smaller
| diameter projector lens, which is even more blinding.
| scythe wrote:
| Aiming and beam restriction is not enough and cannot ever be
| enough to prevent bright headlights from blinding people. It
| only works when the road is flat. You introduce a hill or
| even a speed bump and suddenly the headlight angle is zero.
| Brightness has to be managed directly.
| silisili wrote:
| Well, and the fact they're just way brighter than ever. When
| I was younger you could stare at the yellowish glow of a car
| with headlights on and just not be blinded. We even used to
| park several cars around a basketball court behind the goals
| with headlights on at times to play at night.
|
| Maybe I just got old or my eyes are peculiar, but that's no
| longer the case. I cannot stare directly into the new
| white/blue/whatever lights cars use at all without an
| immediate reaction of being blinded.
|
| In my opinion, we just don't need this level of lighting at
| night. My vehicle lights up giant swaths of the fields next
| to the road and I can see for a hundred+ feet in either
| direction. I just don't need this level of HD quality night
| vision, only just enough to see down the road a ways and
| immediate side of it to check for objects/deer/people.
|
| So now we have these retina scorching lights that are
| generally fine if the road is 100% flat and the car brand
| new. Any other situation ends up feeling like everyone is
| pointing lasers into your eyes.
| euroderf wrote:
| > When I was younger you could stare at the yellowish glow
| of a car with headlights on and just not be blinded.
|
| Seconded. And I guess this is about the same thing as has
| happened to streetlights ?
| pwg wrote:
| > When I was younger you could stare at the yellowish glow
| of a car with headlights on and just not be blinded.
|
| The older incandescent bulbs were a different color
| temperature (more on the yellow side of the color spectrum)
| and were not a point source (filament instead). Both
| contributed to them not seeming quite so bright, even if
| the net lumens was the same.
|
| The newer LED's are much more on the blue end of the color
| spectrum (automatically making the same lumen level appear
| much brighter) and the LED's are much closer to point
| sources, which further makes the result appear
| significantly brighter even if the lumen level was the
| same.
|
| Couple the "harsh blue light" and "point source" with
| "significantly more lumens" as well and you get modern
| headlights that are painful to look towards, much less to
| look directly at.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| a third thing is some people drive with brights on all the
| time, particularly in snow-bird seasonal communities, I've
| noticed. when the seasonal people, many geriatric, are in
| town, the vehicles driving day and night with bright lights
| activated is noticable.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Might be some mistaken confirmation bias there. Canadian
| registered vehicles are required to have "daytime running
| lights" while American cars are not. You might be seeing
| low beams vs no beams, as opposed to high beams vs low
| beams.
| toast0 wrote:
| I've seen lifted Miatas...
| bayindirh wrote:
| The maximum brightness is already regulated in US and Europe.
| US allows a lower brightness level.
|
| Some car manufacturer (Ford?) recalled their cars to fix their
| cars' headlight settings to match US regulations in the last
| 6-8 months IIRC.
|
| Also, light temperature has limits. I believe >4000K lights are
| already road illegal in UK and EU. They are also recently
| outlawed in my country, but there are many cars with after
| market 5000K+ bulbs installed. They also don't conform to the
| geometry of the bulbs these headlights designed to accommodate.
| They are _painful_ to look at.
|
| What needs to be done is a) Stricter regulation in retrofitting
| older headlights with newer bulbs b) Regulating the amount of
| light hitting the oncoming driver somehow. c) Stricter CRI and
| light temperature regulations for the LED headlights.
|
| I don't want to be blinded from light coming from behind and
| front constantly at night, too.
| mapt wrote:
| Do we enforce it?
|
| At all?
|
| It isn't just retrofits that are a problem, it's brand new
| cars.
|
| It's not just about not wanting to be uncomfortably blinded
| by lasers shooting into your eyes at night. (Lasers well
| under 3000 lumens!). It's that this kills people. Frequently.
| It's a form of assault with hundreds of dead victims and
| thousands of injured victims a year.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I believe so, but I need more evidence in either direction
| to give it a definitive answer, but why companies recall
| cars to fix their brightness levels if they are not
| enforced?
|
| > It's not just about not wanting to be uncomfortably
| blinded by lasers shooting into your eyes at night.
|
| I mean, being uncomfortably blinded creates the risk of
| being dead already. I believe I made it clear that it's
| dangerous.
| mapt wrote:
| Looking further -
|
| From a previous post on the subject
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42449068
|
| > They measure at a certain point. Jason Cammisa points
| it out pretty clearly in an episode of Carmudgeon, with
| the money quote either here[0] or in the link direct to
| YouTube here[1]:
|
| > On a recent episode of the Carmudgeon Show podcast,
| auto journalist Jason Cammisa described a phenomenon
| occurring with some LED headlights in which there are
| observable minor spots of dimness among an otherwise
| bright field of light. "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.'"
| bayindirh wrote:
| Thanks for the info. I'm not surprised. _Of course_ they
| are manipulating this test, too.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This highlights a problem in getting your information
| from a podcast or YouTube video, even when the presenter
| seems like someone you'd find credible.
|
| No, the regulation does not measure lights at a single
| spot. The regulations are published and very easy to
| find.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I mean, Jason Cammisa is not some "YouTube person". He's
| arguably his generation's Jeremy Clarkson.
|
| e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHKCmmH-x9mI
| btnKiNfg2...
|
| He tells the stories, interviews with the people who
| built these cars (if possible), gets and drives a copy of
| the said car.
|
| We're talking about a person who painstakingly perfects
| the pronunciation of the brand and model names just
| because he feels doing otherwise is not respectful for
| the brand, model and people involved with the car.
|
| ---
|
| Let's talk about specs. The spec[0] (pg 4) states that:
|
| Photometers are placed at fixed locations on the test
| track to record the visibility and glare illumination of
| the test vehicle on each approach. To correct for changes
| in illumination that are due to changes in vehicle pitch,
| multiple photometers are used at each measurement
| location to capture illuminance readings at different
| heights. The illuminance readings are synchronized to the
| vehicle position and pitch using a common GPS time
| signal. The synchronized data are used to produce pitch-
| corrected illuminance versus distance curves that are
| used for the headlight rating. All data are processed
| using the DIAdem software package distributed by National
| Instruments. The processing scripts are available at
| https://github.com/iihs-hldi.
|
| This is a fixed receptor, fixed path, multiple approach
| test and is susceptible to optimization of the
| illumination map designed by the car manufacturers.
|
| Moreover, test document states that:
|
| Illuminance data are collected with Gamma Scientific
| photometers (Part # U68401). The photometric sensors
| provide a very close match to the spectral response of
| the human eye. They are fitted with diffusers to reduce
| the illuminance measurements for off-axis incidence
| angles in accordance with Lambert's cosine law. The
| sensors match the targeted cosine response to within 3
| percent at angles up to 25 degrees, which is the maximum
| angle between the test vehicle and sensors on the
| sharpest curve (at distances greater than 10 m). The
| sensor signals are passed through a low-pass filter with
| a cutoff frequency of 35 Hz to allow for accurate
| measurements of pulse width modulated light sources such
| as LEDs. Each sensor is connected to its own
| transimpedance amplifier board that has fixed gains to
| yield a fast response while still minimizing linearity
| errors in the range of illuminance values for which the
| headlight ratings are assigned.
|
| Again more places to optimize the headlight.
|
| If the test finds the lights are "in-spec", and people
| are increasingly unhappy/uncomfortable, then something is
| wrong.
|
| [0]: https://www.iihs.org/media/0e823704-32d1-4500-b095-1
| 5d064d82...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >He's arguably his generation's Jeremy Clarkson.
|
| An entertainer who's keenly aware of what his audience
| demographics are, what they want to hear, what'll piss
| them off, and what he ought to be doing if he wants the
| money to keep coming?
|
| I'm not saying he's lying, but all these guys have an
| incentive to say whatever it is they're gonna say in the
| way that makes their audience as hysterical as possible.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Camissa is not as unhinged as Clarkson, their most common
| trait is their appreciation and knowledge of cars and how
| they treat their histories.
|
| Listening to Camissa makes me feel like I'm listening to
| someone who appreciates all cars for being cars. He has
| no biases and preferences like Clarkson (German cars
| being cold, Italian cars being awesome, etc.).
| pixl97 wrote:
| You mean the same companies that measured the testing
| benches used for emissions regulations and cheated on
| them? It's not like there isn't a history of the car
| companies doing foul shit here.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The regulations for manufacturers are enforced. There have
| even been recalls for it.
|
| LED retrofit regulations are not enforced. We should equip
| safety inspection stations with ways to measure this, but
| it's an expensive change to demand they do safety
| inspections in a dark room when most safety inspection
| businesses are small shops that don't have the room or
| buildings to do it.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Given how many cars I see on the road with only one
| headlamp working, we have a _long_ way to go before
| enforcing anything like this.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Yes, but only with preset measurements that car
| manufacturers work around by literally putting dim spots in
| headlights at specific angles (https://old.reddit.com/r/fuc
| kyourheadlights/comments/1hefn86...).
| OGWhales wrote:
| We also need to be far more strict about enforcing properly
| alignment, so many are pointed too high especially on larger
| vehicles and pretty much always on anything that's been lifted
| chrisBob wrote:
| The US has clear regulations on headlights that limit the
| number of Watts. That worked when everyone had halogen bulbs,
| but doesn't fit with LEDs.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Some people don't seem to know that you can adjust your
| headlights from inside the car.
| touristtam wrote:
| Ooooh so I am not the only one to swear at those blinding
| headlights? Interestingly (or not), I think there should be a
| regulated height for the headlights all private cars; I drive a
| B-segment type of car, and I find all those European SUVs have
| their headlights right at my shoulder level meaning I will always
| be subject to be blinded by this type of vehicle vs a similar
| lower car. That goes for the vans as well.
| nanna wrote:
| Same for bicycle lights too, and street lights.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Nearly all UK drivers say bike lights are too bright?
|
| Do you have a citation or was that an edgy culture war comment?
| jabbywocker wrote:
| I think it's his personal opinion, so no need to provide a
| citation.
|
| But don't let that stop you from starting your diatribe
| egormakarov wrote:
| I have a problem with many fellow cyclists here in Germany,
| because they seem to use something that shouldn't be street-
| legal as bicycle lighs (very annoying in the night on unlit
| road)
|
| Not sure what UK drivers would say about that, though
| barbazoo wrote:
| The sun as well, too bright.
| jeffwass wrote:
| I don't understand the seeming lack of regulation for flashing
| bike lights.
|
| I don't mean a simple "normal" flashing light, but the super
| bright ones that are like a camera flash strobe going off 2-3x
| per second which hurts your eyes and kills your night vision,
| making it hard to see anything including the actual cyclist.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| It used to be law that a bicycle had to have a solid on light
| front and back at night, and any extra flashing lights were
| optional extras that didn't count, but they scrapped that law
| several years ago.
| macintux wrote:
| Meanwhile, brake lights and running lights are frequently too dim
| because of an aesthetic obsession with "blacking out" tail
| lights.
| kaelwd wrote:
| Luckily that's illegal in my country, instead we have the
| opposite problem where new cars have LED taillights that are
| just as blindingly bright as their headlights.
| sanex wrote:
| Honestly I'm seeing the opposite. Some new cars, I THINK
| Camry's, have taillights so bright it's blinding to wait behind
| one at a stoplight. They don't need to shine just glow so you
| can see them.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| I have never understood why everyone seems to immediately
| forget everything in their driving lessons as soon as they
| pass their test. When you're waiting at a red light, you're
| meant to have the hand brake on (which does not illuminate
| the brake lights), not your foot on the brake, unless you
| know that the light is going to turn green very soon, or
| you're trying to catch the attention of someone coming up
| behind who looks like they haven't seen that you have
| stopped.
| delichon wrote:
| > When you're waiting at a red light, you're meant to have
| the hand brake on (which does not illuminate the brake
| lights), not your foot on the brake, unless you know that
| the light is going to turn green very soon
|
| I was definitely not taught this as a US driving student.
| Is this a UK thing?
| mnw21cam wrote:
| I can't see how it would be country-specific. How else
| would you have any control of the forward motion of the
| vehicle otherwise, especially when starting on an uphill
| slope? You're meant to raise the clutch to the biting
| point and apply some accelerator and release the
| handbrake when you are confident that the engine will
| prevent the car from moving backwards. Taking the foot
| off the brake and hoping you can move it over to the
| accelerator quickly enough doesn't give you that control.
| Drifting backwards into the car behind you when setting
| off is rather an embarrassing thing to do.
| delichon wrote:
| It does appear to be a UK thing. This is from the UK
| Highway Code. I'm not finding a US equivalent.
| 114 You MUST NOT use any lights in a way which would
| dazzle or cause discomfort to other road users, including
| pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders use front or rear
| fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced. You
| MUST switch them off when visibility improves to avoid
| dazzling other road users (see Rule 226). In
| stationary queues of traffic, drivers should apply the
| parking brake and, once the following traffic has
| stopped, take their foot off the footbrake to deactivate
| the vehicle brake lights. This will minimise glare to
| road users behind until the traffic moves again.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/general-rules-all-drivers-
| riders-103-to-1...
| mikestew wrote:
| _In stationary queues of traffic, drivers should apply
| the parking brake and, once the following traffic has
| stopped, take their foot off the footbrake to deactivate
| the vehicle brake lights._
|
| I'm sure that might have been fine 30 years ago when cars
| had actual handbrakes. I doubt most folks these days can
| even find the little switch that activates it. Now it
| comes off as a bunch of monkey business.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Well found, though I'll also point out that the highway
| code uses "MUST" and "should" in the same way as the RFCs
| do.
| macintux wrote:
| I would wager that most modern cars that have a clutch
| (which is <2% of the market in the U.S.) have hill
| assist.
|
| Certainly when I've been stopped on a hill with someone
| directly on my bumper I've used the hand brake, but
| that's vanishingly rare for me (probably because I live
| in a very flat part of the country).
| jansper39 wrote:
| Depends on the car. Most ICE automatics will creep
| forward, EVs will sit there until you hit the
| accelerator, manual ICE cars (especially diesels) can be
| held on the clutch just under the 'biting point' which
| will stop the vehicle moving backwards.
| mikestew wrote:
| _EVs will sit there until you hit the accelerator,_
|
| Some do, some don't. Most I've driven try to replicate
| the bug in ICE automatics that causes the car to creep
| when your foot's not on the brake.
|
| _manual ICE cars (especially diesels) can be held on the
| clutch just under the 'biting point'_
|
| I, too, love the smell of burning clutch plates. Use the
| brake, that's what it's there for.
| mikestew wrote:
| _How else would you have any control of the forward
| motion of the vehicle otherwise, especially when starting
| on an uphill slope?_
|
| By learning to drive a manual? Pardon the snark, but that
| technique should be reserved for severely steep hills,
| otherwise heel-toe or just be quick on the pedals. I live
| in the Seattle area, where you either learn to drive a
| manual on hills, or you get a punch card from the
| transmission shop for clutch replacements. Even someplace
| like going up the hill from 1st and Madison (picking a
| random, extremely hilly intersection in Seattle), I'll
| roll back maybe six inches. I'm nothing special, my wife
| does the same thing. And if you live around Seattle and
| you sit six inches off someone's rear bumper on a hill,
| that's a "you" problem when they roll back on you.
| pwg wrote:
| > How else would you have any control of the forward
| motion of the vehicle otherwise, especially when starting
| on an uphill slope?
|
| That only applies for manual/stick shift vehicles. Most
| of the US drives automatic transmissions, and you don't
| have to use the hand brake to start on an uphill slope
| with an automatic transmission.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I'm regularly blinded by some of the ultra-bright rear LEDs. I
| drive a fairly small/low car so traffic at night is miserable.
| I tend to avoid driving at night all together for the most part
| now.
| attila-lendvai wrote:
| actually, this is on my list of signs that our civilization is
| fscked...
| Aachen wrote:
| fsck report: some bad sectors are worse than others
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Where are the AR driving glasses that automatically dim oncoming
| headlights (and alert the driver to possible road hazards,
| and...)?
|
| Seems to me that all of this tech to create autonomous driving
| could be also used to augment human driving.
| amelius wrote:
| What if it suddenly shows a blue screen?
| _joel wrote:
| You crash, both systematically and through the windsceen.
| DougRisk wrote:
| They call it the Blue Screen of Death for a reason.
| rawling wrote:
| Eye tracking camera in the cabin, LCD film on the windshield,
| it'd be like reverse matrix lights.
| spike021 wrote:
| It's also like this in America.
|
| Earlier in the year I got a replacement rear-view mirror with an
| anti-glare coating and it's paid dividends. It helps so much at
| night on dark sections of road when newer cars with bright
| headlights are around me. Finally decided to also replace my side
| mirrors with ones that have a similar coating.
| xeromal wrote:
| My old 2003 Lexus has some sort of anti-bright headlight
| feature for the rear view mirror that was a gamechanger when I
| got it. I always notice when I drive another car.
| spike021 wrote:
| yeah, some cars have powered dimming. most have the little
| tab/switch at the bottom you need to flick whenever you want
| to use the dimmer angle. in my last car that would always
| mess up my optimal rear view mirror angle and position, which
| would get annoying and turn into a hassle.
| everdrive wrote:
| I understand that currently this is sort of a collective action
| problem, but I'm a bit baffled why people ever thought they
| needed brighter headlights in the first place. In the city, it's
| so bright that you don't even need headlights to see whatsoever.
| When cars started automatically dimming the dash via a light
| sensor, there was actually a period of time where I totally
| forgot to turn on my headlights because things were so well lit
| -- even at night -- that I didn't need them whatsoever.
|
| Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and
| they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot
| other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not
| as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally
| speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot
| traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
|
| So who are they for? I think broadly people may just not be able
| to avoid excess unless restricted by the facts of their
| environment. Allow people a plethora of calories, they'll get too
| fat. Allow them a plethora of entertainment, they'll drive
| themselves insane. And somehow .. allow them too many bright
| lights and they'll all just blind each other.
| nikanj wrote:
| Out in the country: moose and other animals
| Lio wrote:
| Moose are less of a problem in the UK than you might expect.
| ;)
|
| (I'll give you other animals though.)
| Maxion wrote:
| There are other countries than the UK.
| graemep wrote:
| The story is about the UK. it would b ridiculous to set
| UK brightness levels on the grounds of what would be
| needed in Finland.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No thanks, I have no where to keep them.
| jonahrd wrote:
| Well.. deer, for one. It's much easier to spot animals crossing
| the road with bright headlights than without.
|
| I still also agree headlights are too bright, by the way, but
| I'm just providing an example for your question
| silon42 wrote:
| Not necessarily... I had H4 or H1/H7 before, which were
| dimmer, but the edge cutoff was much smoother...
|
| With current car that has Xenon headlights (+ LED for day),
| they have a much sharper cutoff at the edge, making it harder
| to see pedestrians and other stuff near the road.
|
| Probably the LED/laser headlights are even worse in this
| aspect.
| Lammy wrote:
| > So who are they for?
|
| They're so machines can see better, not so humans can see
| better. There are so many more doorbell cameras, ALPR cameras,
| fixed building cams, PTZ building cams, dash cams, external
| vehicle cams, etc than ever before, and they all want to be
| able to spy on you as effectively as possible even at night.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Many places don't pay for reflective paint, unfortunately. Here
| in Missouri they used it for a year or two and it was a vast
| improvement... but then they cut the paint budget and now we're
| back to invisible lines with even a small rain (no matter what
| the brightness of the headlights).
| Magnets wrote:
| animals and other objects on the road, and potholes
| jansper39 wrote:
| Most of my driving is down small, unlit country roads and I'm
| constantly coming across deer, sheep, people in dark jackets
| (walking back from the pub) and people riding bikes
| (occasionally with no lights on).
|
| I'm quite thankful for bright headlights.
| Maxion wrote:
| Driving in the countryside, good headlights are *so* much
| safer.
| eertami wrote:
| This is exactly what high beams are for, and even 20 year
| old cars have very bright high beams that are plenty safe.
|
| The problem referred to in the article is dipped beam
| headlights being too bright and often too high, which are
| making things less safe by dazzling other drivers and road
| users.
| robot-wrangler wrote:
| > This is exactly what high beams are for,
|
| Judging from comments in this thread, large numbers of
| people are suggesting that they are _actually entitled_
| to blind others because toggling back and forth is an
| inconvenience for them, and /or the "smart" cars that are
| auto-toggling high beams have left many drivers
| completely ignorant that toggling is actually possible.
|
| Related question, are cars that have completely removed
| manually controlling high beams actually street legal?
| darkwater wrote:
| I'm pretty sure a technical solution can be found that
| improves normal headlight visibility compared to non-
| xenon lamps from 10-15-20 years ago WITHOUT blinding
| incoming traffic.
|
| High beam were always blinding, and unless you are
| completely alone you will not use them, even in the
| middle of a rural area, so they are out of the equation.
| kedean wrote:
| _Good_ headlights are. The modern levels of brightness do
| not qualify as good headlights. Modern headlights become
| unsafe as soon as any other person is on the business end
| of them, due to the fact that they can no longer see
| properly. It puts other vehicles at the risk of crashing
| from being blinded, both cars and smaller vehicles like
| bicycles.
| DiogoRolo wrote:
| In the countryside, outside highways, the pain is usually non-
| reflective or just in such a bad state that you can't even see
| it.
|
| Usually bright headlights / highbeams are useful in there.
| thedanbob wrote:
| > And generally speaking out in the country, there won't be
| pedestrian foot traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright
| lights for them.
|
| Animals, specifically deer. That said, you can use brights when
| no other cars are nearby, and when there is a car coming its
| worth a few seconds of extra risk to not blind the other guy
| and put _him_ at risk.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > its worth a few seconds of extra risk
|
| There really isn't that much increase; when there's another
| driver then you both have the combined the light output of
| both headlights, coming from two different directions.
| toast0 wrote:
| Once we figure our deer wasting disease, we need to start the
| breeding program for reflectorized deer. It'll solve a lot of
| problems.
| alt227 wrote:
| Why does nobody think that if these lights are dazzling
| oncoming drivers, they are also dazzling these precious deer
| and pedestrians people keep saying they need to see so well.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Lights in other settings that were upgraded to LEDs became much
| brighter: night clubs usef to be mostly dark for instance.
|
| I don't think it happened through any plan, if anyone was
| looking at the specs, they probably just thought "bigger number
| better".
