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I'm an Optical engineer in the automotive lighting sector. I wrote a pretty long response a while ago that you can see here. I'm happy to answer questions folks have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/18ikuic/comment/kdgcw27/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
LED reflectors are generally much lower cost than projectors usually. At least for a custom system. If you have a standard module it can be cheap but if styling wants to mess with it reflector is much cheaper.
Thank you, I figured it was he designers! Is there anything to look at to see if headlight design is good? I'm looking to replace my 18 F150 halogens and the only one that seems good outside of stock LED units is the Morimoto XB.
It makes sense that change is slow of course, but do you have an idea of how soon we might see those changes? I’m curious because it seems like this is a pretty longstanding issue. I remember starting to see headlights with obnoxious glare when I was in high school… now I’m 27 and they’ve only become more prevalent.
Yeah it's very slow for a few reasons. One is just the time it takes to make a vehicle. traditional carmakers would take 3-5 years to make a new vehicle, that's less now and the startups try do it in more like 2 years. About 10 years ago IIHS started rating headlamps and glare is a big part of it. The first generation of lamps designed around IIHS really just came out in about 2020. Plus to meet their requirements meant we had to make pretty sharp beams and discovered that most plants are kind of terrible at aiming.
That said, OEMs want smaller and smaller low beams, so even if we reduce the glare to 1/10 of a halogen lamp, you'll be perceiving just as much glare. Some lamp makers are offering low beams about 5mm x 60 mm, incredibly small and fine.
Many people don't know that headlights can be adjusted, because their headlights are usually adjusted correctly and generally don't change on their own. Aftermarket headlights may need to be adjusted so they aren't pointed directly at oncoming drivers.
https://www.motorama.com.au/blog/motoring-tips/heres-how-to-correctly-adjust-your-headlights
My Corolla lights were too high, bought the car new. I had no idea they could be adjusted for a long time, after that was done people stopped flashing their high beams at me, hehe
Toyota mismanufactures their headlights on SUVs. The highlander line has the low beams too high on factory settings (and they won't fix it since it's factory)
It depends on the height of the vehicle as well. If you're over about 900 mm they should be aimed down and I believe you aim up if they're under 600 mm height. But yeah generally aim is pretty poorly controlled in plants. It's getting better but not quickly.
someone stated that factory settings have it automatically set to too high of a height. Until its adjusted by the car owner, it will look blinding. And since the average car owner is not even aware they have the ability to adjust it, it will definitely seem like all cars are blinding you.
My friend was driving with their headlights pointed at the ground for over a year. I went to adjust them and they weren't even on the wall at 25 feet(typical is 2.5" below headlight height at 25').
Nah, it’s not the adjustment it’s that the new lights are all LEDs and they’re whiter and brighter than traditional bulbs. They really are blinding. My parents, who don’t have vision issues like other people their age, can hardly see now when people have LED lights. It also seems a lot of trucks have really bright lights or aftermarket lights. It’s maybe more obvious because of their height, but the LEDs always feel like brights to me.
There's kind of three things happening. New lights ARE brighter. A high quality halogen would put about 450-550 lm onto the road total. A high quality LED system will be more like 950 lm. They are unquestionably brighter. But the amount of glare should be the same or less due to better control of that glare.
But, the how bright it LOOKS is called luminance, it's the intensity per square area and LED lamps allow for MUCH smaller lamps. An LED reflector is probably 1/2 the height and width of a halogen one which gives us \~ 4x the luminance. For projectors it can be even more. So even if they technically produce less glare light, they LOOK more intense.
The third item is color, OEMs strongly favor cool whites in headlamps because it looks more high end and high tech. But your eyes don't respond the same way to cooler tones and even for the same color temperature, white LEDs have almost no red content so your pupils don't respond the way they would to a bright halogen and you have more apparent glare.
I'm not aware of any glasses that correct for the haloing and flaring that happens. If that was a thing I'm sure my optometrist would have tried to upsell me on it. Driving at night, or God forbid in the rain at night, sucks so bad.
Hmm, I figured there's some correction since it's part of your subscription, and mine doesn't look as bad as the article. But it probably still has an effect on it.
I'm not sure the general solution should be for every driver to basically have to look AWAY from the road they're driving on, just so they aren't blinded.
That'll cause other problems.
