Bring back standardised headlight, and a maximum height allowance on vehicle's headlights so that they're not right in a sedan's driver's rearview mirror when a pickup is tailgating.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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I saw a graphic of how big the "blind spot" is in front of modern trucks and it was bigger than most giant construction equipment.
And that's for an average height driver.
Most of the huge truck guys also happen to be well under the average height, so entire reasonable size cars disappear in front of them when they tailgate. They might see the roof, but they won't see brake lights or taillights.
It's flat out not safe for other people. Which is why we have people driving giant SUVs instead of minivans now. Which just makes it worse for everyone else.
maximum height allowance on vehicle’s headlights so that they’re not right in a sedan’s driver’s rearview mirror when a pickup is tailgating
That's actually already legally mandated at least in states that require state inspections. Headlight angle is supposed to be one of the things you have to check in order to pass inspection.
In practice, mostly nobody checks it and it doesn't matter. But it should.
Not just the angle tho, the height of the headlights themselves! Even if aligned properly if the headlights are 5' off the ground and my back window is 3.5' when they tailgate it illuminate the inside of my car !
Can't you just install couple of headlights facing backwards (asslights?) for such occasions?
That's why we have a rear fog light.
Just joking, just drive slower until the asshole overtakes.
I always adjust my rearview to shine the light right back at the driver.
In places where you need to have emissions checked they should simultaneously check headlight alignment and brightness and enforce standards for these.
TIL not all developed nations do this
I prefer the much more fun “break LED headlights with a hammer” but your solution is less likely to land me in jail I guess.
LED headlights are not the problem. LEDs in reflector housings and/or idiots driving with their brights on is the problem.
Either way the problem is idiot car owners, not technology.
For the most part, I agree. LEDs are not the problem. The problem is either moronic drivers, or poor implementation of LED lights. As a driver of a very low car, the vast majority of my complaints about bright lights boils down to lifted trucks with ridiculous light bars, LEDs bulbs in halogen housings, or dufoids driving with their highbeams on. It doesn't matter if the highbeams are halogen or LED, they're both blinding.
That being said, there are cars with LED headlights that are blinding from the factory:
- 2023+ Subaru Outback.
- Jeep Wrangler/Gladiator (compounded by having a factory or aftermarket lift)
- Hyundai Palisade
Then there are the cars that are designed by morons that have all instruments in the center console. That makes it harder for drivers to see when their LED highbeams are on:
- Toyota Prius
- Tesla Model 3/Y
But there are plenty of cars with LED headlights that I don't have any issues with. In my experience, Mercedes and Audi seem to do a particularly good job of having bright lights for the driver without blinding anyone else.
And there are plenty of other cars with halogen headlights that are blinding from the factory too:
- Ford F-Series trucks with quad halogen headlamps
- Dodge trucks
- Chevy Cruze (or some other small to midsize American sedan, I can't tell)
The luddites who want to strap jam jars with glowworms in them to the front of new cars are being ridiculous. Properly aimed LEDs are so much safer.
When I got my new car with LED headlights, I couldn't believe how much more I could see. I could see fae down the road. Retroreflectors on lane markings far beyond the reach of my beams are visible. Pedestrians running across the street against the light wearing all black (true story) are visible! Despite clear lenses, new bulbs, and being correctly aimed, the halogen lights in my old Civic barely reached 100 feet down the road. My other halogen bulbed vehicle is better, but it's still a far cry from what I'm used to now.
Notice how all the cars in the first batch are SUVs. It's almost like having vehicles with headlights that are on eye level with most normal cars is a bad thing.
SUVs are genuinely one of the worst things to happen to the automotive industry.
most normal cars
I hate to tell you this, but SUVs are "most normal cars" these days. There's a reason Ford got out of making cars, except for the Mustang. (And I say this as someone that dislikes SUVs and would rather buy cars.)
I hate that you're right 😭
The luddites who want to strap jam jars with glowworms in them to the front of new cars are being ridiculous.
Lmao. Well said.
Well you could work at the inspection center and do that if they fail to pass muster (for safety).
They do that here. Except too bright isn't seen as a fault.
We do in Germany, every two years. It's not helping and I don't know why. Maybe people are aligning their headlights correctly just for the test. Or the test is garbage. Next time my car is due, I'll ask the guy.
There is a huge difference though when it comes to the intensity of headlights in the US vs Germany. Some cars in the US will light up the inside of your own car simply by driving behind you.
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I hate it when someone with these lights is in the passing lane behind you, and their lights reflect off your side mirror directly into your eyes. The worst is when they're only going like 102% your speed, so they linger there unless you adjust your own speed to change their placement relative to you.
Or when you are both at a stop light facing each other in your respective left turn lanes. Not only are their insanely bright LEDs directly facing you but you are also both at a slight incline, exacerbating the angle of brightness. And you have no choice but to look ahead because you need to watch for oncoming cars/pedestrians crossing, to know when it's safe for you to make your left turn.