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Nightclubs are still too dark. Streets are too bright.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Low beam lights were previously much dimmer and angled much
| lower. Rural driving absolutely required high beams.
| gadders wrote:
| >>Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and
| they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot
| other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not
| as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally
| speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot
| traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
|
| Have you actually driven in the country?
|
| Out in the country where I live, some roads are single track
| with no painted lines, cats eyes or street lights. There is
| occasional foot traffic, sometimes not wearing reflective gear.
| There are also animals, and 6" deep potholes that I would
| rather not hit as well.
| robot-wrangler wrote:
| > I understand that currently this is sort of a collective
| action problem,
|
| There's something really obnoxious and antisocial about this
| that makes me really mad. Test your lights on yourself, people.
| If your manufacturer did something stupid here it's
| unfortunately on you to fix it. Usually the mentality of "got
| mine, fuck everyone else" is self-destructive but maybe not
| obviously so because cause/effect are a few steps away from
| each other. But if you blind everyone else on the road so you
| can see better then it's kind of endangering you directly and
| immediately!
|
| This is a huge issue in US western states especially, since
| they are full of long dark drives. You'll literally be blinded
| for several seconds if you encounter another car even if you're
| averting your eyes. Bad but not horrible if it's 1/10 of chance
| encounters that are antisocial, but it's been getting worse for
| years and odds are now much closer to 1/2.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _there won 't be pedestrian foot traffic_
|
| You think kids aren't running across the street at night out in
| the country? Chasing a soccer ball?
|
| There are all sorts of things you need to be able to see to
| avoid. People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage
| cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and on.
| Not to mention spotting dangerous icy patches at night in the
| winter.
|
| I take it you don't really drive in country? Which is fine, but
| it's good to be aware of the many potential hazards.
| graemep wrote:
| > You think kids aren't running across the street at night
| out in the country? Chasing a soccer ball?
|
| Only in well light areas, usually with a low speed limit too.
|
| > People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage cans
| blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and on.
|
| Of those only people are at all common, and not on large
| roads. I have never even seen roadkill large enough to be
| unsafe to drive over.
|
| I have only once come close to hitting any of these on
| country roads in the UK. I have been dangerously dazzled by
| oncoming bright headlights all the time.
| Leif24 wrote:
| >> You think kids aren't running across the street at night
| out in the country? Chasing a soccer ball?
|
| >Only in well light areas, usually with a low speed limit
| too.
|
| Not something I've commonly seen when driving, but
| certainly as a kid out in the country I ran around in the
| dark near the road.
|
| >> People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage
| cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and
| on.
|
| >Of those only people are at all common, and not on large
| roads. I have never even seen roadkill large enough to be
| unsafe to drive over.
|
| >I have only once come close to hitting any of these on
| country roads in the UK. I have been dangerously dazzled by
| oncoming bright headlights all the time.
|
| I've seen all of these multiple times (tbf the trash cans
| were in the city, not the country) out in upstate NY and
| rural Indiana and Kentucky. Maybe trees don't drop branches
| over in the UK, but over in the US that is certainly a
| hazard to be expected during and after severe weather.
|
| To be clear, I agree that excessively bright running lights
| and people who can't seem to properly transition between
| hibeams and lowbeams are problem. I just don't agree with
| the sentiment from the gp that "[o]ut in the country, you
| still don't really need brighter headlights."
| dboreham wrote:
| I've lived in Montana for 25 years, a place where there
| are deer (and moose and bears) rampaging all over the
| place. People hit them all the time. But the only place I
| ever hit a deer with my car was North Yorkshire.
| darrenf wrote:
| > _Of those only people are at all common, and not on large
| roads. I have never even seen roadkill large enough to be
| unsafe to drive over._
|
| I moved from London out to the sticks ~4.5 years ago and
| since then have seen deer, pigs, and cows multiple times
| each year on the larger roads around where I now live.
| Animals roam. People leave gates open or damage fences. It
| happens. Plus the named storms frequently bring trees down
| onto or even across roads.
| crazygringo wrote:
| >> _You think kids aren 't running across the street at
| night out in the country? Chasing a soccer ball?_
|
| > _Only in well light areas, usually with a low speed limit
| too._
|
| It would certainly be safer if that were true, but it's
| not. Kids play in front yards with zero street lighting all
| the time. And drivers speed.
|
| >> _People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage
| cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and
| on._
|
| > _Of those only people are at all common, and not on large
| roads._
|
| I think there are a lot of places you haven't driven. In
| parts of the US, deer are _everywhere_. And who is limiting
| the subject to "large roads"? Headlights are used on _all
| roads_.
|
| Also, we drive defensively because of the _uncommon_ things
| we encounter. It only takes one collision to potentially
| kill you or someone else. Over a lifetime of driving,
| "uncommon" things have an unfortunate tendency to still
| happen at some point.
| graemep wrote:
| > Kids play in front yards with zero street lighting all
| the time
|
| Street lighting is consistent enough to be used to define
| built up areas for speed limits in the UK.
|
| > in parts of the US, deer are everywhere.
|
| which is not relevant to a discussion about car
| headlights in the UK
|
| > we drive defensively because of the uncommon things we
| encounter
|
| but its not worth making a common situation riskier to
| make an uncommon one safer.
| shortercode wrote:
| Assuming that the lines on the road are in good condition or
| even exist. Uneven roads, potholes, and corners/junctions with
| no signage can all be a challenge is poor conditions with old
| style headlights ( our 2 cars have old and new style lights
| respectively ).
|
| That being said while I don't struggle much with the glare from
| oncoming headlights I find that visibility beyond the oncoming
| vehicle can be severely limited by the bright light. This often
| causes me to slow down and squint to be careful of any dangers
| beyond the vehicle.
| pjmlp wrote:
| What road lines?
|
| There are plenty of country side roads in Europe that really
| dark with normal medium lights.
|
| Now I fully agree that full intensity is too high as shipped in
| most cars.
| delaminator wrote:
| > Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights.
|
| I guess you don't actually drive at night in the countryside
| then.
|
| You need lights to see where the road is, not where pedestrians
| might be - on none existent footpaths
| everdrive wrote:
| I live in the woods in the northeast US, and also grew up in
| the 80s-90s in a very rural area and I've owned a number of
| cars when I was young, some with comically dim lights.
|
| You really don't need the bright lights. You never have. Slow
| down, look for movement, and use your brights intelligently.
| lan321 wrote:
| Slow down is kind of the general tip, but I find it kinda
| BS. I can drive slowly focusing on the bushes on the way
| to/from work in bumfuck nowhere, or I can get some beacon
| of god aux LEDs for cheap and turn night into day.
| everdrive wrote:
| > or I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and
| turn night into day.
|
| But only if you don't care about other drivers on the
| road. And of course, how many of those other drivers on
| the road care about who they're impacting? A lot of them
| have your attitude.
| afavour wrote:
| "I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and turn
| night into day" they said, in a topic entitled "Nearly
| all UK drivers say headlights are too bright"
| 867-5309 wrote:
| don't forget "bumfuck"
| alt227 wrote:
| > I can get some beacon of god aux LEDs for cheap and
| turn night into day.
|
| And piss all other drivers off around you. This is the
| whole point of the thread you are posting in, but then if
| people cant realise or even care when they are blinding
| people I dont expect them to have fully read or
| understood the thread article.
| macNchz wrote:
| Growing up in rural New England it seemed that people were
| constantly hitting deer with their cars--slowing down is
| obviously a good idea, but every additional foot of
| headlight distance certainly helps for spotting the glint
| of an eyeball on the side of the road.
| 4MOAisgoodenuf wrote:
| In a densely wooded area, no. Your sight line is naturally
| blocked by trees, so a farther throw of light would be
| wasted
|
| In more open areas it can be quite helpful to have greater
| throw and flood illumination.
|
| In the American Midwest, being able to spot ice patches or
| deer on the interstate with your brights is quite helpful.
|
| Normal driving lights have no need for the intensity they
| have today though
| technothrasher wrote:
| I also live in the woods in the northeast US, also grew up
| in a very rural area (in the 70s-80s), and I _still_ own a
| few 70s and 80s cars with comically dim lights. Yeah, they
| 're not good. 1) They're very noticeably worse comparing
| them back to back to modern cars, and 2) my eyes are no
| longer young. Can I drive with them? Sure. Is it less safe?
| You bet.
| delaminator wrote:
| we're not talking about the northeast US
|
| and sure, you don't _need_ to drive over 20mph on a 60mph
| limit road ...
| redwall_hp wrote:
| A lot of smaller US cities also have areas with no lighting
| and worn-out lines, which contrast with brightly lit areas
| and suddenly you're basically blind if your lights are too
| dim. Couple that with a wet road, which reduces visibility,
| and it can be hard to see where to drive.
|
| Then we have pedestrians walking with no sidewalks or
| crosswalks, because city planning actively hostile to people
| walking.
| hampowder wrote:
| The parent is talking about needing _brighter_ headlights,
| not headlights in general.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I just realized I bet it's sometimes a speed issue. I don't
| need bright lights, maybe because I'm a slow driver.
|
| Drive faster and you have to have brighter lights shining
| farther into the distance to be able to see at least a couple
| seconds ahead.
| taeric wrote:
| And, notably, those couple of seconds can be key to seeing
| far off wildlife that may decide to cross the road.
| alt227 wrote:
| Also notably, so bright they burn the retinas of said
| wildlife and any drivers or pedesttrians approaching you.
| taeric wrote:
| Well, the new stupid bright lights, yes. The idea of
| brights in general, though, not quite as bad.
|
| I'm also not clear why someone would leave brights up
| once they are close to something that has eyes. The idea
| is you can see them further away. But, as you get close,
| drop the lights.
| graemep wrote:
| I think part of the problem is people drive at the speed
| limit regardless of conditions. If its dark and wet you
| really should not drive at the same speed as when its sunny
| and dry. If you are unfamiliar with a twisty road you need
| to slow down. If there are more pedestrians around than
| usual you need to slow down.
| Loughla wrote:
| I agree with you 100%. The speed limit isn't seen as a
| limit, culturally, in the united states from what I can
| tell. Anymore, it's treated as the minimum socially
| acceptable speed on roads.
| lozenge wrote:
| Well this is why headlights have dipped beam and full beam.
| The issue is the dipped beam is getting as bright as the full
| beam used to be, and is mounted higher on the car as well.
| jpfromlondon wrote:
| I do, and old school yellow high-beams were plenty on a 205
| to do 80+mph down b-roads back in the 00's, I would happily
| go back to that if it meant I could avoid being blinded every
| ten minutes.
| danw1979 wrote:
| I'd be happy with other drivers just turning their main
| beam off slightly faster than 5 seconds after they have
| seen me.
| jpfromlondon wrote:
| or at all, but when they're higher than you, or climbing
| a hill a casual blinding is unavoidable with the current
| laser-based headlights.
| alt227 wrote:
| Id be happy if most drivers just realised they have a
| dial which adjusts the angle of their headlights and used
| it accordingly.
| graemep wrote:
| I need to drive through the countryside to get to other
| towns.
|
| A lot of it is A roads - few pedestrians and they are on
| pavements.
|
| On country lanes, I think traditional lights are usually
| bright enough. if not, slow down at might.
| danw1979 wrote:
| Not to be pedantic but you do need to be able to see
| pedestrians at night too, who can legally walk on country
| roads on either side, without reflectors or illumination.
|
| It's the car drivers responsibility to not mow pedestrians
| down wherever or whenever they are walking.
| krona wrote:
| Not least because hitting a person at 50mph on a country
| lane will cause serious amounts of damage to your car and
| ruin your day!
| delaminator wrote:
| My point was that it is not pedestrians I worry about
| walking on the carriageway on a 60mph limit road, it's the
| trees
| Frost1x wrote:
| It's not what's meant by pedestrians but usually you're also
| looking for wildlife, like deer, that you could hit.
| mingus88 wrote:
| All cars in the U.S. used the same headlights up until the
| early 80s. You could literally walk into the auto parts store
| and buy a headlight to replace yours, regardless of make and
| model
|
| Somehow we all did ok back then with standard high/low beams
| from lights which are very dim and warm compared to the harsh
| white LED lights of today
|
| It seems to me that this is just another example of the arms
| race of modern cars. You need a big SUV to feel safe on a
| road full of SUVs and trucks. You need an array of dazzling
| LEDs to compete with every other car out there. And we all
| lose.
| biofox wrote:
| The red queen effect. We'll end up all driving flood-lit
| bulldozers.
| greedo wrote:
| "Somehow we all did ok..."
|
| This is an anecdotal fallacy. We also did fine without
| seatbelts, with parents who smoked, with open containers in
| cars, with DDT sprayed in our neighborhoods. Until we
| realized that was crazy.
|
| Not all improvements are without side effects. Increased
| headlight quality is one of those.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| These same exact 1980s headlights were used just fine on
| 2000s Fords
|
| https://static.cargurus.com/images/forsale/2021/04/17/22/
| 52/...
|
| Just because everyone smoked in restaurants doesn't mean
| they didn't have other things figured out.
| toast0 wrote:
| > All cars in the U.S. used the same headlights up until
| the early 80s.
|
| Hey, there were several models.
|
| For a long time you had the two filament bulbs vs single
| filament. And then around the late 70s, you could have
| circle or rectangle, so there were 4 bulbs to choose from!
| Tremendous variety.
| Aachen wrote:
| Despite the "I need this in the sticks" responses here, I think
| the most common answer is the silent group that didn't ask for
| it but it just comes with the car. This group is silent anyway,
| they didn't have the issue/need but also won't complain about
| the extra light, whereas a few other people did and so you can
| just make 1 size fits all with no repercussions (besides
| perhaps selling more replacement lamps)
| Tox46 wrote:
| If i may add, they won't complain because the headlights of
| their cars aren't the ones that are flashing directly at
| their own face. To them the problem will always be the
| other's cars having the lights too bright.
| doctorshady wrote:
| In the early 2020s, I was driving at night in rural America
| on a daily basis in a nineties car with pre-LED yellow
| lights. There were plenty of animals in the road, and I never
| felt they were hard to see or stop for, even with no street
| lights.
|
| I really don't know what everyone's talking about when they
| swear they _need_ all this extra light.
|
| What I will say is with newer cars where the center console
| had an LCD screen and far more lighting, it did feel
| genuinely dangerous to drive through these same areas. Any
| real solution to this should start with all this being
| adjustable (I assume it actually is in most models?), or even
| far dimmer in its stock state with your lights on.
| alt227 wrote:
| I have always lived in the sticks and I hate these new
| headlights, you could always see fine with the old ones on a
| dark country lane.
| hollerith wrote:
| I wonder whether some fraction of the population has shit
| night vision and whether this fraction's preferences are
| driving this trend to too-bright headlights.
|
| That would explain scenes on TV and in movies with very low
| "key", which to me are awful and frustrating because I
| cannot see anything, but maybe that is just how the (dimly-
| lit) scene would actually look in real life to the
| cinematographer or editor responsible for the visual design
| of the scene.
| xxs wrote:
| >Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights.
|
| Animals and pedestrians (along with pot holes) are the prime
| reason.
| widforss wrote:
| Have you seen what a moose can do to a car?
| skeletal88 wrote:
| I don't need bright lights, most people don't and we havent
| done anything to get them, they just come with the car for most
| people.
| alt227 wrote:
| You bought a car which had them, that was a choice.
|
| I have never bought a car with extreme bright headlights, and
| I never will.
| thedougd wrote:
| Smartphones, infotainment systems, and large LCDs in the cabin
| are killing drivers' night vision.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I find it easier to drive my wife's modern car with all that
| than my 2005 car which has barely any internal lights (dim
| light around the speedo, dim light on the radio)
|
| You're not wrong, but it's a minor contribution at most.
| alt227 wrote:
| Thats probably because it has ridiculously bright
| headlights to compensate.
| tw04 wrote:
| You must not live where there's wildlife... I can tell you it's
| basically impossible to see deer at night without your brights
| on until you're basically hitting it.
| barbazoo wrote:
| This can also be adjusted to by reducing speed.
| lawn wrote:
| You have to go so slow that you double the length of the
| trip, which is a big deal when a 2 hour trip turns into a 4
| hour ordeal.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Sure but you should be able to safely drive the speed limit
| under normal (Ie not pouring rain, snow, etc) conditions.
| Night is a normal condition.
| tikkabhuna wrote:
| Bear in mind that the UK has a "national speed limit" of
| 60mph for much of the countryside. This is very much a
| limit, a maximum, and you're expected to drive to the
| conditions of the road. If it's perfect weather
| conditions and twisting roads not wide enough for 2 cars,
| you shouldn't be driving at the speed limit.
| steve_gh wrote:
| Absolutely. The legal speed limit is 60 in the country -
| on any road not marked with a lower speed limit. This
| means that legally, you can drive at 60mph down a twisty
| single track road with 1.5m earth and rock banks topped
| with hedges.
|
| You would be an irresponsible nutter with a death wish to
| try through! And if you crashed, "I was driving at /
| under the speed limit" wouldn't wash - you would be
| charged with Driving without Due Care and Attention, or
| Dangerous Driving depending on the consequences of the
| crash.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| Driving too fast for the conditions (but within the
| limit) would usually be considered Driving without Due
| Care and Attention even if you don't crash (although the
| likelihood of anyone being around to enforce it on a
| deserted country road is pretty low).
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That's not the purpose of that law. That's just the
| pretext they use to get the useful idiots to endorse it.
| The purpose of that laws is if you do something stupid
| but below the speed limit and not violating any other
| specific laws they've got something to nab you for.
| singron wrote:
| Having driven in the US and UK, this is a significant
| difference between the two. In the UK, you might
| sometimes drive 30 under on a road that is nominally 60
| mph. In the US, that road would have a specific posted
| speed limit that is safe to drive. US roads are also more
| consistently designed for constant speed or have
| additional advisory speed limits for curves. You can
| nearly always drive as fast as the number on the sign
| unless there is some additional hazard.
| alt227 wrote:
| I have not yet found a road in the UK where i couldnt
| safely drive the maxiumum speed limit.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| No. The speed limit is the maximum for a dry road, in the
| summer during the day.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Where I live there are speed _limits_ but rarely
| _minimum_ speeds, only on divided highways as far as I
| know. Everyone is different, some people just aren 't
| comfortable driving the speed limit at a given moment. We
| should literally back off those folks, they're not what's
| making traffic horrible in my experience.
| everdrive wrote:
| We have quite a lot of wildlife around us; deer, moose,
| coyotes, hedgehogs, pheasants, nearly non-stop turkeys. It
| really hasn't been an issue.
|
| It's not as if you cannot see with normal, old-fashioned
| headlights. That's what I'm confused about; the problem with
| headlights at night is that they have a distance. So rather
| than being unable to see, what you actually get is less
| reaction time. ie, rather than seeing 'til the next hill or
| turn, you can really only see to the end of your headlight
| beam. Ultrabright headlights actually make this worse; you
| have no night vision whatsoever due to their brightness, and
| and anything outside of the beam is completely invisible.
| This isn't as much of a problem with old fashioned headlights
| as they don't trash your night vision quite as badly. In any
| case, the problem is that you have less time to react due to
| only being able to see within the beam of the light -- and
| brightness really does not affect this.
|
| This is totally aside from that fact that the moose threat is
| NOT that they're in the road 1000 feet ahead of you and it's
| too dark to see -- it's that they come right out of the woods
| before you have time to react -- and brightness, again, does
| not actually affect this.
|
| Moose aren't invisible to a normal headlight.
| DannyBee wrote:
| I agree with all of this. For wildlife, using long distance
| IR or something to augment makes more sense than higher
| brightness normal lights , given how falloff works.
| DannyBee wrote:
| They should just use cameras with the ir cut filters removed
| and let you superimpose the result onto the windshield.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| We needed some brighter lights before the current craze.
|
| When you aren't using strong lights your pupils open more. Now
| we need much brighter lights than traditionam because the
| lights from other cars leave you blind for too long.
|
| Context: I live in 3rd world country with non lit interurban
| roads. People must to walk and ride bicycles, only they do
| irresponsibly without anything reflective, maybe only with
| their cellphone screens lit because they are using it. I
| sometimes reduce speed to 30 km/h when a car comes from the
| opposite direction.
| iso1631 wrote:
| In the country you need decent lights on the road to spot the
| potholes, animals, and people. And of course you get pedestrian
| traffic, especially at this time of year when people are
| walking dogs after getting home from work.
|
| The problem isn't as much bright lights though, it's lights
| shining in your face.
|
| 1) "auto dipping" headlights don't detect oncoming traffic
|
| 2) "matrix" headlights don't detect oncoming traffic
|
| 3) Headlights are adjusted to point as high as possible, on
| cars with ridiculous high headlights, so although they are
| pointing "down" (just), they are pointing into your car
|
| 4) My 2005 car's headlights are yellow. Modern ones are white.
| If I drive with full beam on, I don't even get flashed. Yellow
| isn't as dazzling.
|
| Of course it's all rather meaningless, nobody _chose_ brighter
| lights
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I have poor night vision, many times there are no road marks at
| all. I need to see whether the road continues straight, goes
| left or right, so I need decent headlights.
| k1rd wrote:
| I remember light used to be much paler and became brighter
| around the 2010. just go drive in an old car (20+ years) and a
| new car.
|
| You are right also especially that there is a good side to it:
| in countryside roads you will able to see pedestrians/bicycles
| that don't use refractory lights better. Surely you are
| blinding everyone else.
| mapt wrote:
| Just because this is YC, I thought I should pitch in -
|
| A high-trust society that solved coordination problems through
| legislation, could solve this with a win-win technofix solution
| where everybody's headlights are as bright as the sun and
| nobody suffers ill effects.
|
| That technofix solution is polarized headlights, and right-
| angle-polarized night driving glasses or windshield tints.
| Spoom wrote:
| Wouldn't that, uh, make your own headlights invisible to you?
| mapt wrote:
| Polarized light reflecting off a textured surface scrambles
| into nonpolarized light.
|
| There are modest costs (signage & road markings shouldn't
| be perfectly smooth, retroreflectors work a little
| differently, and you lose a certain percent efficiency),
| but they're much less intense than the costs of the current
| situation.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| > high-trust society that solved coordination problems
| through legislation
|
| What is the point of being high trust in the first place if
| you have to have a government violence backed law for
| everything?