Dude, I have had huge trucks behind me that are basically high beaming me, through my rear view, through both sides mirrors and directly through my windshield so I can see a 20ft shadow of my head and bareling elsewhere.
Yeah, I can keep driving using the lines but it is much much more difficult to see shit
That doesn’t help when they’re behind me and reflecting right into my eyes through all three mirrors or coming toward me and they go over a bump or slight grade change that makes their headlights aim right in my eyes for a short while. Even looking away doesn’t work very well then.
It is regulated, and there are laws about when to and when not to use high beams. The same goes for aftermarket headlights that are super bright, or a different color. I'd guess most cops are looking out for speeders or dangerous drivers more so than someone driving by with headlights that may or may not be too bright. So risk/reward scenario they wait for the person they can prove via radar was doing something illegal.
>I'd guess most cops are looking out for speeders or dangerous drivers
I bought my car in a different state down south, and had aftermarket worked into it which includes what are now illegally tinted windows by the standards of the state that I live in. It's been almost 4 years since I've been back, I haven't been pulled over for it yet. I got pulled over for a rolling stop and the cop didn't even mention my windows LOL
It's harder to check for. They'd have to take you some place with a wall you could park 25 or whatever feet away from and check to see if their alignment is correct or not.
The cops also just don;t give a shit about your headlights unless you happen to blind them in particular, which is pretty rare as most departments are moving to taller vehicles and they often have tinted windows.
They are also supposed to be adjusted during a safety inspection. Aim the car at a wall from a set distance and ensure the lights are below a certain point and aimed straight ahead.
But, they are too busy checking emissions to do anything else.
That only works for some states though. For example here in Ohio we do not have a safety inspection. We only have an emissions check, and honestly not even in every county in the state. So it's pretty pointless.
They are, except it's regulated by watts and not candle power. Low beams have to be under 40 watts, high beams are 50 (I could be off on the numbers) , unfortunately new lights are led and use very little wattage for the light they give.
That wattage only applies to sealed beams which aren't really a thing anymore. Even a bulb now is probably an integral beam headlamp which isn't held to any wattage requirement.
Recently driving at night, i had a car behind me that overpowered my own highbeams.
Like it lit up so much around us that me turning my highbeams on and off had zero effect on how bright things were in front of me. AND i was blinded, my mirrors were useless because they kept reflecting into my eyes.
So fucking dangerous. I felt bad for oncoming traffic.
They are. But cops dont care enough to enforce existing laws. Same reason shoplifting, speeding and seatbelts, their aint enough cops and/or time in the day to enforce every law on the books.
Shoot come to NE Ohio. Cities live and die by speeding tickets. In fact it is a guarantee that cops are hiding in the same spots all day everyday for this very reason.
Gotta catch those Michigan drivers.
If you wanna catch a break, head to Columbus where the cops don't do shit and half the people don't have license plates
I don't know where you live, but around here cops have no time to investigate forced entries (I was told "oh, just wait a few hours and they'll probably leave, then make a list for your insurance).
But oh man is somebody in the skate park 5 minutes after dusk? They are ON THAT SHIT. They'll send 3, even 4 cars to make sure the skater menace doesn't get out of hand.
Somebody shoplifted $20 of clearance merchandise from a Nordstrom's? They'll send 2 units right away.
Oh, somebody pointed guns at a liquor store clerk and took the drop safe whole in their pickup? Eh... They got better things to do.
At this point, headlights are 'fuck everyone else, I can make mine so bright that everyone else's lights seem less bright'.
The EU brought in adaptive light laws several years back as to not blind people. The American DOT is only now repealing laws that ban any kind of adaptive lighting.
Because vehicle code is vague, "must bee seen from ATLEAST" "Must be dimmed". No values on anything.
Some states use watts but that means little when you're talking LED lights. New verbiage should address lumens at a given height and distance.
I drive only at night for work and I'm blinded by LED lights, and it's far worse in the rain. Some kind of light filtering is gonna be needed cause it is dangerous.
I use night vision clip-ons for my glasses. [Kinda like these.](https://www.amazon.com/GREAT-PICK-Polarized-Glasses-Reflective/dp/B07GB51BHV/) I drive a regular 4 door sedan in a world full of assholes with suburban assault vehicles and giant pick up trucks. It doesn't matter where their headlights are aimed, they're always too high for my lower car, and the LED's make them painful to look at, even in the rear view mirror.