I went from a small car to a small crossover and it made a huge difference. It's like America's roads are designed for SUVs.
Quite a few years ago I had a Citroen DS 23, whose headlights moved with the steering with a simple mechanism, so it illuminated the curves much better and also dazzled drivers coming in front much less. I don't know why this has not become standard, very easy to implement by manufacturers, it is simply a bar that connects the headlights and another connected to the steering, it is nothing more than this.
In case anybody doesn't know, a good trick to avoid blindness is to close one eye until the car passes so you'll retain your night vision in that eye. This also works great for going to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
What if you’re on a one lane road, and not only is there a dude with bright lights on behind you, but also there’s just a continuous stream of them in the opposing lane, all flashing you as well?
Uhh hold on to your butt I guess
Well I held onto my butt and ended up crashing into a tree… I would suggest to any one else who sees this post, don’t do that.
Shit my bad
My best advice is to concentrate on the line marking the outside of the road. Not much, but it's something.
Shouldn't all headlights be okay as long as your headlight angle is calibrated right? That's like the first thing they teach in driving school
Yeah, it's not. No one levels those properly and projectors should be used with LEDs, not reflectors. Also, tye temperature of the light (blue light is harsh and males it harder to see without high beams), the little LED strip lights that replaced headlights on a bunch of models now don't help either.
Lul the what? Strip lights for low beam? Not just for daytime running lights (drl)? That sounds ... terrible.
Even if the lights are leveled correctly, part of the problem is how directional LEDs are. On a flat surface you're fine. If you're cresting a hill so your vehicle is level and there's someone coming up the hill towards you, your headlights are shining directly in their eyes. As soon as you start descending the hill your headlights are now pointing in the right direction relative to oncoming traffic again. Adjust the headlights down and you just change the angle that this happens at. Adjust the headlights down so it only happens on particularly steep hills, and your headlights are basically useless because they're not illuminating enough of the road in front of you.
There was a recall on, I think, Chevy headlights. The LEDs were too bright, unfortunately recalls are at the will of the owner.
Part of it is also outdated regulations. They recently updated the regulations to allow adaptive lights that turn off the parts of the led array that would blind oncoming drivers while maintaining road illumination. The technology has been around a while but the US didn't allow car makers to use it.
It wasn’t allowed in the US? Wow. Didn’t know that. In EU it’s available since about ten years. Current systems have high definition projectors with >1 million pixels which can display nearly everything on the street before you.
Some people here in CR use bikes with these. The only difference is that the lights flash constantly
What is CR? (i bet 1000€ that you are american)
My guess is Costa Rica. If correct, I guess you are technically correct too.
Costa Rica
My pet peeve about headlights is that auto manufacturers used the same fittings for standard and HID bulbs and allowed users to replace them of their own accord.
So plenty of places and third parties made HID bulbs for standard bulb fixtures, and people installed them thinking they would make everything better for them when driving at night. They're the brightest and therefore the best, right? Nope.
HID bulbs should be in specific housings and fixtures which control the direction of the light better than standard bulb housings. With regular bulbs (incandescent), this isn't a problem, since the amount of misdirected light is not enough to cause problems. When you exponentially increase the amount of light with an HID bulb, that leakage is no longer trivial, and rather blinding.
This is why I'm in support of LED headlights on cars. They're still "blue" and very VERY bright when you're in the cone of light they emit, but they're usually a non-user-serviceable component. So unless someone intentionally goes and screws with their headlight alignment, they generally eliminate most issues with very bright headlights. They keep the light directed at the ground, giving the driver very good coverage of the road while not blinding oncoming drivers (mostly). The downside, IMO, is that, since the bulbs are no longer able to be changed by the user, by design, you now need to buy a whole new headlight assembly if your headlight stops working. While LEDs are generally very long lived, that life can be significantly reduced due to problems beyond your control, like manufacturing defects that can go undetected for years until suddenly the light simply stops working; costing possibly hundreds of dollars to fix, where a standard set of bulbs would be maybe $20 at most.
IMO, between this, and automatic headlights, and on some cars, automatic high beams, as long as people use those systems as intended, being blinded by headlights in most scenarios should be a thing of the past..... Of course that requires that people use the systems as intended.... Which is a bit like wishing for world peace. The populous unanimously agreeing to anything is basically impossible at this point. Even something as basic as "killing people is bad" is not something that everyone can agree on, since there are entire movements of people who think they should be seeking peace by killing all of the people who disagree with their position. I don't want to name names on that, but it's a thing that a few very notable groups fervently believe. To go into that a bit further, most would agree that anyone trying to commit the "murder, death, kill" on anyone should be stopped by any means necessary, which includes, but isn't limited to killing the person trying to kill others; this is largely considered to be an acceptable exception to the rule, but again, not everyone agrees with that. I won't go further with it, since I think the point is made... We can't, as a society of people, universally agree on anything. So there will always be exceptions.
I'm with Homer. Fuck that guy
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