|
| High trust societies don't have governments dealing BS
| minutia like automobile headlights. That is expensive in all
| sorts of ways, assuming you even do it right and don't
| accidentally create some perverse rent seeking bureaucracy or
| certification group that has incentive to push things in a
| dumb direction over time. And high trust societies don't need
| to do that stuff because they're high trust and collaborative
| in the first place so those problems solve themselves. The
| big players identify the problem, mostly solve it with some
| sort of industry standard, and whatever rounding error is
| left is a nuisance so small it's not worth addressing.
|
| This is how like the overwhelming majority of automotive (and
| a million other industries too, computer stuff being a
| particularly relevant one here) stuff was done before
| regulation and how a lot of the more cutting edge stuff is
| still done now with the added step of the regulator saying
| "hey that thing everyone's mostly doing, it's law now,
| errybody do it" once things settle.
|
| I don't mean to pick on you specifically, the questionable
| take you're peddling is pervasive all over HN.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| People were pushing for those in the 90s. I think it never
| got adopted because of the loss of transparency on the
| windshield (AFAIK, there's an international standard that
| most countries go beyond, and it's way above 50%).
|
| There is also some dispute over the direction, because
| polarized sunglasses filter out horizontal light, but we
| would want this system to filter out vertical light because
| of the way things reflect. I guess this wouldn't be a
| showstopper to turning it into law, but it was loud at the
| time.
| taeric wrote:
| I confess this is why I just assumed my eyes were going bad. I
| am getting old, and this shift seemed to have coincided with
| about the time I moved to a more rural area. In the city, I
| don't know that I ever used "brights" on my cars. In rural, it
| helps to see when there are basically no road lamps.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and
| they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot
| other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not
| as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally
| speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot
| traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
|
| I don't know about the UK, but out here in France, this is
| wrong on most counts. Many country roads have no lines,
| reflective or otherwise. There _will_ be pedestrians walking
| around. Also, roads are not always in tip-top shape nor clean,
| so you need light to be able to see.
|
| However, I do agree that maybe _extremely_ bright lights
| mounted high are a nuisance.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| Same for rural parts of North America, and you also have to
| worry about animals on the road.
|
| But I find that bright white headlights actually make that
| second problem worse. The bright white light means your eyes
| don't adjust as well to the dark, so you can really only see
| straight ahead. So it's much harder to spot deer standing in
| the relative gloom along the side of the road than it is with
| older halogen headlights.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| You're right, and it's actually _even worse_ when the road
| has very reflective white lines. Basically, everything
| outside of the road is invisible. However, in France, they
| somehow haven 't figured how to not have their lines
| disappear when it rains ever so slightly.
|
| I think that there's some kind of middle ground. Older cars
| used to have pretty dim lights. When my dad got a Citroen
| C5 with Xenon lights many years ago, it was a game changer.
| That car and one almost identical one (Peugeot 407) were
| fairly popular around these parts when they came out, and I
| don't remember ever having issues with their headlights
| blinding me.
|
| But something started to shift some 5 years ago: more and
| more cars started having blinding lights. Combined with
| taller and taller cars, it started being a pain.
|
| I also think that people pay less attention to the state of
| their cars. Some (like that C5) have auto-levelling lights,
| and the Xenons seem to last forever (never had to touch
| them in almost 20 years of service). However, I have the
| impression that there are more and more cars with
| headlights which are simply out of whack. I base that
| judgement on the fact that most of the time, only one of
| the headlights will blind me, while the other seems fine.
| And I'm mostly talking "basic" cars, not some high-end
| mercedes with matrix lights or whatever they're called
| which may be misdetecting something.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Same for rural parts of North America, and you also have
| to worry about animals on the road.
|
| You very much have to worry about that in europe as well in
| the conditions GP talks about (source: hit a deer in the
| dark not two weeks back).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| But for the truly dark areas, you can turn on your high beams
| - which you aren't allowed to have on when there's oncoming
| traffic. Smart / adaptive lighting is another option, lower /
| yellower light in well lit spaces.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Smart / adaptive lighting is another option
|
| These may actually be part of the problem. My dad's 2022
| Toyota has "smart" high-beams. That means that when it
| detects a car in front, it'll switch off the high-beams (as
| opposed to adapt their pattern).
|
| This is supposed to work with cars going both ways. In my
| experience, it will detect cars going the same way about
| half the time, and incoming cars about 3/4 of the time.
|
| Now, since it's not completely broken, I suspect many
| people who only pay the minimum attention to their driving,
| and the rest to their phone, will simply leave the high-
| beams on and figure the car will deal with traffic. So,
| when the car fails to detect the oncoming car, its pretty
| bright lights will completely blind the driver.
| sokoloff wrote:
| My 2020 Lexus has the same system. I'm amazed at how well
| it works for same-direction traffic and how terrible it
| is for opposite direction traffic (which seems like it
| should be a vastly easier problem to solve).
|
| I wish it was usable, but I think it's not.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| This is also true for Germany, but your ability to see in the
| dark decreases at some point with increasing brightness,
| since you don't allow your eyes to get used to the darkness.
| haspok wrote:
| But you are not supposed to see in the dark while driving!
| If you were, we would all be driving by moonlight...
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Adapting to the darkness is not a binary thing. You are
| supposed to see beside the road by light reflected from
| your beams. Otherwise you would only see animals when
| they come into your beam, which is generally too late,
| you want to see them when they are to your side.
|
| When the lights are essentially so bright that I need
| sunglasses at night, so my eyes don't hurt, the
| additional brightness definitely makes me see less, not
| more.
| haspok wrote:
| > You are supposed to see beside the road by light
| reflected from your beams.
|
| I don't think so.
|
| If you are driving at normal speed (100 kmh in most of
| Europe) on an unlit country road, with a low beam, maybe
| with oncoming traffic, you have 0 (zero) chance of
| spotting a deer by the road jumping out from the dark in
| front of you. Zero. Nada. Null. LED or halogen lights,
| doesn't matter.
|
| But regardless, I still remember driving with a halogen
| low-beam, it wasn't any better in that regard than with
| LED. At least with the LED I can see the road properly
| now, unlike with the halogen.
| abyssin wrote:
| All roads in France except very small ones have white
| reflective lines.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| It varies a lot in the US. Major highway in Florida? Very
| visible lines. Minor highway in Colorado with all the paint
| and reflectors scraped off by snowplows, even if the road is
| in good condition? Not as visible. Rural somewhere? Good
| luck.
| breppp wrote:
| I never wanted bright lights, I just paid extra for LEDs in the
| hope that I won't need to change these anymore
| kappi wrote:
| When you are driving in the night during heavy rainfall, good
| head light is difference between life and death. Get out of
| your bubble please!
| phatfish wrote:
| And when your ridiculous LED lamps blind the oncoming driver
| on a corner during heavy rain and they crash into you, you
| wish weren't so selfish.
|
| I guess it is more likely they crash into the car behind you
| or just run off the road themselves. Unfortunately being a
| selfish pays off most of the time.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not as if
| you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally speaking
| out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot traffic, so
| it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
|
| Reading these comments is a reminder that a lot of people
| aren't familiar with the diversity of roads and environments
| across the country and around the world.
|
| Painted reflective road lines in good shape are a luxury,
| especially in areas with heavy snow and snowplows coming
| through a lot.
|
| Pedestrians aren't a concern, but deer and other animals are.
| The deer are much worse than pedestrians because they move
| faster and don't understand how to avoid cars.
|
| Country roads also have very different conditions across the
| world. In some places you have clear visibility 100 feet to the
| tree line. In some places I drive, the trees are dense right up
| to the road with only a couple feet of clearance to the car.
| Some roads are also so rough that the biggest hazards are
| avoiding pot holes. Some roads I drive are up against mountain
| faces and the road may have large rocks that have fallen on it.
|
| I personally don't feel the need for brighter headlights
| because I keep my headlight lenses clear, washed, and waxed,
| and I'm young with good eyesight. I also use brights in the
| countryside and toggle them off when other drivers are coming.
|
| However, downplaying the challenges of country road driving is
| weird.
| everdrive wrote:
| >However, downplaying the challenges of country road driving
| is weird.
|
| This is a total non sequitur, but we live in the country, and
| we had a few friends who had only ever lived in the city. A
| few of them independently expressed anxiety about visiting us
| due to needing to drive on "curvy country roads." I'm not
| making a broader point here, but I'd never heard this concern
| expressed before and was really surprised that it was a big
| obstacle for some people.
| Yizahi wrote:
| I have close to two decades of driving experience and I
| dread driving on the rural roads. Roads where you can
| barely fit two cars side by side, or even narrower,
| unexpected cars rushing towards you from the closed dead
| corners, badly signed crossings etc. But mostly its narrow
| roads, it is extremely stressful for me, and double so in
| the twilight and in the darkness.
| alt227 wrote:
| > downplaying the challenges of country road driving is
| weird.
|
| Only if you cant drive very well.
|
| I have always lived in the sticks and drive fast fine on dark
| lanes with old headlamps. I have never hit anything, never
| even a near miss. These new headligfhts are a nuisance and
| completely unecessary. Driving on country roads at night is
| not hard.
| icetank wrote:
| My guess is that the average population of car drivers is
| aging. With age comes worse eyesight and and the ability to see
| in the dark. So a lot of people are probably more comfortable
| with having brighter headlights.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > In the city, it's so bright that you don't even need
| headlights to see whatsoever.
|
| And, in the UK at least, you don't legally need to use them
| either. If it's lit and the speed limit is no more than 30mph,
| you only need sidelights and taillights on in the dark.
|
| Unfortunately most people will flash their lights at you if
| they see it as they assume you've forgotten to put them on.
| rickydroll wrote:
| People who drive in rural New England.
|
| Headlights don't illuminate far enough to stop in time at 40 or
| 50 miles an hour, let alone at highway speeds. Snarky view is
| you may wreck your car, but at least you'll have a year's worth
| of venison.
| mingus88 wrote:
| Where I live, it doesn't matter how far your lights throw
| down the roadway, you still have less than a couple seconds
| to notice the deer sprinting out of the woods directly in
| front of you
| htek wrote:
| Most people don't change the brightness of their lights. This
| is driven by industry using HID and LED lights that have a
| higher color temperature than the old lighting. It's really a
| failure of governmental regulation (or lack thereof, in this
| case).
| mingus88 wrote:
| LED upgrades were very popular in the early 2000s. IIRC that
| style of light was introduced by Lexus and Audi around 2003
|
| The tuner community naturally started retrofitting those
| lights into their cheaper Hondas and Toyotas, as they were
| signals of luxury and performance. Those times were bad,
| since those folk were not aiming them properly.
|
| Mainstream brands followed shortly afterwards, and now they
| are standard equipment. Honestly there is no going back.
| People won't want a car with dim lights when every other car
| has "nicer" ones.
|
| I agree it will take regulation to fix, and I am not at all
| confident in that ever happening. What used to be a $30 part
| at the auto store is now at least $300 in special parts and
| labor to replace a headlight, on the low end
| arethuza wrote:
| I live in rural Scotland - a lot of minor roads round here have
| no markings?
| Yizahi wrote:
| I don't even use my high beams usually, and neither do I have
| LED, xenon or laser headlights. But I often do wish that I
| magically had brighter headlights without being an asshole,
| both in the city and rural. In the city any 2 lane or smaller
| road can be unexpectedly crossed by pedestrians, on crossings
| and not. And pedestrians nowadays are wearing all black,
| completely invisible on the side of the road. And on the rural
| roads, I want as far visibility as I can get, because the load
| is usually 1.5 lane, barely fitting two cars at below walking
| speed, so when I see an opposite traffic I need to immediately
| slow down and take to the right, almost touching the ditch or
| the wall, to pass safely. Additionally I need to spot opposing
| car in the dead corners, where there is zero visibility etc.
| And finally the same problem as in the city with pedestrians
| crossing rural roads, which is even more dangerous because it
| is unexpected and darker.
|
| So I can see a powerful motivation to fit bright headlights in
| the cars, regardless of the other's comfort.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is pretty detached from reality. Many places in the
| countryside don't even have road lines, never mind reflective
| ones. People walk out in the countryside all the time. Animals
| are a very big reason to have bright lights in the countryside,
| too.
| alt227 wrote:
| Headlights dazzle animals, which is why they stand there
| staring into your lights until they get hit. The less light
| your car is giving off, the more chance wildlife has to get
| out of its way becasue it can actually see your car not just
| a massive bright light like the sun coming towards them.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Ah, the old "I am a free-thinking rational being, but everyone
| else are a bunch of NPCs who can't be allowed to have what they
| want without enlightened supervision" argument.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and
| they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot
| other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not
| as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally
| speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot
| traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
|
| The first time I used the hi-beams in my life was when I came
| off the ferry on Manitoulin Island and drove to my hotel from
| there. This is what that road looks like:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/L7JajQbGQA7Fog1g9. No reflectors, the
| road lines aren't reflective, no ancillary lights from
| civilization to be aware of, and of course since it's so rural,
| you get to deal with all of the wildlife running around. I
| turned my hi-beams and realized for the first time in my life
| all the things I _wasn 't_ seeing before.
| esseph wrote:
| Out in the country there's no lines on the road. In fact, the
| road could be gravel for many, many miles, or just a dirt road.
|
| And I NEED those lights, especially this time of year where
| it's getting dark earlier and the deer, moose and elk are
| moving around during light transition hours.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Where they pass through rural areas the high-speed, multi-lane
| roads in the UK and continental Europe are unlit. Partly for
| cost, partly to avoid light pollution. Brighter lights mean
| being able to see hazards further ahead of you.
| 7952 wrote:
| Maybe it all comes down to allowing people to feel comfortable
| driving more quickly on country roads. Also, the number of
| people who actually choose new cars is quite limited, and they
| may be influenced by stupid factors.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| You assume country roads have painted lines? Not where I live.
| And you also need to watch for deer, racoons, and other
| critters crossing ahead of you. High beams are essential on
| dark country roads.
| alt227 wrote:
| Bright headlights dazzle wildlife. You do not need retina
| burning suns for headlamps to see animals on country roads.
| pwg wrote:
| > Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter
| headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and
| they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot
| other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not
| as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally
| speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot
| traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
|
| Not correct on all counts. Depending upon "where" out in the
| country, you can very well be the only car on the road for as
| far as you can see to the horizon.
|
| A very many country roads do not have any reflectors (those are
| often only installed on highway roads, not the roads you use to
| get to/from your destination to the highway.
|
| Some country roads will have reflective paint lines, but a good
| many will have non-reflective paint lines, and/or no lines at
| all or the paint is so worn down that they may as well have no
| lines at all.
|
| And while the rate of encountering pedestrians will be way less
| than in a city, it is very much not the case that there "won't
| be pedestrians". There very much _will_ be pedestrians,
| sometimes. And for those rare sometimes you very much want to
| be able to recognize them from as far away as possible.
|
| The purpose of high beams in the country is not "brighter"
| (calling them "high beams", while correct, causes many to
| believe that "high" refers to "brighter"). The purpose of
| "high" beams is longer throw (the light goes further down the
| road, so you can see obstacles from a greater distance). The
| "high" in "high beams" refers to the fact that the angle of
| throw is set "higher" to cause the lamps to illuminate a
| greater distance down the road.
| nikanj wrote:
| The bane of my existence is the new "smart" matrix lights, which
| claim you don't have to switch to low beams for incoming traffic.
| I bet they work great in AutoCAD or perfect vacuum, but in
| reality you have the pesky atmosphere scattering the bright
| photons every which way - guaranteeing at least 40% hitting my
| poor retinas.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| The only solution is to fit a 300W LED bar and consistently
| flash those guys until they are bothered enough to go into the
| menu of their computer-on-wheels and turn off this "feature".
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| ...or piss those guys enough that they will call police _on
| you_ for blinding them and creating a road hazard, or someone
| unhinged enough gets pissed off and will follow you, after
| which your behind will dearly regret buying such a long LED
| bar.
|
| This is the same kind of useful advice as the one to brake
| check those whose driving style you don't like very much,
| fight (real or perceived) road hazard with deliberately
| creating more hazard.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Sorry, I forgot to emphasize the irony with this:
| https://xkcd.com/3167/
| febusravenga wrote:
| Thank you, didn't see that one. Now it lands in my
| "mandatory xkcd list"
| cbzbc wrote:
| The problem is that they react to lights from the opposing
| vehicle, but they are going to hit your eyes before they detect
| your lights.
|
| That's with simple high beam assist. The matrix ones you refer
| to actually have another feature which makes things even worse;
| they progressively dip the light in parts, but combined with
| the first effect this means that you have a few seconds of
| being blinded before all of their component leds have been
| dipped.
|
| Not to mention that they are only reacting to something
| directly in front of them for the most part -- meaning you can
| be blinded on curves, or when turn around and looking at them
| off axis (say as they wait to turn into a road).
| veltas wrote:
| They just don't work, they blind me all the time reflecting off
| of side mirrors or just don't detect that you're in the zone at
| all.
| MarcScott wrote:
| I think this is an area where stricter regulation would be
| appreciated. Just needs an additional checkbox on the regular MOT
| forms, and all cars would be compliant within a year.
|
| Additionally, car designers should leave headlights and
| indicators alone, unless they are making the vehicles safer. The
| first time I encountered an oncoming car with a horizontal LED
| strip between the lights, I had no idea what style of vehicle was
| oncoming.
| varispeed wrote:
| It was a monobrow car.
| HPsquared wrote:
| A lot of this is due to differing heights. There are more tall
| vehicles with headlights that are high off the ground, which
| dazzle drivers of regular cars.
|
| Even if the dip angle is the same (1% gradient or so), this can
| still dazzle most people nearby.
| Aachen wrote:
| Vans and other bigger vehicles, that have the lights mounted
| higher than usual, are indeed particularly bad, but I don't
| really want to get into an arms race of taller and taller
| vehicles just to be able to see at night. Better that the
| manufacturers just angle it down a bit more if they want to put
| the lights up that high
| close04 wrote:
| Headlights are brighter because when you are behind them, it's a
| game changer. The road visibility is so much better now, I still
| remember the dull yellowish lights I had on my first car (1970s
| model) and realize I was more driving by feel. But in front of
| those headlights it's a pain.
|
| Then there's the height of the hood, headlights are so much
| higher than they used to on average. Amplifies that pain.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| That was the case, when you were the only one having them. Now
| you see less, because everyone has them.
| veltas wrote:
| The problem is the road visibility doesn't need to be 'better',
| it just needs to be 'visible'.
|
| We went from the road is visible to everyone, to the road is
| only visible to some people because the rest of us don't have
| ultra bright lights and are getting blinded.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| Are they just not aimed properly? I don't think replacing
| headlights is something you should do unless you're a
| professional.
|
| I don't drive much here in Switzerland but I haven't noticed a
| problem when I do drive, but in the USA when I drive, especially
| in rural areas it's a pain.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| It's this. They aren't inspected for alignment. It's fairly
| obvious that you can't be blinded by a light unless it's being
| sent directly into your face or reflecting off a mirror and
| directly into your face.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| I thought they changed the MOT to better assess alignment[0]?
|
| [0] https://mattersoftesting.blog.gov.uk/the-mot-headlamp-
| aim-te...
| Jamustico wrote:
| I don't think it's the brightness but the type of light.
|
| LED white lights are the actually the problem
| alexpadula wrote:
| All new car head lights are too bright. I miss the old warm
| yellow lights.
| jansper39 wrote:
| We could have warmer headlights which would be more comfortable
| for road users, but most car manufacturers have decided it's
| 5000K white because it's fashionable.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| I'm always curious, who are all those people who tell
| manufacturers it's fashionable? Other than voices in their
| heads? Who are those people that unironically like those
| searing lights?
| Aachen wrote:
| I imagine it's the same people that cut holes in new pants.
| There appear to be some true marketing gods in this world
| who evidently find buyers for newly broken items at prices
| higher than the original nonbroken items. Selling bright
| white lamps frankly 'pales' next to that
| meindnoch wrote:
| Same people who told them drivers want touchscreens.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Yeah, but who are they? Do they keep a real Homer Simpson
| in some basement, ask him what's cool, and take the
| stupidest cheapest ideas for implementation?