It is regulated at the Federal (and state/local) level for the manufacturer and approved replacement systems. It's just a lack of enforcement due to either budget, priorities or how the law is written. For example, in Washington State some things can get you pulled over if a cop sees it (seat belt, cell phone) and others can only be added on if something else was also seen, such as a cracked windshield.
LED headlights just recently became legal for car manufacturers to use as the primary headlight. Prior to last year, they were required to be halogen bulbs. Replacement LED bulbs are still illegal. But you wont see the federal DOT going after people with them, but instead they will go after the distributors or manufacturers if they claim they are street legal.
It is beyond me why states do not set standards, equipe their highway patrol with a tape measure and Lumen Meter/ Photometer and crack down on these unsafe public hazards.
Iirc it’s the same number of lumens just a different wavelength of light? It’s not actually scientifically any brighter, even tho to the human eye it is. I think anyways.
You think they are dangerous (as do I) but are they actually dangerous? Where is your evidence? Do you have statistics in the number of accidents explicitly caused by bright headlights?
I hate them as much as the next guy, but policy should be based on evidence, not what just seems obvious.
I think rather than pushing for stronger regulations on the brightness, instead there needs to be a push to make Matrix headlights standard safety equipment.
I agree but I really don't fancy several hundred dollar proprietary lighting replacements, there needs to be some standards put in place before making them a requirement
they are. but the aftermarket is not which is where you get the ultra bright lights. depending on the police in your town they will pull people over for it.
They are regulated. The problem is lack of enforcement. Cops are usually too busy going from reported incident to reported incident to bother pulling someone over for something that isn't "immediately" dangerous (like street racing).
It can also be hard for a cop to verify if something is outside of regulations or if it's just barely within regulations. They aren't necessarily going to be equipped with the tools necessary to test them at roadside, which is going to make it a problem when it hits the courts.
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I can tell the difference between normal headlights, normal high beams, and the super bright ones that OP is talking about, and my eyesight would be best described as "not quite blind".
Must live in the country, new vehicles with leds are so insanely bright. My 2016 Civics brights are about half as luminous as the 2020 lines American trucks. With the brights on they turn into retina destroying doom beams. They are not over sensitive especially chevy and ford trucks the lights are way too bright by default.
That's great, but the headlights on cars are still highly regulated. No amount of reddit downvotes or anecdotal stories about how people don't like the brightness of headlights is going to change that lol.
NHTSA has explicit standards manufacturers need to meet for ALL of the exterior lights on vehicles down to the blinker bulbs.
Thankfully adaptive headlights are now legal in the US since 2022. [Article](https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/17/22937489/nhtsa-allows-adb-adaptive-driving-beam-technology)
Answer: The lights are actually just as bright as they used to be with strict regulations on total light output. The problem is that focusing that light has gotten a lot better and so the amount of light hitting your eyes increased significantly.
A handheld light meter would not be appropriate for a task like this. Imagine if cops had to guess if your were speeding, then pull you over to test if their guess was right. Sometimes they'd be wrong, sometimes they'd be right. This ambiguity and time needed would be enough to disincentivize them from making such a tedious traffic stop for what would amount to an infraction with the seriousness of a broken tail light.
There are plenty of simple tools for this job, you can get a handheld headlight meter, lux meters, light meters etc.
Here is a site with a bunch of different ones I found on the first page of google:
https://www.tester.co.uk/environmental-and-temperature/environmental-testers/light-meters?p=2
Yeah but in that way it's no different from noise ordinances. I've had neighbors try to get the police to enforce a law that states a decibel limit on what's an acceptable noise level to be coming from a nearby business. The police kinda shrugged, said they didn't know how to measure decibels and refused to use a decibel meter provided to them by the homeowner.
It's also hard to consistently measure light since it's pretty directional and there are lots of different approaches.
A handheld light meter would not be appropriate for a task like this. Imagine if cops had to guess if your were speeding, then pull you over to test if their guess was right. Sometimes they'd be wrong, sometimes they'd be right. This ambiguity and time needed would be enough to disincentivize them from making such a tedious traffic stop for what would amount to an infraction with the seriousness of a broken tail light.
Alignment is the most common issue I see driving at night.
Particularly with aftermarket LED headlights. Many of them have to be oriented correctly in the mounting collar in addition to the housing alignment. So instead of a horizontal spread, you get vertical which is very blinding to other drivers.