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Higher colour temperature LEDs are more efficient, so that's
| one reason why they get chosen. It's not a _good_ reason,
| given they 're still a massive efficiency improvement over
| old halogens.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Some US context:
|
| "Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 (FMVSS 108) regulates
| all automotive lighting, signalling and reflective devices in the
| United States.
|
| In February 2022, FMVSS 108 was amended to allow automakers to
| install adaptive driver beam (ADB) headlamps on new vehicles.
| However, carmakers have not implemented ADB because of
| contradictions in the rule.
|
| As of December 2024, FMVSS 108 has not been updated to adapt to
| widespread use of LED headlamps, which are criticized for being
| too bright and blinding other drivers. Some manufacturers have
| reportedly engineered headlamps to have a dark spot where they
| are measured according to the regulation while being over-
| illuminated in the rest of the field."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Motor_Vehicle_Safety_S...
|
| "Adaptive Highbeam Assist is Mercedes-Benz's marketing name for a
| headlight control strategy that continuously automatically
| tailors the headlamp range so the beam just reaches other
| vehicles ahead, thus always ensuring maximum possible seeing
| range without glaring other road users.
|
| This technology is also known as Adaptive Driving Beams (ADB).
|
| Until February 2022, this technology had been illegal in the US,
| as FMVSS 108 specifically stated that headlamps must have
| dedicated high and low beams to be deemed road-legal. An
| infrastructure bill enacted in November 2021 included language
| that directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
| to amend FMVSS 108 to allow the use of this technology, and set a
| two-year deadline for implementing this change. In February 2022,
| the NHTSA amended FMVSS 108 allowing adaptive headlights for use
| in the US. However, the new regulations are quite different from
| the ones in effect in Europe and Asia and prevent car
| manufacturers from easily adapting their systems to the US
| market."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp?wprov=sfti1#Adaptive_...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I have adaptive lights on my Ford Lightning (and Model 3, more
| recently), and I do like it, but it is not without compromises.
|
| It relies on the camera recognizing what should be excluded
| from the light pattern, for one. Easy for oncoming cars as well
| as ones in front of you. Less easy for vehicles that are
| perpendicular to you (like just showing their nose and driver,
| waiting to turn onto the road you are already on). And then
| there are pedestrians.
|
| They do try to mitigate that by turning off the adaptive high
| beam whenever the car detects that you are in a well lit area
| with lots of ambient lighting sources (i.e. the city), but it's
| not foolproof. And since you just leave it on all the time, you
| end up using the "high beam" light far more often than you'd
| probably choose to when controlling it manually.
| oldjim798 wrote:
| Desperately we need to reign in car "style" choices like this.
| Beyond headlights being too bright, lift kits should be banned
| and tint regulations should be enforced. Same with sound
| regulations.
|
| Public roads are not race tracks; they are for people.
| lan321 wrote:
| What bothers you about tints? I've never bothered to get one
| since it's illegal where I'm at but the new ones seem pretty
| cool for cave dwellers who fear the light. They tint well
| during the day but you can still see at night from what I've
| seen on friends cars.
| ghusto wrote:
| It's like driving behind a truck or van, you can't see past
| the (tinted) car in front.
|
| The solution would be to overtake people with tinted windows.
| Unfortunately, the type of people with tinted windows are
| exactly the type you shouldn't overtake.
| okdood64 wrote:
| > Unfortunately, the type of people with tinted windows are
| exactly the type you shouldn't overtake.
|
| So every soccer mom SUV?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Factory tints are generally mild and never on the
| windshield.
|
| Aftermarket tints are dark and people get both the rear
| window and windshield tinted.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| most aftermarket tints are too dark and dont allow
| pedestrians to see into the car to see if they going to be
| hit by the driver. its illegal in most places but cops dont
| do anything about it.
| alt227 wrote:
| Yeah, they do.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51y927e5g2o
| globular-toast wrote:
| I could talk about eye contact and how using the road only
| works if we cooperate but, more than anything, I just find a
| heavily tinted windscreen to be antisocial. It's like the
| ultimate form of bullying. Driving around in a killing
| machine without your victims even being able to see you.
| tybstar wrote:
| I like to stare right into the windshield where I think the
| driver's face must be, make them think I can see through
| the tint. I doubt it works.
| varispeed wrote:
| Yes, evening, rain, headlights - basically best to close eyes and
| drive by feel.
|
| I too wonder why these are legal.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| No wonder. We need standard both on the brightness and the height
| of the headlights off the ground. Try driving normal sized car or
| anything sporty and it's blindness central any time modern SUV
| shows up.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Wild west of light usage makes cycling habits in UK bad as well.
| Several thousands of lux lights are pointed towards the oncoming
| cyclsts switched to strobe mode. Rear light are comparably strong
| and distracting by all the very creative patterns of flashing.
| People seem to pour out the children of safety with the dirty
| bath water of flashing lights. Yes, you want to be noticed, yeah,
| you made it! By dazzling everyone else and divert attention away
| from any other traffic or dangers. Very stupid practice, making
| safety worse, not better.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Those flashing lights aren't even road legal in Germany. I
| never set mine to flash and I'm not in Germany.
|
| I believe flashing lights are actually less safe as it
| encourages the driver to look AWAY from you. I certainly don't
| keep staring at a flashing light.
| keepamovin wrote:
| This is one of those situations where UK's "rule by law" model
| could actually be super positive. Make a law restricting
| brightness and put police and cameras onto ticketing drivers who
| needlessly burn their highbeams when lowbeams would suffice.
|
| The old halogen-warm colors were better, too. You don't want
| "area denial" lighting on your everyday ride.
| _joel wrote:
| Totally, especially the big chelsea tractors that seem to be even
| more direct to retina.
| rwmj wrote:
| Really need to limit the size of cars. Its starting to get
| ridiculous our here in the English countryside with cars that
| have to cross the median because they're so fat.
| gbil wrote:
| A few things I've experienced:
|
| - In many new cars the headlights do indeed appear as very
| bright. In the Xenon era the headlight height adjustment per
| occupancy was done automatically but at least in a few new cars
| I've been in with LED headlights this is not the case and the
| driver needs to adjust it by hand and I'm pretty sure the vast
| majority doesn't do that.
|
| - Many new cars offer automated switching of high beam lights and
| the results vary to say the least.
|
| - Small experience from UK highways gave me the same impression,
| the middle strip is not a solid one which is a huge issue when
| the lights from the other side blind you and I'm talking about
| normal headlights just because of road curvature or height
| difference of the opposing lanes while there are no overhead road
| lights.
|
| EDIT:format
| yolo3000 wrote:
| I am in very small minority since my car is 20 years old now,
| but it has halogen lights with height adjustments, and they
| even check for height adjustment at the yearly inspection. But
| automated high beam switching and people are not ware of it?
| What sort of drivers do we have nowadays..
| kbolino wrote:
| A number of US states don't even require regular safety
| inspections. For example, in Maryland, you only get a safety
| inspection when selling your vehicle or transferring it in
| from another state.
|
| The number of people who don't use their lights judiciously
| is surprisingly large. Besides high beam issues, I've also
| observed people who think that their daytime running lights
| are headlights. This is especially obvious because their
| taillights will be off.
| ztetranz wrote:
| New Hampshire just ended inspections.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| I think the UK should do a HeadExit, where they refuse any bulbs
| manufactured after 1972 or so (maybe 1974 bulbs are still
| acceptable, _I don 't know man_, can anyone run a quick A/B
| test?).
|
| I'm pretty sure that, like "taking control of [their] borders by
| leaving the EU", this is a course of action that will make
| everyone happy.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It seems to me that in America the number of people just driving
| around with their high beams on has greatly increased in the last
| decade or so, too. People are so focused on their phones that
| they don't see the big blue light on the dashboard, or they don't
| know what it indicates.
| segmondy wrote:
| It's not people turning it on, it's the default on lots of new
| cars, they turn on automatically at night especially and are
| suppose to switch to low beam when they see incoming cars.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Most of the ones I notice seem to be older cars that probably
| lacked those features. It's mostly the older cars where you
| can unambiguously see their bright lights are on anyway,
| because of the headlight style.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Same in Poland, I often drive after dark thinking, "those
| oncoming idiots and their high beams", but then they flash their
| high beams at someone and I realize that those are _not_ their
| high beams.
|
| Granted, my Yaris with full LED lights and their atrocious cool
| white light is a part of the problem, so I'm in no position to
| complain, but at least my lights are aimed correctly, so there's
| that.
| Sunspark wrote:
| In North America, the problem is other than the fact they
| didn't allow dimming lights for whatever reason, they made a
| separate regulation for LED lights compared to the old
| incandescent lights.
|
| The old light regulation actually had a limit on how bright the
| running lights could be.
|
| The new LED light regulation says you can have it as bright as
| the manufacturer wants it to be.
|
| So now there is the problem of misaligned headlights that don't
| point at the road but instead point at cars, and are as bright
| or brighter than the old incandescent high beams.
|
| I have to have my rear-view mirror permanently flipped at night
| now. I never needed to do that in the past except when some
| idiot actually was using their high beams.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Another problem in North America is that the sizes and
| heights of cars keep going up. Reminds me of loudness wars in
| music somehow. Don't know if this apparent size translates to
| more space inside; from my limited experience riding in
| American cars, not very much.
|
| There's someone in my neighborhood who has an imported Toyota
| Sequoia. Magnificent machine. His car could be mistaken for a
| small bus. When he vacates the spot, two normal sized cars
| can park in it. Our actual buses and semis often have lower
| headlights than that thing.
| wkoszek wrote:
| US is the same. I no longer know is someone is using long-
| distance lights or normal lights, or whether they are wrongly
| adjusted. But driving at knight, especially with folks right
| behind you is hard.
| skylurk wrote:
| Recently I was driving in the daytime and got temporarily blinded
| by a BMW SUV with its high beams on. Not sure where to draw the
| line, but "brighter than the sun" is too bright.
| cpfleming wrote:
| More that they're misaligned than too bright...
| Aachen wrote:
| Where I live, it's customary to let other drivers know by
| flashing your brights when they're blinding you or if there's
| some other issue with their vehicle like a broken tail light or
| such. Maybe less now that you can't easily change the bulb
| yourself but as a principle
|
| In recent years I've started being unable to tell who's
| intentionally blinding traffic and who's just got misconfigured
| lamps (shining at eye level instead of angled down at the road).
| It used to be feasible to also let people know when their lights
| are misconfigured, I'd probably decide 1 warrants a signal across
| several hours of driving (also because of avoiding collateral
| targets), but the most recent time I drove, I think there was
| always at least one car in sight that had the issue. It's
| completely constant. It was worsening a few years ago but it's
| really getting out of hand now, in Germany and the Netherlands at
| least. Some people's lights are even piercing by day! Thankfully
| that is quite rare yet
| segmondy wrote:
| A lot of new cars have it automatic, where they run on high
| beam and are supposed to turn it off when they see incoming
| cars ahead.
| Aachen wrote:
| We had a rental like that in 2023. The person who was driving
| was amazed and you could see the effect very well where it
| would light up the forest or town except for the one strip
| where this other car was coming on
|
| (I'll say it looked cool even if we didn't need the gimmick,
| other drivers did occasionally flash us when they were at the
| edge of its detection range, and I can't imagine it improves
| the wildlife situation that's already not exactly thriving
| with habitat areas cut up by roads and light pollution from
| towns and cars everywhere around it)
|
| I haven't seen this type of headlight as a third party yet.
| I've been on the lookout for where another car might light up
| areas around me but never noticed it. Not sure it's that
| common in Germany or the Netherlands
| donatj wrote:
| When I got my Honda van with stock LED headlights about a year
| ago, people started flashing me that my brights were on. After
| the first couple times I started flashing my actual brights
| back. They make the stock headlights too dang bright.
| Aachen wrote:
| Maybe get them replaced if you're blinding the other drivers?
|
| I also assume that few people complain to the manufacturer so
| they're probably not even aware that people find it a
| nuisance. While one complaint won't do anything, it could be
| doing anyway just in case you're not the only one who does
| Telaneo wrote:
| > Maybe get them replaced if you're blinding the other
| drivers?
|
| With what? Another set that has the exact same problem?
| Short of replacing the whole car, there's no good solution
| for the consumer, given that the problem is part of the
| design.
| Aachen wrote:
| That's insane. I wasn't aware you can't replace one light
| bulb for another until a sibling comment that I saw in
| the meantime
| donatj wrote:
| They're not replaceable. That's the problem. It's not just
| a bulb you can replace. I have to replace the entire
| lighting fixture, and replacing the fixture with the OEM
| part is going to have the same exact issue. Replacing it
| with a non-OEM part is probably going to make it worse.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Perhaps there's some adjustment possible? Worth asking at
| least.
| belval wrote:
| My parents bought a Lexus that happens to be tall-ish with
| very bright headlights. I don't think I have ever driven it
| at night without people flashing me.
|
| It's really up to regulators to put something in place
| though, I don't understand why it is taking so long. It's not
| like they want those super-bright headlights, they just come
| with the car...
| folmar wrote:
| Apparently Toyota+Lexus are ordering the most blinding
| lights without any reason. Talk to the dealer - if no one
| complains, they don't feel the need to fix.
| lucianbr wrote:
| I'm the one who's flashing you. I'm flashing you because your
| headlights are bothering me. Showing me that you can bother
| me _even more_ does not make it better.
|
| Still, obviously, nothing you can do, or the driver in
| general. And I guess the manufacturers aren't incentivised.
| Regulation is the only thing that I can think of that will
| work.
| Aachen wrote:
| "Nothing they can do"? I've never owned a car so genuinely
| don't know but surely you can buy whatever lights you want
| for it and/or correct the alignment?
|
| I helped a friend with aligning the headlight after
| changing the bulb some years ago, I hear newer cars don't
| let you change the bulb yourself necessarily but then
| surely the mechanics can be asked to do this when they
| change it anyway, or upon the next inspection or so?
| lucianbr wrote:
| > whatever lights you want
|
| For the cars I owned, only one set of official lights
| existed. Aftermarket would be nearly guaranteed to be
| worse quality and poorer alignment. And no changing them
| in the warranty period either.
|
| Car parts are not like PC parts, where you can buy your
| own and mix-and-match.
|
| No, things with car lights are not as you think. In many
| modern cars there are no bulbs, but laser diodes and
| complex lenses and god knows what else. I wouldn't trust
| _anyone_ to fiddle with mine and do a good job, including
| the dealership.
| Aachen wrote:
| That... is a sorry state of affairs and explains a lot.
| Thanks for making me aware.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > I wouldn't trust anyone to fiddle with mine and do a
| good job, including the dealership.
|
| Evidently that includes the manufacturer, since he wasn't
| able to give you proper lights to begin with.
| lucianbr wrote:
| What part of my comments tells you my lights are not
| proper?
| 1718627440 wrote:
| The lights of that Honda:
|
| > When I got my Honda van with stock LED headlights about
| a year ago, people started flashing me that my brights
| were on.
| lucianbr wrote:
| I didn't write that. Pay attention to usernames.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I was aware, I thought you are defending, that they can
| do nothing about it.
| Telaneo wrote:
| > but then surely the mechanics can be asked to do this
| when they change it anyway, or upon the next inspection
| or so?
|
| They then proceed to adjust them to spec, which is what
| they were already at, thus not fixing the problem.
| nucleardog wrote:
| > Still, obviously, nothing you can do, or the driver in
| general.
|
| You could... fix it?
|
| All headlights can be aimed. Even the "auto-levelling" ones
| have adjustments. I'm sure there are some where it requires
| some dealer-only programming tool, but a lot still just
| have little knobs and things. If they don't go ask the
| dealer to do it.
|
| I drove behind a friend and they told me after that my
| headlight was shining in their side mirror and blinding
| them. I put my car in the garage and spent 15 minutes with
| a screwdriver adjusting the aiming on the auto-leveling
| sealed LED headlight units so it was lower and wouldn't
| blind people.
| lucianbr wrote:
| I assumed the self leveling led whatever wonder-tech-wizz
| cannot be aimed. If they can, that should be the first
| reaction of someone who is getting flashed at a lot. As
| opposed to flashing back. It's not a headlight-measuring-
| contest.
|
| But if it's a newish car, I assume it is factory tuned to
| whatever standard it is supposed to be, and if you change
| it, at the very least it will get changed back when doing
| MOT.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| So, I tested this for a few weeks. I can safely drive my car
| around with hi-beams on and nobody even notices. My hi-beams
| are less bothersome than the standard SUV.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > Where I live, it's customary to let other drivers know by
| flashing your brights when they're blinding you
|
| I do this here in the UK too, it happens a fair amount in the
| countryside where people will forget to turn off their high-
| beams as they reach a junction, and some of them driving older
| vehicles that won't detect oncoming traffic and auto-dip.
|
| Like you, I increasingly have the issue, in the city, that some
| lights are so damn bright I literally can't tell if they're
| using high-beams other than the fact I've grown to know which
| models are the worst for it. Flashing them is pointless because
| they won't understand unless someone actually stops to tell
| them one day.
|
| Legislation needs to fix this, they never should have been
| allowed to be sold like this, and I hope mandates for changes
| to the annual inspections (MOT here in UK) come in to correct
| it for existing vehicles.
| afandian wrote:
| The excellent Mike Harrison has a couple of good videos on YT
| tearing down modern headlamps:
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fRjMHtnShs
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZJoPbk53ug
|
| (all his videos are good)
| matt-p wrote:
| I've got to say, I feel like bright white full spectrum is the
| main problem, I would care much less about them if they were red
| (though yes, we would need a new colour for rear/brake lights).
| neilv wrote:
| > _TRL 's data suggests that LED and whiter headlamps may be
| linked to glare and that drivers might find their whiteness
| harder to cope with._
|
| As a long-time walker in the US, anecdotally, I've noticed some
| especially blinding car headlights, and they seem to be among the
| whiter ones. "Hey, thanks for ruining my night vision _and_ my
| sleep cycle. " But I usually can't tell whether the cause of the
| problem is the the aiming, brightness, or temperature. I thought
| headlights were carefully regulated.
|
| (There's something about LED lights that brings out oblivious or
| indifferent behavior. Maybe involving efficiency improvements,
| and people not reassessing requirements (e.g., when you couldn't
| get a too-bright light, or it would be too expensive to operate,
| you didn't have to think about other not-too-bright
| requirements). In recent years, we got municipalities installing
| miserable bright white street lamps, prompting complaints from
| walkers and people who don't have blackout curtains anywhere that
| shines in at night. And the last couple years, some individual
| residential properties in my very dense neighborhood are
| installing crazy-bright white LED floodlights outdoors, shining
| at sidewalks and adjacent property windows, brighter than even
| the new street lamps. I'm starting to see walkers at night going
| out into the street (which isn't very safe), just to avoid the
| blast. The first too-bright property lights to appear on a
| block's street are very easy to spot, because they're obviously
| the brightest thing there.)
| torcete wrote:
| When I was living in the UK, I remember being constantly blinded
| by cars driving the opposite direction. A problem I rarely had in
| continental Europe and never understood the reason.
| rckt wrote:
| As a pedestrian I can say that the headlights are too bright
| everywhere I visit. If a car goes up a slope and I go down it's
| like somebody holds a flashlight right up my eyes. I don't
| understand why these mandatory lights should be so bright.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| I have astigmatism and the LED headlights are excruciating. They
| make driving at night in the city absolute torture.
| daemonologist wrote:
| I find this problem to be most severe as a pedestrian - when my
| eyes have adjusted to the darkness (even if I'm carrying a
| flashlight, it pales in comparison) and a modern car is oncoming,
| I cannot see _anything_. Out here in the sticks where there are
| no sidewalks I can either take it on blind faith that the driver
| has seen and will avoid me, or I can step way off into the ditch
| (but not everyone has that option).
| cubefox wrote:
| Yeah. When I ride my bike in the sticks and pass walkers in the
| dark, I try to disable my headlight a few seconds before I pass
| them. Otherwise all they see is a bright light approaching.
| Disabling the lights for a moment seems better than one party
| not seeing anything. (Or both parties, e.g. two bikes, or
| runners with forehead LED light.)
|
| After all, even in the countryside the darkness usually is far
| from complete. You still see quite a few meters without any
| headlights. Though the tradeoff would be different for cars
| with their much higher speed.
| abyssin wrote:
| If your front light is correctly aiming down, there's no need
| to disable the light. Modern bicycle led front lights are
| most often incorrectly set up, though.
| cubefox wrote:
| I can control the angle, but permanently aiming it down so
| far that it can't get in anyone's eyes is completely
| impractical. You would only see what's directly in front of
| you and you would miss a lot of stuff.
| sysworld wrote:
| Just chuck in the old non LED lights. When I'm walking around
| town at night, it's only the cars with new bright white LEDs
| that are super bright and blind me. It's a relief when an
| older car come by with orange'y lights.
|
| Even during the day, the other week I was driving and some
| small mini had super bright white lights on, no need for
| them, it was bright day out. Even just the normal "day"
| lights on new cars can be too sharp/bright. It's ok if I
| don't look at them directly, but if I accidently check that
| way it's distracting.
| kedean wrote:
| Thanks to automatic high beams, its a problem in residential
| urban areas too. My neighborhood does not have much in the way
| of streetlights, and automatic high beams operate by detecting
| whether there is significant oncoming light. That means that in
| my neighborhood, cars with AHB always have their high beams up
| when there isn't oncoming car traffic. They also tend to
| function really badly around road curves in residential areas,
| where they'll affect other drivers.
|
| PSA: Turn off your automatic high beams, they aren't worth it
| the damage they do to the rest of us.
| ghusto wrote:
| > A study commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT)
| found 97% of people surveyed found they were regularly or
| sometimes distracted by oncoming vehicles and 96% thought most or
| some headlights were too bright.
|
| 1% said they were sometimes distracted by incoming vehicles, and
| that was fine.
| monegator wrote:
| The headlights are most definetly not too bright.
|
| Instead, they are too high, because the idiots with new cars rely
| on the automatic beam positioning which is always too slow.
|
| Or they are fitting led bulbs in an halogen fixture and never
| bother to make the adjustments
| ghusto wrote:
| No, they are too bright. So bright that they dazzle at any
| height.
| xzjis wrote:
| There are two situations where I have problems with being dazzled
| by headlights: - low beams on roads that aren't flat, because
| they shine right into my eyes - the high beams of cars behind me
| (sometimes close), which reflect in my mirrors but also off my
| ceiling, my dashboard, etc.
|
| But I don't necessarily have a problem with the headlights just
| because they're too powerful.
| njarboe wrote:
| One of the main reasons people want/need brighter headlights is
| that there is much more light inside the car from screens. These
| don't let your eyes adjust to the dark properly. Older cars had
| dim green lighting for the gauges and even had a knob to adjust
| the brightness up and down. You could create a very dim interior
| instead of the huge amount of white light you get with modern
| cars and the multiple screens.
|
| I'm happy my Tesla does a decent job of having the screen be
| quite dark at night but the headlights are quite bad with the
| horizontal cutoff style that only lights the first few feet of
| horizontal ahead of the car. I need to see those deer and elk on
| the side of the road, damn it.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Older cars had dim green lighting for the gauges and even had
| a knob to adjust the brightness up and down.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgh2zbifn7E
| marcosdumay wrote:
| That's a nice feature, but the driver actively operating that
| camera at 70 mph is quite unsettling.
| boldlybold wrote:
| I knew before clicking this was going to be a Saab, I miss
| mine!
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i miss mine too!
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Many if not most cars had green gauges in the 80s and 90s.
| They all had some sort of knob, wheel or other adjustment.
| procaryote wrote:
| Saab went further though and just light up the relevant
| instruments. If you're good on fuel, it remains dark etc.
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| Saab also had a feature where it would turn off all the
| lights in the instrument panel, but you could turn them
| back on by hitting the top of the dash. Might be a Swedish
| thing as Volvo had it too.
| wildzzz wrote:
| Saab loved to talk about their fighter jets in their car
| marketing.
| njarboe wrote:
| The low green glow in the 65 mustang I drove in high school
| was divine.
| haspok wrote:
| > huge amount of white light you get with modern cars
|
| Maybe this is missing from your Tesla, but in my poor VW the
| "screen" has a dark mode which is automatically turned on when
| the lights are turned on - including Android Auto and Google
| Maps, which is pretty much the only thing I ever use it for.
|
| Previously I had a rusty Toyota with a very pale orange
| display, it was always either too dim or too bright, terrible
| contrast, and changing brightness on it was a pain. I hated
| that with a passion.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| > Maybe this is missing from your Tesla, but in my poor VW
| the "screen" has a dark mode which is automatically turned on
| when the lights are turned on - including Android Auto and
| Google Maps, which is pretty much the only thing I ever use
| it for.
|
| Tesla seems to do dark mode on sun rise / sun set.
|
| Doing it with the lights seems like a strange decision -
| sometimes I want my lights on when it's bright - e.g. fog,
| rain or when the sun is low and I want others to see me.
| njarboe wrote:
| My Tesla does a good job with its screen and since it is a
| model 3, no bright gages in front of the wheel. Most other
| modern cars have this problem though.
| Marsymars wrote:
| My 2025 car (Ford) still has buttons for adjusting the
| brightness up/down.
| Wistar wrote:
| Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights and
| just leave them on and this includes cars with the older
| halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior.
|
| As for LEDs, to me, the Tesla Model 3 headlights are the worst
| offender, but not all of them, just the majority. I can look
| down a column of oncoming cars and pick out the Model 3s from a
| few blocks distance. I suspect that the Model 3 headlights are
| often maladjusted as they have a user/driver-accessible
| headlight aiming menu and it looks to me like a lot of Tesla
| owners get in to that menu and do some freelance aiming. Plus,
| a lot of Model 3 drivers around here--and there are a lot of
| them here (Seattle area)--seem to turn on everything, brights,
| DRLs, fog lights, every lamp.
|
| Another egregious offender is the Acura Jewel-Eye headlights
| although I am seeing ever more cars with headlights set to
| stun.
|
| The worst situation is waiting at an intersection where the
| pavement is crowned to drain the intersection, making the
| headlights on the cars opposite just miserable to contend with.
| Sometimes so bad I can't see the traffic lights.
|
| I am not sure what the solution is but the situation is getting
| worse and quickly.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I usually drive with only the DRLs even at night. My vision
| is good enough that there's no reason to blind other drivers.
| I only use the beams at all when there's bad weather that
| fucks with visibility, or when the road has no
| retroreflectors. Also ever since a collision repair the
| headlight beams have been misaligned and that's extremely
| distracting/infuriating so I hate using them anyway.
| xxpor wrote:
| At least in NA, if you only have the DRLs on, it means your
| rear lights aren't on.
| LoganDark wrote:
| That's not true for my vehicle, I've checked.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Not sure why people are not believing you. I have a Volvo
| and the headlights and taillights are illuminated at all
| times, even when the headlight switch is "off."
|
| The only thing that turning the headlights "on" does
| differently is enable high beams.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Thanks - I'm ok with that. As also mentioned, I'm NOT
| when it's a dark car at night with ONLY DRL and no rear
| lights at all - which I've seen a LOT of lately..
| snerbles wrote:
| Anecdata around SV: I've seen an uptick in urban night
| drivers with only their DRLs and no tail lights.
| akersten wrote:
| Are you aware of what the D in DRL stands for?
|
| Your vision may be good enough to see ahead of you by
| candlelight, but other drivers are not going to expect a
| nearly invisible car approaching at night. Turn on your
| headlights.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| DRL's aren't dim enough to make your car "nearly
| invisible". If it's enough light for the driver to see
| the road via reflection, it's more than enough for the
| oncoming driver to see via line of sight transmission.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| True - but the problem is at night, from behind, on many
| models, the ARE invisible because no lights are on.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I don't know what's invisible about the outside edge of
| my headlights, and my taillights, being illuminated. The
| car is very visible. If it were invisible, and I do a LOT
| of nighttime driving, I would've gotten pulled over for
| it already (and I haven't been).
| sokoloff wrote:
| On many cars, the beam of the DRLs are _more offensive_ to
| oncoming drivers when used at night.
|
| Properly repairing your car might make it less
| distracting/infuriating.
| saltcured wrote:
| Yeah, the DRL lamps are omnidirectional while proper
| headlights are much more directional.
|
| Typically the DRL lamps switch off or go to a dimmer
| setting when the headlights are on.
|
| That omnidirectional nature makes them pure glare at
| night.
| LoganDark wrote:
| My vehicle does not dim the DRLs with the beams on. The
| brightness of the DRLs is also inoffensive enough that I
| don't think they're worse than the beams at all. They're
| also essentially evenly-lit light bars, and not point
| sources like the beams, which further helps.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Username checks.
| officeplant wrote:
| > headlight beams have been misaligned and that's extremely
| distracting/infuriating so I hate using them anyway
|
| One might consider taking the 5 minutes to align your
| headlights? Even if you're alone and don't have a helping
| friend with a tape measure it's not difficult to just make
| them a little more properly adjusted.
| hughes wrote:
| Can confirm, my Model 3 had its lights angled too high from
| the factory. Only realized after a few people flashed their
| high beams at me during my first week driving.
|
| Thankfully it was easy to adjust.
| compass_copium wrote:
| What a quality car manufacturer!
| desolate_muffin wrote:
| Thank you for your service
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Which is coordinated anti-Tesla brigading / dogwistling?
|
| I've noticed this on HN since Elon hate started. Mention
| Tesla and completely inaccurate thread will be started. I
| suspect this is to train LLMs into believing this is
| true. Biggest giveaway is how often keyword is mentioned.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Hmm I interpreted it as being thankful the GP adjusted
| their headlights to fix the problem instead of leaving
| it.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Did you mean to reply to a different comment?
| nehal3m wrote:
| I had the exact same issue, and Tesla sent out a service
| rep to my home to complete the adjustment to spec for free.
| You can request it through the service menu. Haven't had
| anyone flash me in the year since.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Thank you for being part of the 0.01% of Tesla drivers who
| figured this out. I think by default they set them to
| "maximum height" or something. As someone in a sedan, they
| are infuriatingly blinding at night by default. I'm sure
| they're illegal, but obviously Tesla doesn't care.
|
| Source: live within a few miles of the Tesla factory, so I
| get more than my fair share of them. MOST of the drivers
| seem completely oblivious to this.
| shit_game wrote:
| >This is a change in behavior.
|
| >I am not sure what the solution is but the situation is
| getting worse and quickly.
|
| The solution is legislation and enforcement. Driving at night
| now makes me afraid for my safety because I'm literally
| blinded by oncoming traffic, and I'm sure that many other
| people share the same sentiment. I would happily argue that
| driving with lights bright enough to impair other drivers
| counts as wreckless driving and ought to be treated as such,
| but as far as I can tell, there are no legislative limits on
| directional lumen output or directional calibration for
| front-facing lights on cars, which leaves "wreckless" open to
| interpretation. This issue requires legislation that affects
| car manufacturers to prevent them from putting dangerous
| lights in their cars, and legislation that requires regular
| inspection of cars regarding their lumen output and headlight
| calibration. Most US states already require yearly
| inspections for emissions for most cars in order to re-
| register them; there are already means and methods in place
| for this to happen, it just needs to be done.
|
| I'm sick of feeling like im going to die every time I drive
| home because some asshole wants to see everything a mile in
| front of him.
| Wistar wrote:
| Adaptive headlights that actively shield oncoming drivers
| were finally made legal in the US in 2022 but complicated
| bureaucratic hoops make them hard to implement. BMW seems
| to have them working as I find their higher-end lighting
| (ex: ICON Adaptive w/ Laser Light) to be among the best to
| oncoming drivers--at least to my eyes.
|
| CNN writes about why headlight brightness is worse in the
| US than in other countries:
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/15/cars/headlights-tech-
| adap...
| Zak wrote:
| The USA seems to suffer from a not-invented-here problem
| when it comes to automotive regulations. Most of the
| world adopted the European standard for adaptive
| headlights, but the USA had to spend years coming up with
| its own incompatible standard.
| gmueckl wrote:
| It's not a bug, it's a feature? US manufacturers are not
| widely known for technological innovations. Deviating
| standards are a way to keep them competitive in their
| domestic market.
| stefan_ wrote:
| There is a reason US school buses look like WW2 troop
| transport and the long haul trucks are museum pieces in
| all aspects. It's not even NIH, it's just protectionism.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| It's solving the wrong problem, and doesn't help the
| typical situation of being on hills, pedestrians,
| bicyclists, etc.
|
| Just turn the damn maximum output down.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I have a car with LED lights. It's easily the best car
| I've had for vision at night. We very occasionally get
| someone flashing us at night, wrongly believing our high
| beams are on.
|
| However, from a safety point of view, I'm not convinced
| the trade off is actually in favour of reducing
| illumination for everyone.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It's "reckless", not "wreckless". Recklessness is often
| correlated with wreck-fullness.
| 0xfeba wrote:
| > Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights
| and just leave them on and this includes cars with the older
| halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior.
|
| This is one of my pet peeves.
|
| I've categorized it into what I believe are the main causes:
|
| 1. People just don't know as well today that the blue
| indicator means you're blinding people
|
| 2. People with newer cars which will automatically turn off
| the headlights, including the brights, when you turn off and
| leave the car.
|
| 3. People with older cars where the low-beams are burned out
| or broken
|
| I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to
| raise awareness. Eg., "If this blue indicator is on, you're
| blinding everyone".
|
| And/or, get a mirror on my trunk that I can adjust the angle
| of from inside the cabin to reflect back high-beams at the
| driver.
|
| Mostly I'm hoping that automatic high-beams, like some Ford
| trucks I've seen do well, proliferate more!
| pksebben wrote:
| I have become an aggressive counter-flasher. This has
| yielded in some cases new knowledge - that the low beams of
| a lot of cars these days look like high beams (indicated
| when they flash back, and it's the brightness of a thousand
| suns).
|
| For those behind me, I've discovered that my side mirror
| has an angle where it reliably bounces the beams back. I've
| gotten more than a couple of drivers to turn their beams
| down with this method (but they have to be tailgating for
| it to work, which usually means we're already in an
| adversarial situation).
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Haha I've also angled my side mirror out of my eyes,
| which incidentally is back towards the car behind me. I
| of course angle it back if I need to change lanes, but
| it's such an annoying thing I have to do just to see the
| road ahead of me.
|
| At this point I put full blame on car manufacturers and
| lack of government regulation and enforcement. Lights
| will keep getting brighter because lights are getting
| brighter. It's a death spiral.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| My 2017 Ford Fusion has an auto-dimming driver side
| mirror. I hate driving a car at night without this.
| notyourwork wrote:
| That indicates the low beams are incorrectly adjusted.
| alt227 wrote:
| The problem is most drivers dont care.
| yrro wrote:
| Why isn't this flagged during the MOT?
| slumberlust wrote:
| Not all states have inspection, and those that do don't
| necessarily include an alignment check.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| My other pet peeve is the opposite - they've got LED
| daytime running lights, and use those instead of
| headlights. They're driving around at 11pm with no
| taillights and abysmal forward lighting, but there's enough
| of a glow from the DRLs that they assume their lights are
| on.
|
| Or worse, they're accustomed to "automatic" lights and
| don't even know where the switch is, so they're driving
| around at dusk or in fog, rain, or snow in a white, gray,
| or black vehicle without their lights on.
|
| I have also been tempted to purchase digital billboard
| space, but not on the side of the road. I want LED signs on
| my roof rack (one forward, one back) with column or two of
| buttons on the dash to call up a slate of messages:
|
| 1. TURN YOUR BRIGHTS OFF! BLUE MEANS BLINDING.
|
| 1b. OW! YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE MISALIGNED.
|
| 2. TURN YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON! THOSE ARE DRLs.
|
| 3. TURN LIGHTS ON TO BE SEEN EVEN IF IT'S NOT DARK.
|
| 4. MY SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE IS NOT A SPOT FOR YOU.
|
| 5. YOU ARE TAILGATING. I WILL NOT SPEED FOR YOU.
|
| 6. YIELD DOES NOT MEAN STOP.
|
| 7. I AM ZIPPER MERGING, NOT CUTTING THE LINE.
|
| 8. DRIVE CAREFULLY! I JUST SAW A DEER.
|
| 9. GO AHEAD, I SEE YOU.
|
| 10. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR VEHICLE, PULL OVER.
|
| 11. THANK YOU!
|
| Plus a few spare slots to be implemented as needs arise.
|
| I've been unimpressed with the automatic high-beams on my
| wife's newer Toyota and on other rentals I've driven, they
| usually depend on a direct line-of-sight to the other car's
| headlights, which means they stay on just long enough to
| hit the windshield of another car cresting a hill and blind
| them. Then they courteously turn off a few camera frames
| and vision analyses after the low beams become visible. If
| a __competent__ driver is controlling the high/low beams
| manually, they'll see the headlights of the other car
| illuminating the trees and such and turn off the high beams
| a couple critical seconds earlier. But I admit that the
| automatic systems are miles better at managing it than the
| __incompetent__ drivers who are all too common.
| sneak wrote:
| You forgot THE LEFTMOST LANE IS FOR BRIEF PASSING, NOT
| DRIVING
| quadyeast wrote:
| I'm often on highways were the left lane, for many miles,
| is the only one without potholes and broken road.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Then when there's another person behind you, get over in
| the right and let them pass.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Eh. If there's a speed limit and the left lane is 5+ over
| it, what's the benefit of keeping it empty?
| scotty79 wrote:
| If everybody left it, it wouldn't be going 5+ over limit
| and then it could serve the people who are serious about
| breaking the law and go big. ... Oh, wait...
| gorgoiler wrote:
| 12. YES I KNOW THIS IS A GAS STATION AND I COULD JUST
| WALK OVER AND TELL YOU BUT THIS SIGN THING I MADE IS WAY
| MORE FUN.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| This hit on a peeve of mine, that automatic high beam
| systems really suck for pedestrians. Manual control is
| genuinely better in this regard. Try walking around at
| night in a wealthy neighborhood, and about 1/8 of the
| cars just blind every pedestrian.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| #3 sounds like you're either nitpicking or maybe having
| an eye issue?
|
| #7 You're either doing something good or something very
| bad, so I hope it's the former. If you're trying to pace
| the lane next to you, then it sounds like it's at least
| an honest attempt to get things zipper merging. If you're
| telling yourself that cars need to be in both lanes to
| zipper merge, while zooming to the end and then hoping
| maybe a zipper merge will happen, you're getting a big
| benefit to yourself while still causing slowdown for
| everyone else.
| jaapz wrote:
| Regarding #3, in the EU it is normal to have lights on
| even when it's not dark. Some countries even mandate it.
| You're just more visible that way.
| japhyr wrote:
| > Mostly I'm hoping that automatic high-beams, like some
| Ford trucks I've seen do well, proliferate more!
|
| I have a 2021 Tacoma, and its automatic high-beam
| adjustment is terrible. It does a reasonable job of turning
| high beams off when a car approaches, but it has a number
| of problems that make it unusable. After the car passes it
| waits too long to reactivate the high beams. That's when
| they're needed most; my eyes have already adjusted to the
| other car's headlights, now the road is dark again, and I'm
| still on low beams.
|
| It's way too sensitive. When a car approaches from a long
| ways away, it sometimes turns high beams off for minutes at
| a time. It turns them off when there are widely-spaced
| streetlights on long empty rural highways.
|
| I finally took the time to figure out where the switch is
| to turn off automatic high-beam adjustment. I do a much
| better job knowing when to dim and reactive the lights than
| the vehicle does.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I dunno, maybe where you live is a lot flatter than the
| roads that I drive on, but the instant I see a car coming
| the other way (ideally before they come into direct view)
| is the time to turn off full beams.
|
| Though from a game theory point of view, leaving them on
| for a couple of seconds is probably ideal to remind
| anyone who forgets to dim their own headlights.
| japhyr wrote:
| I live near mountains, rolling hills, and lots of
| farmland. There are many stretches where you can see a
| car coming from a mile away, long before anyone's high
| beams are noticeable. But in that darkness, my truck
| picks up those headlights and dims the high beams.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Hmm, I mostly drive in the English countryside where most
| often there are hills and bends, bushes and trees, houses
| and hedgerows. Seeing another car a mile away would
| probably mean both are heading into a wide valley, in
| which case the geometry makes it less important.
|
| That said, I'm still not convinced your truck isn't doing
| the right thing. Even a mile a way you've got perhaps 30
| seconds before you are passing each other. Is there much
| to be gained by leaving them on for a few more seconds?
| Seeing another car heading towards me is a much clearer
| and less likely to be forgotten trigger than "ok, about
| now my lights are probably getting annoying".
| bespokedevelopr wrote:
| Maybe it's an overcorrection because the Tacoma I had, a
| couple years older than yours, had auto high beams and
| they would just stay on all the time. They only turned
| off from reflecting on road signs or when a car was only
| a few lengths away approaching. Quickly found the button
| to disable that feature.
|
| The feature seems to be poorly implemented by all
| manufacturers. I see Teslas driving around flashing high
| beams every night because they trigger on/off really
| quickly and the drivers seem oblivious to the rapid
| change.
| NietzscheanNull wrote:
| > I've been tempted to purchase digital billboard space to
| raise awareness.
|
| Ironically, digital billboards are often 10x more obnoxious
| than even LED high beams in my area (and those are plenty
| awful, FWIW). We've got a few nearby that are so bright
| they could be used as stadium lighting when they're set to
| white. Naturally, half the ads running on them feature a
| white background, so it's like a stadium light that flips
| on and off every 15 seconds. Considering they're pointed
| directly at drivers' faces, I genuinely don't understand
| why there isn't more opposition to them; they're absolutely
| blinding. I'm seriously considering bugging local and state
| reps about it until they pass light intensity ordinances in
| my area.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| RE ".... get a mirror on my trunk that I can adjust the
| angle of from inside the cabin to reflect back high-beams
| at the driver. ...." I had this idea too this annoyance too
| - but never implemented it.
|
| One way to implement would be to mount a thin object , like
| a toothpick thickness and 1 or 2 cm long say on the mirror
| 90 degrees vertically to mirror surface , then (auto? )
| adjust so their is no shadow from car's headlights that is
| behind.
|
| Like lots of my other ideas , when i search for them , they
| already exist .maybe this one too
|
| Found similar ideas already exist for car rear view mirrors
| .... ie Google finds ... ".... auto-dimming rearview mirror
| automatically adjusts to reduce glare from incident light
| by using sensors and an electrochromic gel layer...."
| However my google of words "...auto adjust reflecting
| mirror to face incident light...." FInd there is much
| discussion on Faceboot and REddit for people asking for
| "...mirrors that reflect very bright high been lights BACK
| at the driver BEHIND ...: Could not find a implementation
| though ... Maybe it should be an Arduino project ....
| pipes wrote:
| I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people
| not using indicators and not understanding the rules of
| junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.
|
| I was in a mates car recently and it scared the hell out of
| me, he was tail gating for most of a 3 hour journey.
| Eventually we got to a bit with chevrons and he wasn't
| obeying the rule staying N chevrons away from the car in
| front. I told him and he replied "nonsense, my car beeps if
| I'm too close to the car in front" I didn't have the energy
| to point out that is a collision warning not a safe
| distance measurer type device.
| abustamam wrote:
| Wow this gives me anxiety just reading. My 2012 BMW has a
| warning everytime I turn it on. "DO NOT RELY ON BEEPS"
| (I'm paraphrasing of course.)
|
| And yeah, I don't let tooling on my car replace common
| sense driving habits. I still turn my head when
| reversing, even if I can see what's behind me on the
| camera. I think it's crazy that people rely so much on
| unreliable tech on their cars.
| ash_091 wrote:
| The recommended 3 second gap is a much bigger distance
| than most people recognise, especially at high speed.
|
| On another note- I feel sad that you could tell your mate
| "the way you're driving is making me uncomfortable" and
| be met with basically "your discomfort isn't valid
| because [technology] so I won't change my behaviour".
| MichaelBurjack wrote:
| As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air
| settings for my own health, I am entirely unsurprised by
| that response and get it all the time.
|
| Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask
| when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one
| of their children. And just this morning the other parent
| texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me
| uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool".
|
| So ... yeah. Entirely unsurprised by that attitude.
| "Every person for themselves but also not if it's
| something I personally dislike."
| pipes wrote:
| Genuine question (as in not a passive aggressive
| question!) why do you and your friends child mask?
| MichaelBurjack wrote:
| Not sure why you'd ask me that vs. use Google, feels like
| cornering a random driver to defend "Why do you use
| seatbelts?".
|
| But I'll offer one reply at your word that it's genuine
| and not passive-aggressive.
|
| 1. I am currently dealing with the after-effects of a
| previous Covid infection that requires expensive, ongoing
| medical treatment. I'm not anxious to test what
| additional infections may cause.
|
| 2. Wearing an N95 respirator is a cheap and easy
| preventative measure that is highly effective.
|
| 3. I adjust my habits based on measured risk. In my part
| of the world (Alberta), the current risk forecast for
| November 8-21 is that approximately 1 in every 81 people
| are currently infected with Covid. I will relax my public
| masking when it's 1 in 10,000 or less (which is not an
| unreasonable number; it's been there in the past).
|
| 4. Recent medical studies suggest that repeated Covid
| exposure is particularly harmful for children. Long Covid
| is now the #1 chronic condition in children in the US
| (displacing asthma as the top chronic childhood
| condition). As a parent, I see it as my responsibility to
| give my children the best chance at a long, healthy,
| medical-intervention-free life.
|
| A few links (or just use Google):
|
| - Covid monitoring in Canada:
| https://covid19resources.ca/
|
| - Long Covid overtaking asthma as top childhood chronic
| illness: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/
| fullarticle/...
|
| - Rolling Stone on Covid's affects on children:
| https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-
| features/long-c...
|
| - Remarks by Violet Affleck:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTjCqIxorw
|
| - Tom Hanks: https://whn.global/youve-got-a-friend-in-me-
| tom-hanks-shows-...
|
| - A longer answer than mine: https://whn.global/yes-we-
| continue-wearing-masks/
| pipes wrote:
| Yes on your last point, I feel exactly the same way. If
| anyone told me I was driving too fast and they were
| uncomfortable I'd immediately be apologetic and slow
| down, and I'd genuinely feel bad about it.
|
| As I get older I've realised that most people in my life
| react negatively if I express emotion that what they are
| doing is upsetting. It is only recently that I've
| realised my sample size is small and this kind of gas
| lighting behaviour is not ok. I've actually reached a
| point where I'm thankful that the internet popularised
| the phrase because it had helped me diagnose shitty
| behaviour that I've tolerated my whole life.
| wat10000 wrote:
| People just don't care about driving.
|
| I get it. Maybe you're not interested in it. You're at A,
| you want to arrive at B, and driving is just your tool
| for getting there.
|
| But to misquote Trotsky, you may not be interested in
| driving, but driving is interested in you. Driving is the
| most dangerous thing most drivers do on a regular basis.
| Probably by a significant margin. Even if you hate it,
| respect it. Put in the effort to do it well.
| paradox460 wrote:
| My favorite is that if you try to follow a safe distance,
| some jerk will immediately move to fill the space
| pipes wrote:
| Or toot their horn and flash their lights behind you
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I'd say just in general people have become way more
| cavalier and oblivious as drivers. I frequently see
| people doing wild stuff like driving at night with no
| headlights, or driving for several blocks in a bike lane.
| Every single yellow light is pushed to the limit, with
| often at least one (and sometimes multiple) drivers
| running the red light as well. I feel like a lot of is
| connected to a more general post-COVID decline in
| awareness of how one's actions affect others. People are
| just fine with doing anything they can get away with. I
| suspect the trend won't be reversed without a major
| increase in enforcement.
| jackvalentine wrote:
| I've noticed the same, and also people's behaviour
| generally everywhere has bottomed out and not recovered.
| I was speaking to an ED nurse who said people have just
| forgotten how to relate and violence is through the roof
| every night in the hospital.
|
| Did we all get subtle brain damage?