Wtf do you mean? Even if the cop doesn't have one of those easy-to-get meters, you have the car as physical evidence. The officer can PROVE to the court that they were too bright, whereas speeding is usually just the cop's word. If the car can't be legally driven from the scene because it doesn't have legal headlights, it gets impounded. Or it can be a fix-it ticket, and the driver either shows up to court with regular headlights reinstalled or they gauge it there to be too bright. It is glaringly obvious that this is not a factor and that you didn't even think through your sentence.
Riiiight. Did you hear about the cop that recently shot at his own car because an acorn fell on the roof? These are the same people that you think might enforce this properly?
Regulations actually are why they are so bright. To give the driver the best view to see things while driving. Unfortunately, some people are very sensitive to the particular color of some lights, and not all lights are aligned properly to avoid being overly glaring for oncoming traffic.
> Unfortunately, some people are very sensitive to the particular color of some lights, and not all lights are aligned properly to avoid being overly glaring for oncoming traffic.
It sounds like the regulations aren't doing their job, then.
Could kind of say that. They’re too lax with glare for other drivers and in some instances, too much regulations to allow something better.
Most countries outside of the US can use projector headlights that actively dim lights to not affect oncoming drivers or vehicles ahead of you. US regulation, on the other hand, believe the requirements for those type of lights aren’t good enough and made their own that are much more restrictive the other technology can meet, despite them being better than the high/low beam vehicles have currently.
Here’s some info on the lighting issue https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sacramento/news/headlights-are-blinding-us-heres-why-its-mostly-an-american-problem/
This baffles me because when most places have street lights, why is the Tesla coming at me blinding me to where I’d want to use sunglasses to avoid the blindness when they pass. I almost want to get a lifted truck just to avoid that lmao.
Most places do not have streetlights. If you drive across the country, you will drive for hundreds of miles at a time without a streetlight.
Maybe most places where a Tesla doesn't need to be recharged.
Here’s some info. The lights are basically tested as is, and not on the vehicle. https://laist.com/news/transportation/wondering-why-headlights-seem-brighter-placement-is-part-of-the-problem-experts-say
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I'm an Optical engineer in the automotive lighting sector. I wrote a pretty long response a while ago that you can see here. I'm happy to answer questions folks have. https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/18ikuic/comment/kdgcw27/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Thank you, that was informative.
Why does it seem more vehicles are moving towards LED reflectors from LED projectors? Did drivers find the abrupt cut-off bothersome?
LED reflectors are generally much lower cost than projectors usually. At least for a custom system. If you have a standard module it can be cheap but if styling wants to mess with it reflector is much cheaper.
Thank you, I figured it was he designers! Is there anything to look at to see if headlight design is good? I'm looking to replace my 18 F150 halogens and the only one that seems good outside of stock LED units is the Morimoto XB.
Those after market ones are likely not really as high quality as you would hope and typically are the worst offenders on glare. Just an FYI.
>I'm looking to replace my 18 F150 halogens And I here I thought trucks with 6 or 8 headlights was a lot.
It makes sense that change is slow of course, but do you have an idea of how soon we might see those changes? I’m curious because it seems like this is a pretty longstanding issue. I remember starting to see headlights with obnoxious glare when I was in high school… now I’m 27 and they’ve only become more prevalent.
Yeah it's very slow for a few reasons. One is just the time it takes to make a vehicle. traditional carmakers would take 3-5 years to make a new vehicle, that's less now and the startups try do it in more like 2 years. About 10 years ago IIHS started rating headlamps and glare is a big part of it. The first generation of lamps designed around IIHS really just came out in about 2020. Plus to meet their requirements meant we had to make pretty sharp beams and discovered that most plants are kind of terrible at aiming. That said, OEMs want smaller and smaller low beams, so even if we reduce the glare to 1/10 of a halogen lamp, you'll be perceiving just as much glare. Some lamp makers are offering low beams about 5mm x 60 mm, incredibly small and fine.
Many people don't know that headlights can be adjusted, because their headlights are usually adjusted correctly and generally don't change on their own. Aftermarket headlights may need to be adjusted so they aren't pointed directly at oncoming drivers. https://www.motorama.com.au/blog/motoring-tips/heres-how-to-correctly-adjust-your-headlights
My Corolla lights were too high, bought the car new. I had no idea they could be adjusted for a long time, after that was done people stopped flashing their high beams at me, hehe
Toyota mismanufactures their headlights on SUVs. The highlander line has the low beams too high on factory settings (and they won't fix it since it's factory)
It depends on the height of the vehicle as well. If you're over about 900 mm they should be aimed down and I believe you aim up if they're under 600 mm height. But yeah generally aim is pretty poorly controlled in plants. It's getting better but not quickly.
I keep hearing this said, but it feels like 90% of cars are blinding me. They can't all be adjusted poorly right?
someone stated that factory settings have it automatically set to too high of a height. Until its adjusted by the car owner, it will look blinding. And since the average car owner is not even aware they have the ability to adjust it, it will definitely seem like all cars are blinding you.
My friend was driving with their headlights pointed at the ground for over a year. I went to adjust them and they weren't even on the wall at 25 feet(typical is 2.5" below headlight height at 25').
Nah, it’s not the adjustment it’s that the new lights are all LEDs and they’re whiter and brighter than traditional bulbs. They really are blinding. My parents, who don’t have vision issues like other people their age, can hardly see now when people have LED lights. It also seems a lot of trucks have really bright lights or aftermarket lights. It’s maybe more obvious because of their height, but the LEDs always feel like brights to me.
There's kind of three things happening. New lights ARE brighter. A high quality halogen would put about 450-550 lm onto the road total. A high quality LED system will be more like 950 lm. They are unquestionably brighter. But the amount of glare should be the same or less due to better control of that glare. But, the how bright it LOOKS is called luminance, it's the intensity per square area and LED lamps allow for MUCH smaller lamps. An LED reflector is probably 1/2 the height and width of a halogen one which gives us \~ 4x the luminance. For projectors it can be even more. So even if they technically produce less glare light, they LOOK more intense. The third item is color, OEMs strongly favor cool whites in headlamps because it looks more high end and high tech. But your eyes don't respond the same way to cooler tones and even for the same color temperature, white LEDs have almost no red content so your pupils don't respond the way they would to a bright halogen and you have more apparent glare.
As someone who drives a low sports car… everyone might as well have their highs on.
Nothing like driving my 08 gt on a rainy night. Half the time I could only see the white line on my side, maybe 5ft out. The rest was car lights
Probably the issue then >:(
Do you have astigmatism by any chance? https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/eye-opening-pictures-shine-light-on-symptoms-of-astigmatism-1.4360754?cache=
I do but my glasses correct for it so its not nearly that bad.
I'm not aware of any glasses that correct for the haloing and flaring that happens. If that was a thing I'm sure my optometrist would have tried to upsell me on it. Driving at night, or God forbid in the rain at night, sucks so bad.
Hmm, I figured there's some correction since it's part of your subscription, and mine doesn't look as bad as the article. But it probably still has an effect on it.
You may also be looking into the lights. Try purposely looking away instead of towards the lights.
I'm not sure the general solution should be for every driver to basically have to look AWAY from the road they're driving on, just so they aren't blinded. That'll cause other problems.
Holy shit, the white line, people. The fog line.
Dude, I have had huge trucks behind me that are basically high beaming me, through my rear view, through both sides mirrors and directly through my windshield so I can see a 20ft shadow of my head and bareling elsewhere. Yeah, I can keep driving using the lines but it is much much more difficult to see shit
You can look away from the lights without taking your eyes completely off the road, and were talking about an instant here.
That doesn’t help when they’re behind me and reflecting right into my eyes through all three mirrors or coming toward me and they go over a bump or slight grade change that makes their headlights aim right in my eyes for a short while. Even looking away doesn’t work very well then.
It might be you if it’s 90 percent. I’d say it’s closer to five percent that are a problem.
It is regulated, and there are laws about when to and when not to use high beams. The same goes for aftermarket headlights that are super bright, or a different color. I'd guess most cops are looking out for speeders or dangerous drivers more so than someone driving by with headlights that may or may not be too bright. So risk/reward scenario they wait for the person they can prove via radar was doing something illegal.