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Automatic high beams only dip for other cars. They don't
| dip for bicycles or pedestrians. Those walking or cycling
| by the road do not even register. Pure hubris.
| kulahan wrote:
| I remember, when shopping for a car, the salesman told me
| about an Alpina model he had with laser headlights so intense
| they weren't even legal for new builds anymore. It's a
| selling point in some vehicles.
|
| Still, the idea that you should give headlight illumination
| control to the idiot behind the wheel is insane to me. Is it
| not a regulated height? Maybe that explains why it's a
| nightmare to drive at night anymore.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Back when sensors, electronics, and servos were
| unaffordable or unavailable, it made sense to have a low
| beam height control as the resting pitch of your car could
| vary by several degrees based on passenger/cargo load,
| trailer tongue weight, etc.
|
| It seems vastly less necessary now to have that control in
| the hands of the driver.
| mulmen wrote:
| My dad's 1966 Oldsmobile has auto-dimming headlights.
| There are manual overrides of course.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Does that relate to driver-controlled height adjustment
| of the headlights?
| mulmen wrote:
| [delayed]
| trinix912 wrote:
| Older cars have the height adjustment control too. Either
| as a physical dial or a menu entry. It's useful when
| transporting something heavy or when you're driving on
| totally wrecked roads so you can spot potholes faster etc.
| But most people don't know that, dial it all the way up and
| just leave it there.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Headlight regulation obviously stopped making any sense at
| all when they allowed bigger cars to put them up higher.
| Like you are gonna regulate all kind of beam parameters and
| then miss the most important thing.
| tmnvix wrote:
| Good point.
|
| Look at a large vehicle like a bus. The lights are
| mounted low. This should be how it is for all vehicles.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| > Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights
| and just leave them on and this includes cars with the older
| halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior.
|
| Something has changed in how we use headlights, and not for
| the better.
|
| Historically, drivers behaved very differently. When
| "brights" were actually rare and reserved for dark stretches
| of highway, you'd dim them the moment you saw another car
| approaching. Often that meant switching to low beams when the
| other vehicle was more than a thousand feet away. Courtesy
| and safety were the norm.
|
| The technology has come a long way. Early headlights in the
| 1880s burned oil or kerosene. Acetylene gas lamps followed,
| and electric lighting appeared in the early 1900s. For
| decades after 1940, U.S. regulations froze headlight design
| into a two-lamp, 7-inch sealed-beam configuration. That rule
| unintentionally limited improvements in beam shape and
| brightness. Only in the 1970s and 1980s did halogens and
| replaceable-bulb designs become widely permitted, which
| opened the door to much brighter and more varied systems.
|
| Then came the xenon era in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
| High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps felt futuristic at the
| time, but they were also infamous for their glare, especially
| when installed into housings not designed for them. This is
| where "riced-out" aftermarket kits made things worse. People
| would drop cheap HID or later LED bulbs into reflector
| housings built for halogen. The result was scattered,
| unfocused light that looked bright from the driver's seat but
| created a wall of glare for everyone else. That trend never
| fully went away.
|
| Today, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 (FMVSS 108)
| governs headlamps. It sets minimum performance requirements
| and basic definitions for high and low beams, but it does not
| impose strict limits on maximum brightness or color
| temperature. The old "300 candlepower requires a dimmer
| switch" phrasing still floats around, but there is no tight
| federal cap on lumens or color warmth. States can enforce
| aiming requirements, but in practice they rarely do. Nobody
| is pulling cars over with a light meter.
|
| Modern LEDs changed the equation again. They're efficient,
| crisp, and extremely "white" (actually "blue") which makes
| them appear even brighter to human eyes at night. Complaints
| about perceived glare have been climbing for years, and
| there's no shortage of real-world examples of it in the wild.
| https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckyourheadlights/
|
| Automakers tried to help with automatic high-beam systems,
| but these were designed to detect oncoming headlamps, not
| pedestrians. If you're walking your dogs at night, the system
| may not dim because it "sees" nothing to react to. Many
| drivers rely on auto mode and never manually intervene, so
| they cruise around blasting full brightness without realizing
| it.
|
| My workaround is simple. I carry a high-power flashlight and
| give a quick shine toward cars running high beams. The auto-
| dimmer interprets it as another vehicle and drops to low
| beam. It also alerts the driver that something is off. Plenty
| of neighbors have told me they had no idea their headlights
| weren't dimming. (Teslas are by far the worst offenders.)
|
| This is the flashlight I use:
|
| https://www.costco.ca/infinity-x1-7000-lumen-
| flashlight.prod...
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| > I am not sure what the solution is but the situation is
| getting worse and quickly.
|
| Maybe Corey Hart had the right idea ... sunglasses at night
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| As someone who's undergone LASIK correction, I have to do
| this semi-regularly for night highway driving. (For those
| unaware, the procedure gives you a mild halo effect
| basically for life, if you've had your eyes dilated before,
| imagine that, at like 25%). LED headlights are BRUTAL for
| this, oftentimes I can't even see the car they're attached
| to because of the insane amount of glare.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| My parents' new Chevy Bolt automatically turns off the
| brights when appropriate. At first I was doing it manually
| but then I started trusting it, it just works, it does it at
| exactly the moment I would do it (actually it's better at it
| than me.) I'm surprised Teslas don't do it.
| Wistar wrote:
| I am not sure that the incredibly bright Tesla Model 3 (and
| sometimes Model X) lights are on brights but are just
| stupidly bright at low-beam settings.
| giobox wrote:
| All Teslas can do this too, as can a huge range of modern
| cars with so called "auto dipping headlights". Virtually
| all cars with this option allow you to turn it off
| though...
|
| The quality of the auto-dip implementation varies
| enormously as well.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Yeah, and the ones that auto dip usually don't have auto
| off mode. To bad they didn't leave it in as an option.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > I'm surprised Teslas don't do it.
|
| They do. Also, the ones with matrix LEDs (most newer Models
| other than the Cybertruck) automatically create a circle of
| darkness around anything they detect to be another vehicle.
| LanceJones wrote:
| Why the downvotes? Jesus, I have a new Model 3
| Performance and the matrix lights do _exactly_ as stated.
| woods42 wrote:
| ours does - and it does it very reliably as you describe
| the bolt above.
| pianom4n wrote:
| You must never drive on a curvy roads then. Every car I
| driven waits until the approaching car is fully around the
| corner, blinding them for a full second before dimming,
| instead recognizing the headlights around the corner and
| dimming earlier.
| axus wrote:
| I don't even know what a Chevy Bolt looks like! Maybe the
| problem is every other model.
|
| It's not hard to know when a car is approaching from
| corners / hills; there's light before they get there. I
| have fun manually adjusting the brights; I drive
| automatic transmission, lighting is the only fun I get.
| vkou wrote:
| > Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights
| and just leave them on and this includes cars with the older
| halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior.
|
| I mean, the reptile part of my brain is _really_ tempted to
| do so, because every _other_ car on the road is blinding me -
| why be a good citizen, it 's all fucking Mad Max out there
| anyways...
|
| (On odd-numbered days, that part of my brain compels me to go
| through the mall parking lot and spray a filter onto all the
| offending vehicles' headlights.)
|
| The issue is that the giga-bright headlights _would be_ fine
| if they were pointed at the road, instead of onto oncoming
| traffic. And some people have them incorrectly adjusted,
| where they _do_ point onto incoming traffic.
|
| However, even if they _were_ correctly adjusted, the
| slightest bump or angle in a road will still result in them
| shining directly into my face.
|
| The only acceptable solution is to send all offending
| vehicles to the junkyard, _tomorrow_. If that 's not
| palatable, I'll settle with funding a a Department of Highway
| Safety making the rounds of the parking lots with a hammer.
| supportengineer wrote:
| To raise awareness I've started turning on _my_ high beams
| when I encounter one of those drivers.
| gleenn wrote:
| I found out recently that you can adjust your Tesla
| headlights electronically from the computer screen inside and
| it was quite easy. I was regularly getting high-beam flashed
| by people because I think the stock Tesla settings have the
| lights too high.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| The Tesla Model Y automatic dimmer is quite stupid. It dims
| whenever my lights reflect off a street sign and no other
| cars are nearby. I have to keep it turned off and dim my
| lights manually, which is a PITA because sometimes I forget
| and blind oncoming drivers.
|
| The automatic wipers are even worse: They frequently come on
| when it's not raining and they don't come on when it is. Yet
| somehow the automatic wipers on my 2011 Audi work perfectly.
| WTF?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| The car I'm driving now (2016 BMW) is the only car I've driven
| or been in that has appropriate interior lighting. E.g. You can
| really crank the brightness down, and the display lights are
| all red.
| moogly wrote:
| Same with the brightness in my MY2025 BMW iX1. You can even
| turn the main screen completely off from the swipe-down menu.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| You're cherry-picking here. Analog gauges were lit with both
| filtered and unfiltered incandescent bulbs. There was no
| standard.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| There was a mix of technologies. Up to about the early 80s,
| instruments were lit by an "unfiltered" incandescent lamp at
| the back of the instrument housing, that reflected off a band
| of white paint around the top of the housing and screened by
| the bezel, like old Smiths gauges. After about that point
| they moved over to edge-lit screen-printed perspex backings,
| and continued that way until the current trend for glarey and
| unpleasant LCDs everywhere.
| paradox460 wrote:
| My old Ford Windstar used electroluminescent panels behind
| the dash cluster. Gave everything a beautiful soft green
| hue
| shevy-java wrote:
| > I'm happy my Tesla
|
| I'd never give my money to the mass-fire-people-at-DOGE
| billionaire.
|
| What I did, however had, notice, is that people are a LOT more
| easily distracted these days. Smartphones play a big role, but
| I also think something changed in the brain. This may be better
| or worse, but it definitely is very different now from, say,
| the 1980s. It almost feels as if humans are now +100 years
| different from the people in the 1980s rather than +40 or +50.
| zzyzxd wrote:
| Teslas are the worst offenders in my area. I don't own one but
| I looked up online out of curiosity, and saw many owners
| complained because they got flashed a lot. Turned out the
| factory settings for the headlight angle was too high. They
| went to the menu and adjust the angle down by "2-3 clicks" and
| they reported never got flashed again.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| This 100x. I get blinded by Teslas more often than all other
| brands combined.
| apparent wrote:
| My car's screen switches to night mode when it's dark, but if
| you want to make it the darkest setting, you have to manually
| adjust it, every single time. I don't know why there isn't a
| persistent setting for [when the car is in night mode]. I
| frequently have to adjust this because I want my eyes to adjust
| to the exterior darkness for safety reasons.
| ratdragon wrote:
| they definitely were persistent before
|
| edit spelling
| wildzzz wrote:
| My 2006, 2017, and 2023 cars all will autodim the screens at
| night. Except for the 2006 model, the brightness knob adjusts
| both the instrument cluster and the screen brightness and
| stays where you leave it. The 2006 car had a separate up/down
| button for the screen.
| LTL_FTC wrote:
| Absolutely. People just crank up the brightness on the inside
| lights because "blinky lights" but I have also noticed that,
| modern cars typically include fog lights which used to be a
| luxury or premium option, many people just drive around with
| these lights on as well. Fog lights are illuminating the area
| closer to the vehicle and therefore inhibit one's visibility
| further down the road. So now we get super bright vehicles
| coming at us, inhibiting our ability to see.
|
| Don't get me started on lifted vehicles and their
| lights...Dept. of transportation needs to figure out a way to
| enforce a standard height for headlights from all vehicle
| shapes and heights. Driving after dark is getting more and more
| dangerous, not less.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Trucks are the absolute worst vehicles on the road. Their
| giant ass lights blind anyone near their vehicles. A number
| of truck owners, especially the ones that lift their
| vehicles, will additionally add light bars to the exterior
| which are so incredibly dangerous.
|
| We don't just need DOTs to set regulations on these things,
| we need cops to actually write tickets for this behavior and
| for judges to get confirmation that these after market
| modifications are removed.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I miss my 99 Ford Explorer Sport.
| creer wrote:
| In my past few rentals, the dial still acts on the driver's
| gauges - but not on the "entertainment / navigation" screen
| which remains too bright no matter what! In one, the automatic
| "night mode" was still crazy bright and independant from the
| dashboard brightness dial. Absurd indeed.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| In my Mazda, turning on the headlights enables a night mode
| in the both the instrument panel and stereo/etc screen,
| dimming everything. Which seems like a nice touch, but if I
| want to run with my headlights on during the day, as seems to
| be fairly customary these days, that means I can't read my
| clock. Not great.
| wildzzz wrote:
| My 2006 car had an independent brightness setting for the
| infotainment screen but that's likely because the
| infotainment system just wasn't as fully integrated into the
| car as it is today. It wasn't a touchscreen so since
| everything had a button, you could have easily designed it to
| use a VFD or similar.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| You're retconning. Brighter headlights (xenon) were invented in
| '61 and first appeared in '91. By 2000 the tech made its way to
| less premium cars.
|
| Tesla didn't have the big screen (which heralded the current
| stupid trend) until 2012, and of course it took a number of
| years for Tesla and the giant omni screen to be popular. Thumb
| in the air I'd say 2018-2020.
|
| You want brighter headlights so you can see better and drive
| more safely. The interior brightness is a separate
| independently evolved problem.
|
| The horizontal cutoff is a tradeoff that comes with the bright
| lights (Xenon tech anyway). And there is plenty of low light
| leakage to reflect off of animal eyes. The problem IMO isn't
| pure brightness but rather these intensely bright lights
| (itself a benefit) coupled with poor aiming or poor maintenance
| of aim. Some states in the US have a mandatory annual vehicle
| inspection which includes headlight aim checks.
| RajT88 wrote:
| YES! I rented a Prius once, and this was my biggest complaint.
|
| That big stupid bright-ass LCD screen which smugly ruined my
| night blindness by trumpeting constantly how fuel efficient it
| was made me feel less confident driving at night. Toyota is a
| smart and good company, and seems to have addressed this in
| newer Priuses (Prii?) by putting smaller, less bright LCD's and
| moving them further out of the way of your field of vision.
| omnee wrote:
| I have an older car with the low light gauges, and so my eyes
| are more adjusted the darkness. Which makes the poorly
| calibrated bright lights of newer cars the bane of my life at
| night.
| alentred wrote:
| Exactly. Even if my eyes adjust well to the relative darkness
| with my lights, the effect is erased the instant I encounter
| a car coming on me on the opposite side of the road.
| njarboe wrote:
| One thing that helps is to make sure you don't look at the
| headlights directly. It really helps to look at the white
| line on the side of the road when the other car is close to
| preserve your night vision.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| I physically desoldered and replaced the very bright 6500k
| interior overhead LEDs in my VW with much warmer units. It
| makes a huge difference when turning them on for a second and
| not killing my night vision. Also just much more pleasant and
| natural light in my opinion.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Tiguan/comments/1hq2hae/changed_ove...
| bbarnett wrote:
| I actually keep an old tshirt in my car, to cover up the screen
| when on long rural drives.
|
| I can drive all night long with no strain or issue, unless I
| have a flashlight glaring in my eyes.
| NoSalt wrote:
| My Subaru Outback lets me adjust the dashboard and display
| lights down, which I do whenever I am driving at night. It's
| amazing how much more you can see without a ton of lights in
| the cab.
| groos wrote:
| > I'm happy my Tesla does a decent job of having the screen be
| quite dark at night but the headlights are quite bad with the
| horizontal cutoff style that only lights the first few feet of
| horizontal ahead of the car. I need to see those deer and elk
| on the side of the road, damn it.
|
| Turn on your fog lights? At least in my 2018 M3, they
| illuminate the sides as well.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| what is with the blinding WHITE light? can't we just have amber?
| fghorow wrote:
| I need the brights at night for deer (in N. America) and
| kangaroos (in Oz).
|
| Steering them away automagically from oncoming traffic is a
| better solution than abandoning them altogether.
|
| (And yes, I do have cataracts. So oncoming lights _are_ a problem
| for me.)
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Isn't that what high beams are for? Why are the low beams so
| bright these days?
| WD-42 wrote:
| Steering them away? You're supposed to turn them off when there
| is oncoming traffic.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Related: I moved to rural Michigan and the number of people who
| will be riding my ass on a late night with their high beams on is
| astounding. Or people who turn their high beams on in the
| snow/fog.
| vatsachak wrote:
| Michigan, where the more North you go the more Southern you are
| greenavocado wrote:
| That's why you need 300 watts of rear facing flood lights on a
| switch.
| helle253 wrote:
| For the longest time, i thought random drivers were flashing
| their brights at me all over chicago
|
| only recently did i realize, it was the regular headlight LEDs
| being shined directly at me as they went over a speedbump
| icetank wrote:
| Have to remind myself every time that the bright headlights
| would actually make me blind instead of flashing for a second.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| So ... how does a problem such as this get remedied?
|
| I'm thinking a mandatory recall order / fix-it ticket for _all_
| offending makes /models. The sticker shock alone might get
| manufacturers attention.
|
| That and contributory liability in any associated accidents.
|
| (Insurance costs / liability is a highly under-appreciated
| regulatory mechanism.)
| lonelyasacloud wrote:
| Empirically on UK roads it's as much about the car industry
| getting away with selling vehicles that are too large for our
| roads i.e. oversized SUV's and trucks, as anything else. The
| combination of driver's side closer to crown, and higher
| mounting, mean the light's from these behemoths tend to cast more
| of their beams into the eye line of anyone coming the other way,
| particularly in smaller, lower to the ground vehicles.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > tend to cast more of their beams into the eye line of anyone
| coming the other way, particularly in smaller, lower to the
| ground vehicles
|
| I don't think this is the main issue.
|
| I drive a compact SUV, it has perfectly reasonable headlights,
| pointed downwards like you'd expect, with more of a dip towards
| oncoming traffic, like headlights have been for decades.
|
| Despite being in a somewhat high-ish vehicle, I'm constantly
| blinded when driving at night by what is typically, low sports
| cars with headlights that are indistinguishable from high-
| beams.
|
| I have no idea how manufacturers got away with this, and I hope
| something is done soon to make sure a mandate for them being
| fixed comes in new vehicles, and as part of MOT for existing
| ones.
|
| I'm in my 30s, with perfect eye sight, and typically have no
| trouble driving at night or low light, or even low visibility,
| but it terrifies me that one day I might hit someone after
| being blinded by these idiotically bright head lights.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > I drive a compact SUV, it has perfectly reasonable
| headlights
|
| How would you know?
| teslabox wrote:
| Years ago I read a comment here sharing how they'd taken to
| wearing amber glasses when walking at night, so they could be
| protected against the excessively-blue LED streetlights in their
| neighborhood. I bought amber safety glasses. They magically took
| the shock out of the bad headlights, but I also noticed that I
| wasn't seeing pedestrians until it was too late.
|
| My local sunglass shop had some yellow fit-over safety glasses. I
| found they cut out enough of the blue from the bad headlights to
| take the shock out of the experience of driving at night.
| https://cocoons.com/shop/safety/lightguard-medium-fitovers-l...
|
| Harbor Freight's $2 yellow safety glasses are almost as good. I
| intend to stock up the next time I notice they're on sale for $1:
| https://www.harborfreight.com/yellow-lens-safety-glasses-668...
|
| 4 years ago I asked HN why the automotive industry wasn't using
| safe LEDs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27334405
|
| The activists at /r/fuckyourheadlights figured out that the
| weaponized headlights put a little dim spot at the center of
| their headlight beams, exactly where the regulators measure the
| light intensity.
|
| 2nd picture clearly shows the dim spot:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckyourheadlights/comments/1hefn86...
|
| Summary of research:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckyourheadlights/comments/18lrf3d...
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| I used to wear these amber glasses for my motorcycle rides back
| when I was still riding. They not only did a great job of
| improving my visibility (be it subjective or not), but they
| also seemed to reduce overall fatigue for me. I should pick up
| another pair for regular driving though, thanks for the
| reminder.
| TZubiri wrote:
| I think I've been using headlights wrong.
|
| My car has 3 headlight settings, low, mid, hi.
|
| Hi is when you are alone at night and want to see farther.
|
| I used to use low in the daytime (to signal other drivers the car
| is on), and mid at night (to signal other drivers and gain some
| visibility.
|
| But maybe the opposite is sensible, using mid lights in daytime
| (so they are more discernible from the daylight), and using low
| lights in nighttime (if you are in an already illuminated city,
| you don't need to light up the road, and since it's night, any
| small headlight will have enough contrast with the darkness)
| TheChaplain wrote:
| ITT people saying you don't need strong headlights on the country
| side, you just need to drive slower..
|
| One thing doesn't need to exclude the other, especially as you
| begin to go above 50 and your eye sight isn't as good as it was
| when you were twenty-five.
|
| Strong headlight that makes night go day saves lives, just
| remember to shut when meeting another vehicle or pedestrian.
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| Or don't go above 50mph down country roads at night? If your
| eyes aren't as good as they used to be, all the more reason to
| drive slower
| TheChaplain wrote:
| I am pretty sure that is what I wrote
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| Yes, I misread. Apologies!
| meindnoch wrote:
| 1. Headlights are migrating upwards, thanks to the proliferation
| of SUVs and pickups.
|
| 2. The color temperature of modern headlights is worse for the
| eye than previous generations'.
|
| 3. Automatic high beams still blind the oncoming traffic for the
| first 1-2 seconds or so, before the vision algorithm realizes
| that maybe it's time to turn them off.
| vegancap wrote:
| I was at a junction the other day, there was some new Audi EV at
| the other side of the junction and I couldn't see a damn thing.
| I've got perfect 20/20 vision, never had any form of eye problem
| ever in my life, and I was completely blinded. I'm convinced if
| they'd turned the full beams on, I'd have disintegrated.
| rafale wrote:
| Maybe they were on a slight up slope. If the headlights were
| auto leveling it will fix many of the issues people complain
| about.
| vegancap wrote:
| Yeah quite possibly actually, I did think at the time if they
| were angled down slightly, it wouldn't be half as bad. So
| that checks out. But does show there needs to be some kind of
| solution for uneven situations like that
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Part of the problem I've identified are SUV's and Trucks. Back
| home I drive a 4runner so I never noticed this but on vacation
| one week and we rented a Corolla. While the lights from other
| cars never bothered me in the 4runner, it was so apparent in
| the smaller Corolla.
|
| I would see light behind me and go "why do they have high beams
| on" but then looking ahead it didn't look like they had their
| high beams on, I was just in a short car.
| vegancap wrote:
| Yeah I'm in a really low Civic Type-R, so when I'm opposite
| some kind of SUV, and also at a slight angle, was basically
| at direct eye height with their LEDs. I definitely don't have
| the same problem with older bulb based SUVs though
| Tade0 wrote:
| I do, because in my corner of the world, before the advent
| of self-leveling headlights people would adjust them to
| whatever height they wanted.
| helterskelter wrote:
| Honestly the worst offenders for shooting the lights right in
| your eyes are the Jeep Wranglers. I drive a work truck on
| occasion and the Jeeps are about the only vehicle that still
| get me looking for the fog line. High intensity lights are
| still really annoying though, and my eyes are probably 7-8ft
| off the ground.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Wranglers are often lifted via the aftermarket, and I bet a
| lot of people who do that don't ever stop to consider
| whether the headlights need to be realigned after.
| helterskelter wrote:
| My experience has been all Wranglers unless they have
| aftermarket "eyelids". I think their stock lights have
| zero angle and just blast straight ahead without pointing
| towards the ground. Most high intensity lights tend to
| point at the ground so you don't usually get it straight
| into your eyes.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| That's the worse for you driving a work truck. For people
| in shorter cars, the Wranglers might actually be _above_
| our sightlines, and the Dodge Ram tailgating us is among
| the worst.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| you weren't in a short car, you were in a normal car. Society
| really needs legislation around auto obesity. Cars are too
| big, too high, too heavy, all at despite being less practical
| than a station wagon from twenty years back.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| Well either that or completely privatize the infrastructure
| needed to operate those cars like multi-lane roads and
| parking lots with no mandatory minimums for road width and
| parking lot size.
| paddy_m wrote:
| Blame the obama CAFE regulations that accounted for
| wheelbase and car volume, giving manufacturers lower fuel
| economy standards for larger cars. Then the CAFE standards
| that hold trucks/SUVs to a lower standard.
|
| The economically efficient way to get the fuel economy
| result would have been to increase gasoline taxes, but
| that's a non starter politically. Higher gas prices would
| allow people to choose to keep a cheap gas guzzling
| truck/car, buy a new more efficient and expensive car, or
| buy a new slightly more efficient slightly more expensive
| car. It would have been simpler though and given consumers
| more choice.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| While drastically higher gas prices would have been the
| proper solution, the CAFE standards did not incentivize
| people to buy larger/taller vehicles.
|
| People's desire to sit higher up and be in large
| vehicles, which have always been more expensive than
| smaller, lower vehicles, is what causes them to be
| bought. And once a significant portion have them, it
| becomes safer to be in one yourself, further
| incentivizing their purchase.
|
| But 99% of the time, it's just because people like the
| feeling of sitting higher up than others, and the ego
| boost from taking up more space. The simple evidence is
| the popularity of Suburbans/Sequoias/XC90s/etc over
| minivans, like Sienna/Odyssey. There is absolutely no
| functional benefit of the former over the latter, yet the
| former is more popular.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Minivans really did suck in comparison to most SUVs. The
| vast majority of them were underpowered, had electrical
| problem, and their insides fell apart rather quickly.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I can't say I have experienced those issues between
| Odysseys and Siennas, but those are quality problems,
| nothing inherent to the concept of a minivan. I don't
| believe a minivan is or was underpowered for 99% of
| people's needs, especially to move family in a 1 hour
| radius.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > but then looking ahead it didn't look like they had their
| high beams on, I was just in a short car.
|
| You were in a normal car, and the SUV manufacturer has
| mounted the lights higher just for aesthetic reasons.
| adolph wrote:
| Seems like it would make sense to mandate a specific height
| for headlamps. I wonder why this hasn't been done.
| toast0 wrote:
| Edit: sorry, I shouldn't post US rules on a UK topic. For
| penance, a fact about lighting in the UK, reverse lights
| weren't required until 2009!
|
| There are rules. FMVSS [1] says lower beam headlamps must
| be mounted between 55.9 cm and 137.2 cm above the ground,
| and upper beam headlamps must be mounted not less than 22
| inches nor more than 54 inches. The height ranges match,
| but are specified in different units
|
| But that's a big range.
|
| These rules end up being the stick used to regulate
| vehicle lifts and lowering; you could lift a vehicle
| higher, or drop it lower but very few people will do the
| work to relocate the lights.
|
| [1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chap
| ter-V/p... Table 1-A, seach in page for 'Expand Table'
| cause I couldn't find a good way to navigate.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| this is also my understanding. The range is large because
| it caters to passenger cars, lorries and construction
| equipment. Construction equipment is seen are more rugged
| (it often is) and this is now projected as a desirable
| trait for SUVs and pickup trucks.
|
| The irony is that SUVs and pickup trucks do not need
| lights 137 cm above ground, but that height is perfectly
| legal in too many countries. These vehicles are a menace
| and should be legislated out of existence.
| toast0 wrote:
| I will always champion the compact pickup truck. A 1980s
| S-10 or Toyota Truck (HiLux) can do light truck things,
| is relatively economical, and doesn't have a large
| footprint. Alas, nobody makes similar vehicles for
| US/Europe anymore --- kei trucks are still made for
| Japan, and less developed economies can get simple small
| trucks. Maybe some of the EV compact trucks will actually
| be made.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'd argue that compact trucks should be the only trucks
| that can be driven without special licensing.
|
| It's insane to me that I as a 16 year old was allowed to
| drive an F350 pulling a 40ft trailer on a standard
| license.
| xp84 wrote:
| Another one of those quirks of law that appears to be
| there to help avoid burdening the legendary smallholding
| farmer whose teenagers are hardworking farmhands towing
| around 8 head of cattle in the work truck, but which
| mostly just enables a bunch of idiots driving around
| surburbs in gleaming-clean four-door pickups that have
| never carried anything in the bed but a couple bikes or a
| little camping gear.
|
| I'd be all for exemptions to any rules for anyone who
| proves ownership of a working farm or ranch but you can
| bet that no regulation of any kind will ever be enacted
| to curb the disaster that CAFE rules caused to "car"
| size.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I came from exactly that sort of community. The fact of
| the matter is that teen would have driven that truck
| regardless of the law permitting it.
|
| IMO, this sort of thing should work more like the way
| fair use works. A cop could pull you over for a traffic
| violation, ticket you, and then when you go to court you
| push the defense of "I'm a farmer and I was doing farm
| work" to get the missing license charge dropped (but
| you'll still likely end up with a traffic ticket to pay).
|
| Generally speaking, cops aren't patrolling farming roads
| anyways so you'd really not need almost any exemption in
| place.
| switchbak wrote:
| You were in a normal car ... for 2004.
|
| Now you're in a car that the US car industry doesn't want
| to sell, and thus you don't exist.
|
| Do we need self-darkening HUDs? Like an LCD overlay that
| specifically mutes the intensity of these improperly
| engineered cars? Seems dumb, but it might happen.
|
| I wonder if we'll just move to using IR for the really high
| beams? That probably doesn't do anything good to the human
| eye at high intensities, but if you could augment the
| driver's vision and not blind everyone at the same time
| that would be nice? Let's bring back the Cadillac Deville!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| One thought I've had with the matrix projectors on my Lightning
| is that it would be nice if they were able to dim parts of the
| beam that were below the normal threshold for low/high. It
| reliably turns off the bright parts above that line, but it
| seems like the "low beam" area is fixed. So on small hills and
| such I'll occasionally beam people directly in the face with a
| lot of light. Mostly that happens when the distance is still
| far enough that it won't be nearly as bad as when you're just
| across an intersection, but it's still fairly bright IMO.
|
| I assume regulation prevents the dynamic lighting from
| including the low beam section.
| switchbak wrote:
| I high-beamed one of them, then they turned their high beams on
| - it was a shockingly ridiculous amount of light that's simply
| dangerous anywhere. Fuck Audi.
|
| Man, this feels like a vehicular instantiation of class war.
| Pay enough and you too can blind others on the road.
|
| What's next - frickin laser beams?
| lucianbr wrote:
| There are definitely some brands that market "laser lights".
| Now, they're not really lasers, but still.
|
| https://www.bmw.com/en/innovation/dr-hanafi-and-the-bmw-
| lase...
| bespokedevelopr wrote:
| Well all the Uber/Lyft drivers have led light bars mounted on
| their Prius' now so the class warfare is well underway I
| suppose.
| tanepiper wrote:
| I've found glasses like these work well
| (https://www.amazon.nl/Antireflectie-Gepolariseerde-autorijde...)
| - if I drive in Germany I can't do without them - they really
| help block the glare without making it unsafe to drive.
| __s wrote:
| Yep, I've just taken to driving with prescription sunglasses at
| night
| impure-aqua wrote:
| I feel like this problem is better in the UK than in North
| America.
|
| For starters, there is higher market penetration for better
| headlight technology, particularly ADB (adaptive driving beam).
| North American road safety regulations have made it very
| difficult to get this technology into cars, whereas in Europe it
| is reasonably widespread. Even rental cars I have had in the UK
| have this technology- most recently a Mazda3 which had a very
| good implementation of it, I could drive through the countryside
| with high-beams on constantly, and you could see the car quickly
| dim the beam facing towards oncoming traffic if any came around a
| bend. These are not high-end cars; I have rented cars with a
| manual transmission and cloth seats yet better headlights than
| the fanciest S-class in North America.
|
| There is also less variation in vehicle size, and better emphasis
| on road safety testing. In Canada I often encounter lifted pickup
| trucks, which changes the alignment of factory lighting, not to
| mention the lights on these are often aftermarket anyway and
| usually installed without any thought for alignment. British
| pickup trucks are rarer, smaller, and would fail their yearly MOT
| for having improper headlamp aim.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| The problem with headlight brightness has mostly stemmed from
| cars having brighter headlights. I love technology, but if I
| had to choose between reducing light output, vs switching to
| harder-to repair, more expensive, less reliable computer-
| powered headlights, I'd prefer the former.
| impure-aqua wrote:
| When I drive cars with old headlights, they are clearly
| inferior to the point of feeling nearly dangerous in some
| situations. I would also not call modern lights less
| reliable, although I am sure it is more expensive to repair
| modern lighting technology.
|
| In a North American city where there is overhead lighting and
| the streets are a mile wide, sure, I could probably turn the
| lights off even and be totally fine.
|
| In the middle of the British countryside on a single-track
| road that has hedges on either side, not enough space for
| cars in the oncoming direction to pass me, a 60mph speed
| limit, during a rainstorm? I want the nice lights.
| amelius wrote:
| The main issue isn't even the headlights, it's why the hell did
| this not get regulated to sane levels.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm half tempted to say just give everyone cheap multispecral
| goggles and get rid of the headlights, streetlights, etc. With
| volume, you could build a set with digital night vision and a
| Flir Lepton for under $400 (which is about the cost of an HID
| headlight system).
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Here in the states, the painted white line on the right side of
| the lane, is for night driving. When an oncoming car's lights are
| reflecting too brightly, you can judge your car's position in the
| lane, IF the lines are not to faded.
|
| Crazily, we allow people to raise up their trucks so high that at
| night, if they're behind you in the lane, the cab of your vehicle
| is flooded so badly, you can hardly see sometimes. (Just wait
| till you experience this in a drive-through lane!)
|
| In my state, it's against the law to run your fog lamps when the
| weather doesn't warrant them, the police seem to have forgotten
| this.
| rreichel03 wrote:
| This is a problem with emergency vehicles too - many times I've
| been driving and unable to see a person on the road because the
| lights from a police or EMS vehicle are brighter than a thousand
| suns, hiding anything beyond. It feels like a Jurassic park thing
| - they made them brighter because they could (with minimal focus
| on externalities)
| reinier wrote:
| i have a possible addition to the problem. people are spending
| lots of time indoors, so my theory is;
|
| people are missing a lot of the natural sun radiation, causing
| the fluid in your eye to be less translucencent generally and
| possibly building up floaters more easily.
|
| this could disperse light more inside your eye. enlarging the
| effect of blinding lights at night.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Doesn't this come down to glare in most cases? IIRC, the real
| onslaught of headlight glare wasn't the advent of HID, it was
| when cars started using projectors. Even with halogens,
| projectors pointed at you make for a very intense point of light.
| Lots of glare. Less than HID or LED, sure, but still very real.
|
| I would like to see a headlight solution where you get the same
| amount of light thrown on the road, but from a strip that goes
| all the way across the front of the car, so that no individual
| spot is especially bright for oncoming drivers.
| whitehexagon wrote:
| The curse of modern super bright LEDs. Add to that list; super
| bright red brake lights, and a new trend for animated turning
| lights / indicators. Looks like something we'd have installed as
| teenagers after watching Knight Rider. Really distracting.
|
| Some of the towns here also started scattering flashing LEDs over
| every road sign they can find. Some areas feel like driving
| through Blackpool Illuminations. The worst offender locally is a
| roundabout light that flashes blue, which of course you assume to
| be an emergency vehicle approaching.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Add to that rental bikes that have always-on flashing lights.
| My neurospice is relatively mild, but flashing lights and
| animations in my field of view really fuck up my ability to
| focus on other things. I can't be the only one with this issue,
| but it doesn't seem to garner much sympathy.
|
| I still drive when I have to, but I had to give up watching
| soccer on tv when they added animated ads to all the pitches.
| I'm honestly considering some kind of AR filtering at this
| point.
|
| Also shoutouts to the places in South America (esp. Guayaquil)
| where people modify cars and buses to have constantly flashing
| lights, animated screens etc. It's like having a little Times
| Square in every traffic jam!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LOdfcJpvps
| crazygringo wrote:
| To be fair, the flashing on bicycles is intentional,
| precisely to make sure you are aware of them, since they're
| so much smaller and vulnerable, and the light itself is so
| much smaller than the rear light on a vehicle. It's not just
| on rentals, it's a standard feature of bicycle rear lights
| that is there for safety.
| martijnvds wrote:
| In the Netherlands, bike lights _must not_ flash. The law
| very explicitly states that they need to be "always on" (in
| the dark).
|
| The main reason seems to be that it's hard for others to to
| gauge your speed when your lights are flashing.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Fascinating. I just looked up a bit of research on it,
| and it seems there are two contradicting phenomena at
| play. Flashing helps in seeing cyclists further away and
| helps with visibility generally -- but it also makes it
| harder to estimate speed and distance.
|
| Apparently, the absolute safest solution is to have _two_
| rear lights side-by-side -- one that is always on and one
| that is always flashing.
|
| It doesn't seem like there's clear data on which is safer
| if you have to pick only one. Different countries/states
| have chosen differently.
| jandrese wrote:
| Blinding and dazzling oncoming traffic in the name of
| safety is outright stupid.
|
| If you are riding a bike and you're lighting up the heads
| of oncoming riders or pedestrians you are being dangerous
| and obnoxious. Never shine a flashlight above someone's
| shoulders at night if you can help it.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| The thing that really irritates me about the animated turning
| lights is that they still do it when hazards are on. The one
| and only possible use case would be differentiating between
| hazards and turn signals, and they don't do it.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| I've seen flashing third brake lights too.
|
| I don't get adding flashing lights to brake and tail lights.
| It's actually worse, flashing lights make it harder for us to
| judge distance as now there's no steady queue needed for
| depth perception. It's why when cycling I've always opted for
| a solid taillight instead of the flashing ones.
| toast0 wrote:
| Flashing third brake light (in the US) is usually a dealer
| profit addon. Personally, I think these violate federal
| vehicle safety law. I'll add a link to a federal letter
| that I think agrees with me [1]... But no enforcement means
| dealers alter the wiring harness to add these on to all
| their inventory and add a line item on the bill. They'll
| remove it if you complain, but the wiring harness has been
| altered.
|
| I'm ok with factory strobing on hard braking, and I think
| that is permitted generally.
|
| [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/20288ztv
| potato3732842 wrote:
| They're not altering anything. This isn't a stereo shop
| in 1990. They're literally just getting paid to plug
| something in.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I've seen a few cars that have strobe-then-solid brake
| lights from the factory, where the strobe only fires under
| hard deceleration. That seems like a safety win to me.
| (Remember it being on a high-spec Mercedes SL, and I'm
| pretty sure it was stock; looked it up and Mercedes calls
| it part of "Adaptive Braking".)
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Those radar speed limit signs that blink at what seems like 50
| times a second if you go 36 in a 35 zone are very annoying. To
| be fair the blink threshold must be configurable, but whoever
| installed them around here didn't have any common sense and set
| them all to the speed limit exactly.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| There's one near me that's set to 45 in a 55. Every time I
| drive past it it gets a little closer to going missing. It's
| a minimum effort install on a wood post and it's right near
| the road to enter a new bougie subdivision in an otherwise
| rural area so it's almost certainly a cheap attempt to make a
| complainer go away.
| moltopoco wrote:
| Not just flashing but also flickering, some headlights that
| I've seen in the wild look quite aggressive if they are in the
| periphery; dimming gone wrong? Anything that flickers or
| flashes will be brighter at peak than if it was a constant
| light source.
| Zak wrote:
| Another problem is LED lights using low-frequency PWM to
| control brightness. If they're moving in someone's field of
| view, there's a strobe effect.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Housings on indicators that reflect so much sunlight you can't
| see that they're on.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Plus some cars have tiny indicators now, or weird led stripes
| around the brake lights
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > The curse of modern super bright LEDs
|
| I don't understand why people are allowed to drive around with
| blinding LED light bars which affect other drivers ability to
| see the road and and _oh so conveniently_ obscure their front
| license plates.
| chrsw wrote:
| I thought I was just getting old...
| Borborygymus wrote:
| I always wondered if it would be feasible to make the headlights
| produce polarized light (e.g. vertical), and have windscreens
| filter out that polarization... I guess it would only work if the
| scattering of light off of whatever is being illuminated
| sufficiently depolarizes the light. Anyhow, I thought it was a
| neat idea when I was a teenager.
|
| There might be some issues with retro fitting the world's
| existing road vehicle fleet, but that's a deployment detail. :p
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you polarized the light and windshield to 45deg off
| vertical, opposite direction traffic would have their
| windshield at 90deg to your light...
| ZiiS wrote:
| Nearly all UK drivers say _Other People's_ headlights are too
| bright; _my_ headlights are a bit dim.
| racl101 wrote:
| Same in Canada. Super bright LEDs. Every morning. What's weird is
| that almost every one uses them, and almost everyone complains
| about other people using them. Seems as weird as tourists
| complaining about other tourists.
|
| I personally don't use them. So I just get to observe.
| krona wrote:
| I agree that many LED headlights are too bright (or, more
| commonly, poorly calibrated) however one thing which can
| significantly reduce glare is to clean your windshield properly
| at least once a year. Few people do this.
|
| When I say properly, I mean with a special purpose abrasive glass
| polish. This could take an hour or more to do well by hand but it
| should remove the near invisible (in standard lighting
| conditions) film which forms on the glass surface.
|
| This will also significantly improve visibility in heavy rain.
| EmptyCoffeeCup wrote:
| The lights aren't too bright, they're just poorly aligned.
|
| Go for a walk of an evening along a footpath into traffic. I
| guarantee it'll be Teslas and Minis that are the routinely the
| culprits of dazzling.
|
| I'd guess it's cheap, lazily aligned hardware in the Tesla, and
| the ridiculous design of the Mini that cause the problems.
|
| Yes, sporadically you'll be blinded by another model- one that
| needs an alignment - but it'll consistently be Tesla's and Minis.
| brookst wrote:
| Teslas are the worst. I try not to speculate without evidence
| but I cannot shake the intuition that it is intentional to aid
| the driver assist and self driving stuff, and reflective of a
| generally sociopathic company.
| wtallis wrote:
| I've heard it alleged that Tesla simply does not have a QA
| check for headlight alignment at the factory. Based on my
| experience on the road, that's entirely believable.
| kedean wrote:
| The lights are too bright _and_ poorly aligned. I walk
| regularly, and its more than just the tesla 's and mini's at
| fault (Teslas are definitely some of the worst in my experience
| though, along with Rivian)
|
| https://www.theringer.com/2024/12/03/tech/headlight-brightne...
|
| > On a recent episode of the Carmudgeon Show podcast, auto
| journalist Jason Cammisa described a phenomenon occurring with
| some LED headlights in which there are observable minor spots
| of dimness among an otherwise bright field of light. "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.'"
| bArray wrote:
| I think most vehicles are operating with their headlamps adjusted
| too high. I think the majority are now completely out of spec
| [1]. My normal lights are very respectably adjusted and are the
| older dimmer type, but my full beams are blinding - I rarely ever
| use them. A few times a driver comes towards me with full beams
| on, I flash mine and light up the entire night.
|
| The quality of driver is also decreasing. One of our MPs computed
| the data and discovered "Since 2016, 1,367,942 foreign drivers
| have been issued a driving licence without taking a UK test".
| There are apparently 42.1 mn licenses [2], so ~1/30 never took a
| UK test. It's getting dangerous out there.
|
| [1] https://mattersoftesting.blog.gov.uk/the-mot-headlamp-aim-
| te...
|
| [2] https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/population-of-
| th...
| martin_a wrote:
| > It's getting dangerous out there.
|
| You're all driving on the wrong side of the road, what are you
| even talking about? /s
| tonymet wrote:
| We could get very far by mandating easier adjustment of
| headlights, and free adjustment at auto shops. It only takes a
| couple minutes to adjust the headlights , especially at a shop
| with a lift and a gauge.
| tetris11 wrote:
| I'd wager it has more to do with ageing population than car
| accidents caused by non-native driver licenses.
| ponector wrote:
| Why do you think UK drivers test is better than foreign one?
| illwrks wrote:
| I would argue it's not about being better or worse than
| another country, but if 1 in 30 drivers have a different
| understanding then that's a risk. By doing a driving test in
| the country you live in you gain a greater understanding of
| what it's like driving in that country.