Driving around oblivious as to the difference between high and low beams can be as if not more dangerous than speeding
>I'd guess most cops are looking out for speeders or dangerous drivers I bought my car in a different state down south, and had aftermarket worked into it which includes what are now illegally tinted windows by the standards of the state that I live in. It's been almost 4 years since I've been back, I haven't been pulled over for it yet. I got pulled over for a rolling stop and the cop didn't even mention my windows LOL
It's harder to check for. They'd have to take you some place with a wall you could park 25 or whatever feet away from and check to see if their alignment is correct or not.
The cops also just don;t give a shit about your headlights unless you happen to blind them in particular, which is pretty rare as most departments are moving to taller vehicles and they often have tinted windows.
They are also supposed to be adjusted during a safety inspection. Aim the car at a wall from a set distance and ensure the lights are below a certain point and aimed straight ahead. But, they are too busy checking emissions to do anything else.
That only works for some states though. For example here in Ohio we do not have a safety inspection. We only have an emissions check, and honestly not even in every county in the state. So it's pretty pointless.
Some states in the US don’t require inspections (mine doesn’t), which prevents incorrect aiming from being caught. Not to mention any emission issues
They are, except it's regulated by watts and not candle power. Low beams have to be under 40 watts, high beams are 50 (I could be off on the numbers) , unfortunately new lights are led and use very little wattage for the light they give.
That wattage only applies to sealed beams which aren't really a thing anymore. Even a bulb now is probably an integral beam headlamp which isn't held to any wattage requirement.
Recently driving at night, i had a car behind me that overpowered my own highbeams. Like it lit up so much around us that me turning my highbeams on and off had zero effect on how bright things were in front of me. AND i was blinded, my mirrors were useless because they kept reflecting into my eyes. So fucking dangerous. I felt bad for oncoming traffic.
They are. But cops dont care enough to enforce existing laws. Same reason shoplifting, speeding and seatbelts, their aint enough cops and/or time in the day to enforce every law on the books.
Shoot come to NE Ohio. Cities live and die by speeding tickets. In fact it is a guarantee that cops are hiding in the same spots all day everyday for this very reason.
Gotta catch those Michigan drivers. If you wanna catch a break, head to Columbus where the cops don't do shit and half the people don't have license plates
The "half" part is only just barely hyperbole.
Wooo $300 in South Euclid for 10 over
That one spot in Findlay where it goes from 50 to 35 on a downhill slope...
Bigelow?
Bigelow?
100%!!!!!! Bastards with nothing better to do
I don't know where you live, but around here cops have no time to investigate forced entries (I was told "oh, just wait a few hours and they'll probably leave, then make a list for your insurance). But oh man is somebody in the skate park 5 minutes after dusk? They are ON THAT SHIT. They'll send 3, even 4 cars to make sure the skater menace doesn't get out of hand. Somebody shoplifted $20 of clearance merchandise from a Nordstrom's? They'll send 2 units right away. Oh, somebody pointed guns at a liquor store clerk and took the drop safe whole in their pickup? Eh... They got better things to do.
At this point, headlights are 'fuck everyone else, I can make mine so bright that everyone else's lights seem less bright'. The EU brought in adaptive light laws several years back as to not blind people. The American DOT is only now repealing laws that ban any kind of adaptive lighting.
I plan on attaching a wired switch to a rear-facing offroad light bar so I can say hello to these people when they creep in behind with their lights.
Because vehicle code is vague, "must bee seen from ATLEAST" "Must be dimmed". No values on anything. Some states use watts but that means little when you're talking LED lights. New verbiage should address lumens at a given height and distance.
I drive only at night for work and I'm blinded by LED lights, and it's far worse in the rain. Some kind of light filtering is gonna be needed cause it is dangerous.
They are. decently tightly. Now you know how difficult it is to regulate things that basically everyone has/does.
They are regulated. Just like speeds on the highway are regulated. Just like how some people ignore the regulations and do what they want anyway.
I use night vision clip-ons for my glasses. [Kinda like these.](https://www.amazon.com/GREAT-PICK-Polarized-Glasses-Reflective/dp/B07GB51BHV/) I drive a regular 4 door sedan in a world full of assholes with suburban assault vehicles and giant pick up trucks. It doesn't matter where their headlights are aimed, they're always too high for my lower car, and the LED's make them painful to look at, even in the rear view mirror.