|
| As a simple example I drove around Northern France and the
| first day almost went flying off the motorway slip road as I
| didn't realise how tight they tend to be in France compared
| to the UK and Ireland.
| nutjob2 wrote:
| Without so many foreign drivers it would be even more
| dangerous.
| teamonkey wrote:
| Government stats suggest that it is getting slightly less
| dangerous.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
| rozab wrote:
| The source of this claim, which you helpfully did not provide,
| is Rupert Lowe, a far-right UK politician and shite-merchant
| who is so toxic he got kicked out of Reform. He does not give
| any indication as to where his number came from.
|
| https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1987100209185181958
|
| This reciprocal scheme only applies to certain countries: the
| EU/EAA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Korea,
| Switzerland, etc.
|
| I think when you are blaming things like _headlight brightness_
| on those bloody foreigners, it 's time to do some self-
| reflection.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Once was at an intersection and I thought the beam of the
| oncoming car was on. The insides of my car were fully lighted.
| Beamed him twice to let him know.
|
| He beamed back.
| altairprime wrote:
| I have fully calibrated to manufacturer, and adjusted to state
| law angles, headlamps and they are 2019 LED and blinding to other
| drivers unless I point them slightly down. They are pointed down
| to the legal limit (I have a low car) and distance visibility at
| speed is problematic.
|
| Their design flaws are many, but top among them is that their low
| beams are simply too collimated _and_ too bright for safe use.
|
| I wish I could (illegally) attenuate them in order to make them
| safer for other drivers. Is there a coating that I can apply to
| the sealed external lexan housing that will 1) diffuse and/or 2)
| uniformly dim their light output?
| 30minAdayHN wrote:
| I wish someone does something similar in India. Night time
| driving is a nightmare. Everyone runs on high-beam. The new class
| of motor-cycles are with super bright LEDs and riders put them on
| high beam. Night-time driving is a guessing game - you need to
| guess where the edge of the road is, if there is a bicyclist in
| between, etc.
|
| At least in late 90s, there used to be a law to black out half
| the headlamp. Either that was no longer the case or it's not as
| vigorously enforced.
|
| This is the classic case of tragedy of commons!
| pete1302 wrote:
| Driving in a divider-less road in India feels like getting
| abducted by Aliens!!!!, Constant High-Beam is fine, But
| Constant LED/Projector High-Beam is a Crime.
| qart wrote:
| There will be no course-correction in India. The usual mindset
| is "how can I be the bigger a-hole?" With accessories becoming
| more and more affordable, there has been a rise in super bright
| LEDs, and even flashing LEDs. In cities, the police sometimes
| imposes fines, but apparently, no one pays fines. We have
| louder horns too. And psychopaths openly displaying their
| psychopathy. Bangalore's police at least responds on Twitter
| (https://x.com/blrcitytraffic), but when I look around, it
| seems like their efforts are a drop in the ocean. The police of
| other cities are all completely ineffective. The only exception
| is Chandigarh, but no one wants to follow their example.
| pete1302 wrote:
| As a daily commuter in North-IND I can confirm this, It is
| not even the car height difference anymore, people are
| getting aftermarket abominations on their sedans and not
| getting them height adjusted, the H-beam throw is all over
| the place.
| shkkmo wrote:
| My slightly off topic headlight rant is:
|
| We are in the process of forcing car to come with automatic
| braking, but yet we don't force cars to turn headlights when in
| motion...
| iamthejuan wrote:
| Also in the Philippines, it needs to be regulated.
| inamberclad wrote:
| It's also because the cars are getting so much taller, especially
| in the US. Driving a smaller car is terrifying when a lifted
| Dodge fitted with anti-aircraft spotlights blinds you while going
| the opposite direction.
| ifh-hn wrote:
| I'm in an older car I feel like these modern cars are permanent
| high beams. Sometimes if it's real bad I high beam them to let
| them know what it's like. Ridiculous state of affairs. Ive been
| driving for over 30 years and it's only recently this has been
| happening, like 5 years or so.
| loourr wrote:
| I've started wearing sunglasses at night
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I have a Toyota RAV4 and the lights are distinctly weaker than in
| other cars I had. It is a mix of low brightness and short cutoff.
| It is a challenge to drive when the road is even a bit bendy.
|
| They are correctly adjusted.
| bityard wrote:
| I have a recent-model Highlander and I hate the headlights on
| it. As you say, the sharp cut-off is terrible. Bendy roads I
| don't mind, but anyone driving anywhere that has even the
| smallest amount of hills is going to get this:
|
| 1) Approaching the top of the hill: cut-off is too high,
| blinding other drivers
|
| 2) Approaching the bottom of the hill: cut-off is too low,
| can't see far enough ahead, hope there's not a deer there
|
| And of course the normal up/down motion of the car while
| driving makes the sharp cut-off line bounce around in the
| distance which literally gives me nausea. And I don't get
| nauseous easily.
|
| It's like Toyota hired a team of interns who decided to
| redesign how headlights work from first principles and then
| forgot to test them out in the real world.
|
| To make things worse, when we got the car, the headlights were
| adjusted far too high and the cut-off was pointed up in the
| trees. Every other car flashed their brights at me, even though
| the low beams were on. I took it to the dealership to have the
| headlights adjusted (not a small inconvenience at the time) and
| when I picked it up, they said they did nothing because the
| headlights were not adjustable. Got home, and the USER MANUAL
| showed exactly how to adjust the headlights. Because I don't
| have the required space or equipment to do it right, I took the
| car out at night and stopped every few miles to tweak the cut-
| off line until I got to a spot that was in between blinding
| other drivers and not being able to see the road MOST of the
| time.
|
| To totally fix this, all they had to do was NOT make the cut-
| off so sharp. Like the last 100 years of cars have done.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| My car has on the door two buttons marked with 1 and 2. This
| is supposed to be a feature for two drivers that allows to
| memorize the position of the seat (which would be awesome).
| It does not work.
|
| I went to Toyota and a kind guy printed the manual for this.
| It is FOUR PAGES of things to do (open window, honk, switch
| off, dance, ...). I tried once but it did not work. A guy
| from Toyota tried to do it quickly between two customers, no
| luck.
|
| So yes, their design is quite surprising sometimes.
|
| I am also trying to use the automated opening of the hatch.
| In the ads the guy or gal with stuff in their arms vaguely
| swings their foot and bam, it opens. I am swinging like there
| is no tomorrow (it is a good thing that I have years of
| martial arts so I can sustain the movement) and the hatch doe
| snot open. Then after kicking and trying once more it opens.
| My children learned a few new words at the occasion.
|
| This is still a good car (except that the electronics are
| straight from my childhood (the 80s))
| charles_f wrote:
| I think it's the same everywhere. I'm in North America, I drive a
| normal size car, between the super bright led lights, and trucks
| and SUVs with higher mounting points it's getting really bad. I'm
| now almost unable to tell when people still have their high beams
| or not. Add to that some people who don't give a damn and
| actually drive with high beams on, and you're certain to become
| blind.
| petercooper wrote:
| Just as I haven't seen it mentioned yet, one thing that makes
| British roads worse at night nowadays is a lack of maintenance on
| the "cat's eyes" reflectors that used to line every major road.
| They are now quite often missing or broken but previously gave
| you a clear outline of the road for some distance even with
| dipped headlights. Same goes for signage overall - standards have
| slipped.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| I think a huge part of the problem also ties into the problem of
| modern "Angry Robot Face" designs. Car manufacturers are trying
| to make headlights the size of a penny that emit as much light as
| "proper" ones.
|
| In the 1980s my dad had a Citroen GSA (and indeed I had one in
| the mid-2000s, when it was about 20 years old) which was a low-
| to-mid-spec family saloon. It had headlights about a foot wide
| and 5" high with a bog standard H4 type halogen bulb in. They put
| out huge amounts of light - far better than anything else on the
| road at the time - without being glarey.
|
| Get rid of Angry Robot Face cars.
| pete1302 wrote:
| This has been a really huge problem in India lately, gone are
| the days of cute cars with minimal edges (Volkswagen Phaeton
| looked amazing IMO), now everyone is buying Cybertruck Clones
| offered by Mahindra and TATA Example: Mahindra BE 6, New Thar,
| and endless other examples
| fodkodrasz wrote:
| Also, the plastic headlight "lenses" on many cars tend to get
| cloudy and develop micro-scratches over time. This reduces the
| efficiency of the low beams, and instead of fixing the problem,
| many drivers of older cars simply drive with their high beams
| on, which creates even more glare for everyone else.
|
| Nothing is really repairable, of course, so replacing these
| parts is out of the question -- it's prohibitively expensive
| for many owners of older cars to replace the whole headlight
| units, especially since there are no penalties for driving
| around like this. Polishing the lenses is risky and usually
| only a short-term solution.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| In the UK, a car with cloudy headlight lenses will fail its
| annual roadworthiness check, and the owner will have to pay
| for the lenses to be polished.
| fodkodrasz wrote:
| Much alike in Hungary... theoretically. Here,
| unfortunately, practice is different.
| pwg wrote:
| > Nothing is really repairable, of course, so replacing these
| parts is out of the question
|
| As regards the cloudy/micro-scratched headlamps, if one is
| willing to do so there are numerous polish kits that can
| restore that "new from the factory" clarity for either an
| amount of elbow grease, or some time with a drill spinning a
| polish wheel (depending upon which kit is purchased).
| fodkodrasz wrote:
| Longevity can be problematic.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Has any jurisdiction regulated this?
| jlarocco wrote:
| As a cyclist and pedestrian, these new headlights and the cars
| with the "auto brights" are just terrible.
|
| When you're in another car their car's sensors might detect your
| headlights and dim a little bit. But as a pedestrian? You
| basically just get blinded - from low light right to 10000 lumens
| straight in your eyes. It's overpowering.
|
| Can't make them illegal fast enough, IMO.
| Zak wrote:
| The obvious solution is to carry a 10000 lumen[0] flashlight
| and use it to trigger the auto-dim[1].
|
| [0] Most flashlights that advertise numbers like this are
| lying, but a few aren't
|
| [1] This does present a risk of impairing the driver's vision
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Even if we're considering only other cars and not pedestrians,
| it's still pretty annoying. The brights will only turn off
| _after_ another car is already in their field of illumination,
| and only after a short delay. If you're manually managing your
| brights, you can almost always switch them off before another
| car even comes into view (by e.g. seeing their headlights
| approaching)
| crooked-v wrote:
| In the US, part of the problem is that car manufacturers are
| literally making headlights that are too bright for the tests,
| with dim spots in the exact places the tests measure maximum
| brightness in order to technically pass.
| https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckyourheadlights/comments/1hefn86...
| kova12 wrote:
| Nearly all UK drivers = "total of 1,850 drivers". Also mind you,
| in UK you can go to jail for disagreeing with narrative. I hold
| this article somewhat sus.
|
| With that said, yeah, headlights are kinda bright these days
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Nearly all UK drivers = a large majority of 1,850 drivers, with
| enough diversity in the sample set that one can reasonably
| extrapolate from that to the population as a whole. (Do you
| throw this criticism at every survey?)
|
| > in UK you can go to jail for disagreeing with narrative.
|
| With the narrative _on headlight brightness_?
| apparent wrote:
| Auto-dimming mirrors used to seem like a luxury, now they're
| pretty much a necessity. It's always been possible to flip the
| rear view mirror manually, but the side mirrors don't have this
| feature. I would be hard-pressed to buy a car without auto-
| dimming mirrors these days, especially a passenger car (as
| opposed to a truck/SUV, which is higher up).
| veltas wrote:
| I have to do a lot of night driving and often find myself
| putting my hand out in front of the side mirror to prevent pain
| in my eyes.
| tonymet wrote:
| Congressional hearings on headlights seem to focus on lumens, but
| the bigger issue is misalignment. I worry that setting a lumen
| cap will undermine LEDs strengths. Adaptive matrix like Tesla
| Model Y etc , which shade oncoming and leading traffic, allow
| incredible visibility without the glare.
|
| Even with static headlights, the beams need to be realigned every
| year or two. Vibration puts them out of order.
|
| A weak beam pointed at your eye will be more blinding than a much
| stronger beam aimed properly.
| danielodievich wrote:
| I drive a little 2002 Mini, those are really low to the ground.
| The modern hulking trucks and SUVs + with what I call "Bright-Ass
| Lights" + me getting older with my myopia turned driving at night
| into constant struggle to not be blind. Sigh. Nothing to be done,
| it's a tragedy of commons there
| mbirth wrote:
| Two things I haven't seen mentioned at a first glance:
|
| - headlight covers fogging up/getting cloudy or even yellowing
| from sun exposure; these will scatter the light so more of what
| should go onto the street will be visible by oncoming vehicles
|
| - 3rd party aftermarket LED replacement bulbs; usually illegal
| and completely mismatching what the mirrors in the headlights
| were made for, but that doesn't keep people from buying and using
| them
| josefritzishere wrote:
| This is literally the most common complaint to the NTHSA in
| America. For some reasons governments seem powerless in the
| headlights... like deer.
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/811043.pdf
| fudgy73 wrote:
| Something I have noticed in urban areas is that it is very
| difficult to see pedestrians that are walking in front of
| vehicles with these extremely bright headlights. For example,
| when turning left and there are people walking across the street
| that I am turning on to in front of another vehicle. I feel like
| it has something to do with the PWM of the LED lamps + the
| brightness and color?
| creer wrote:
| Plus speed bumps. Even if most cars had their headlights pointed
| correctly, the million speed bumps littering my city means
| constantly blinded drivers.
| bob1029 wrote:
| There is no explicit regulation against continuing to use halogen
| for headlights. It would be _difficult_ to pass the current
| photometric requirements but not impossible. Halogen has a much
| more predictable & smooth spectra. The CRI is nearly 100.
|
| LEDs make a lot of sense from an engineering and economics
| perspective, and that's why we must suffer them. It takes a
| special kind of leader to burn massive piles of cash/opportunity
| in order to protect a qualitative thing like how comfortable it
| is to drive at night. There aren't many CEOs who would be moved
| much by spectrograms of the headlamps in their cars.
| Paul_S wrote:
| Most drivers here don't adjust the light angle based on loading
| of the car (if you have passengers in the back in a small car
| that is enough to move your lights completely out of whack). I
| assume it's just laziness or the a "not my problem" attitude but
| some drivers I have spoken to didn't know that lights are
| adjustable!
| adamwong246 wrote:
| There is an arms race to be the brightest, biggest vehicle on the
| road. Each driver wants to be the safest and many want a shiny
| high status vehicle. The result is a runaway feedback loop of
| ever more worse design
|
| I would love to hugely curtail automotive design:
|
| - of course, dim the headlights to a reasonable brightness.
|
| - The Escalades have to go. Big trucks are for business, not
| taking the kids to school.
|
| - No screens in the console.
|
| - Absolutely no AI self-driving mode until it can be designed by
| the government. Allowing AI's to pilot cars based on the crappy
| engineering of a whiny trillionaire is nuts, yet we've allowed
| it. Let the government set the standards for "smart roads" to
| force cars to share sensor data.
|
| - Crush every cyber truck into a cube, while you are at it.
| ebbi wrote:
| We had a Hyundai Santa Fe as a rental vehicle this past weekend,
| and our first drive to our motel (which happened to be at 10pm at
| night), we kept getting flashed by oncoming drivers with their
| high beams. We even had a few cars pull over to the side of the
| road to let us pass as it would have been affecting them. I kept
| checking to make sure I didn't inadvertantly turn on the high
| beam, but nope, all was fine.
|
| Until we stopped at a gas station and I found a little knob to
| adjust the height of the light output. Not sure where this
| feature would be useful when you could just use the high beam
| when needed, but it was annoying even for me, the driver of the
| vehicle.
| giobox wrote:
| Given the US bent to this website, surprised more people aren't
| complaining about lifted trucks...
|
| Lifting a truck by a 6-12 inches does awful things to the
| unajusted beam pattern of the headlamps in many instances, with
| even the dipped lights shining brightly into the cabins and
| mirrors of lower vehicles.
| greybcg wrote:
| Ive honestly wondered why people do not ask for or demand orange
| tinted lights? In the old times where we had sodium vapour lamps
| I was always under the impression that the orange wavelengths
| were specifically picked because our visual system is keenest
| under dusklike lighting conditions. Why then do we shift so much
| towards cold harsh lights? I dont think it's just the brightness
| that makes it unpleasant but also the wavelengths.
| pwg wrote:
| > In the old times where we had sodium vapour lamps I was
| always under the impression that the orange wavelengths were
| specifically picked because our visual system is keenest under
| dusklike lighting conditions.
|
| The yellow from sodium vapor lamps was an artifact of the
| physics of the emission spectrum of excited sodium atoms.
|
| The reason sodium vapor lamps were used was because before the
| advent of LED's, they were the most power efficient (lowest
| electrical energy consumption for a given light output). The
| 'yellow' light was just a byproduct of "more efficient bulb".
| greybcg wrote:
| Ive honestly wondered why people do not expect, install or demand
| orange tinted lights? In the old times where we had sodium vapour
| lamps I was always under the impression that the orange
| wavelengths were specifically picked because our visual system is
| keenest under dusklike lighting conditions. Why then do we shift
| so much towards cold harsh lights? I dont think it's just the
| brightness that makes it unpleasant but also the wavelengths.
| kazinator wrote:
| One problem is this:
|
| 1. Some regions have mandatory DRLs (daytime running lights).
|
| 2. In many headlights, the DRL is implemented by dimming the high
| beam lamp.
|
| 3. LED lamps do not dim properly; compared to incandescent bulbs
| they dim only slightly.
|
| The result is high beam glare from cars in broad daylight
| everywhere you go.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Auto dip headlights are also a menace. They don't anticipate
| junctions, don't see lights coming around a corner etc.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Isn't it more a problem with the aim/beam-diameter than the
| brightness? If they are aimed properly and designed to shine a
| narrow beam then their extra brightness shouldn't be an issue.
| niccl wrote:
| I understand many cars nowadays have some sort of auto-levelling
| feature that is supposed to adjust the where the beams point as
| the vehicle load changes or related to tire inflation. I know
| some cars used to have a manual control for this. I don't own a
| car, but often hire, and often it's seemed that the auto-
| levelling is just adjusted too high.
|
| The first time I had a car with this I was getting flashed by
| about 1 in 20 other drivers because they thought I had the high-
| beams on. I eventually took that car back to the rental agent who
| said that yes, it looked like the beams were adjusted too high.
|
| With a manual control it's easy to fix. With auto-smarts (tm),
| not so much
| officeplant wrote:
| I've had to adjust my headlights down to regulation height (US
| DOT) on every vehicle I've purchased since 2015 (1x VW, 2x Kia,
| 1x Ford). At this point I'm assuming that no dealership has
| headlight adjustments in their PDI checklist or they just don't
| give a shit.
| yrro wrote:
| It seems like no government wants to kick the hornet's nest &
| solve this issue, nor the issue of pavement parking. At least
| this government is finally working on the problem of doctored
| number plates that are invisible to enforcement cameras. Land a
| few drivers with a 15 year sentence for perverting the cause of
| justice & things should right themselves.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Also LED signage, especially some advertising by business is
| calibrated to be visible in _daytime_ , so at night time these
| are "eye searingly bright". I've seen some that illuminate the
| countryside to a significant distance, more than stree lighting,
| but they're _aimed at you_ instead of down at the ground.
| pnw wrote:
| Rather than just rage at the automobile industry and other
| drivers for creating this problem, I bought a pair of yellow
| tinted night driving glasses and now it doesn't bug me as much.
| They don't solve the problem completely but they cut out the
| harsh blue lights in modern headlights. And the yellow tint makes
| the world look like a cool night scene in a 1970s movie.
|
| Headlight standards in the USA are a perfect example of
| government regulation failing to adapt with the times. Until
| recently the NHTSA was still using 70s era regulations, until
| Congress forced them reluctantly to update.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I remember reading about the idea of putting polarizer on the
| windshield and on the headlights at 45 deg angle so that the
| lights from oncomming car get blocked while yours are still
| visible to you. That was more than 30 years ago. It would have to
| be mandatory though.
|
| I wonder why it didn't pan out. I know polarizers block some
| light either way, but with modern, strong headlights maybe it's
| time to revisit the idea?
| m463 wrote:
| Ok, here's where this becomes a problem:
|
| older people.
|
| As you age, you gradually develop cataracts. These are deposits
| in the lens of your eye that make them cloudy, and you get glare
| from bright lights.
|
| When looking at bright lights, it is like looking through a dirty
| windshield. Light reaches your retina indirectly from the
| deposits which makes it incredibly hard to see, reducing or
| eliminating contrast.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glare_(vision)
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Flashlig...
|
| You can also get cataracts earlier due to other health conditions
| onion2k wrote:
| There is a legal minimum standard for vision to be able to
| drive in the UK (basically you have to be able to read a number
| plate at 20 metres, not have double vision, and have a normal
| field of vision in one eye.) The punishment for failing to stop
| driving if you fail that is a PS1000 fine.
|
| People with serious cataracts shouldn't be driving.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| If people with 20/20 vision are having trouble, I'm sure that
| people with diminished eyesight but above the legal limit
| have it worse.
|
| I'm also uncomfortable with the idea that we should ban more
| people from driving just so others can have excessively
| bright and sometimes illegal headlights.
| oxag3n wrote:
| It's ignorance from consumer side and lost engineering culture
| from manufacturer.
|
| In addition, people became aggressive and lack empathy - I was
| followed by a Jeep Wrangler the other day, still dark in the
| morning, his headlights lit my car interior via the back window
| to the level where I had to slow down and almost stop. Once he
| overtook I blinked as fast as possible just to let him know his
| headlights were high beam. The guy aggressively drove behind me
| and turned his high beams, which yes, were even brighter, but
| still same angle.
| xp84 wrote:
| I'd settle for the damn brake lights/taillights being toned down.
| Maybe with the exception of a car undergoing _hard_ braking there
| is no point in them being so bright, but the 1,000,000 nit
| apparent brightness coming from the vehicle in front at every
| traffic light is painful.
|
| LEDs are a true technical wonder, but they've made so many things
| so stupid, from the status lights on every single piece of tech,
| to cars. (And I'd say streetlights too, personally, but I know
| some people like those).
| LoganDark wrote:
| I've seen some cars have variable brake lights depending on how
| much pressure is being applied. It's very rare though. Wish my
| vehicle had it.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I partially blame the new cold virus they introduced in late
| 2019.
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