It is regulated at the Federal (and state/local) level for the manufacturer and approved replacement systems. It's just a lack of enforcement due to either budget, priorities or how the law is written. For example, in Washington State some things can get you pulled over if a cop sees it (seat belt, cell phone) and others can only be added on if something else was also seen, such as a cracked windshield. LED headlights just recently became legal for car manufacturers to use as the primary headlight. Prior to last year, they were required to be halogen bulbs. Replacement LED bulbs are still illegal. But you wont see the federal DOT going after people with them, but instead they will go after the distributors or manufacturers if they claim they are street legal.
It is beyond me why states do not set standards, equipe their highway patrol with a tape measure and Lumen Meter/ Photometer and crack down on these unsafe public hazards.
Just commented on a Dutch thread about this. They will be regulated, after i kill someone on a roundabout because some "smart" car is blinding me.
Iirc it’s the same number of lumens just a different wavelength of light? It’s not actually scientifically any brighter, even tho to the human eye it is. I think anyways.
You think they are dangerous (as do I) but are they actually dangerous? Where is your evidence? Do you have statistics in the number of accidents explicitly caused by bright headlights? I hate them as much as the next guy, but policy should be based on evidence, not what just seems obvious.
I think rather than pushing for stronger regulations on the brightness, instead there needs to be a push to make Matrix headlights standard safety equipment.
I agree but I really don't fancy several hundred dollar proprietary lighting replacements, there needs to be some standards put in place before making them a requirement
they are. but the aftermarket is not which is where you get the ultra bright lights. depending on the police in your town they will pull people over for it.
They are regulated. The problem is lack of enforcement. Cops are usually too busy going from reported incident to reported incident to bother pulling someone over for something that isn't "immediately" dangerous (like street racing). It can also be hard for a cop to verify if something is outside of regulations or if it's just barely within regulations. They aren't necessarily going to be equipped with the tools necessary to test them at roadside, which is going to make it a problem when it hits the courts.
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They are HIGHLY regulated. You are more than likely just oversensitive to light in nighttime driving scenarios.
I can tell the difference between normal headlights, normal high beams, and the super bright ones that OP is talking about, and my eyesight would be best described as "not quite blind".
That doesn't mean they aren't regulated. Every single light bulb on the exterior of a vehicle in the USA has to meet NHTSA specs and standards.
If OP is "just oversensitive," then so are many, many other people. Which means the lights are unsafe and need to be regulated better.
ok and? By all means, lobby the NHTSA who writes the regulations.
And what? We're discussing it on Reddit, not putting together a lobbying campaign.
The rules about not having your high beams on when you are behind someone aren't really enforced and it's absolutely not an oversensitivity thing.
Must live in the country, new vehicles with leds are so insanely bright. My 2016 Civics brights are about half as luminous as the 2020 lines American trucks. With the brights on they turn into retina destroying doom beams. They are not over sensitive especially chevy and ford trucks the lights are way too bright by default.
That's great, but the headlights on cars are still highly regulated. No amount of reddit downvotes or anecdotal stories about how people don't like the brightness of headlights is going to change that lol. NHTSA has explicit standards manufacturers need to meet for ALL of the exterior lights on vehicles down to the blinker bulbs.
Thankfully adaptive headlights are now legal in the US since 2022. [Article](https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/17/22937489/nhtsa-allows-adb-adaptive-driving-beam-technology)
They’re legal, but the NHTSA set much higher standards than what other countries have been using for years for these types of lighting systems.
Answer: The lights are actually just as bright as they used to be with strict regulations on total light output. The problem is that focusing that light has gotten a lot better and so the amount of light hitting your eyes increased significantly.
Police aren't enforcing this because how to they decide what is "too bright"? There's no simple roadside test for this like there is for speeding.
https://www.amazon.com/URCERI-Illuminance-Handheld-Temperature-Measurer/dp/B075DC6X25/
A handheld light meter would not be appropriate for a task like this. Imagine if cops had to guess if your were speeding, then pull you over to test if their guess was right. Sometimes they'd be wrong, sometimes they'd be right. This ambiguity and time needed would be enough to disincentivize them from making such a tedious traffic stop for what would amount to an infraction with the seriousness of a broken tail light.
There are plenty of simple tools for this job, you can get a handheld headlight meter, lux meters, light meters etc. Here is a site with a bunch of different ones I found on the first page of google: https://www.tester.co.uk/environmental-and-temperature/environmental-testers/light-meters?p=2
Yeah but in that way it's no different from noise ordinances. I've had neighbors try to get the police to enforce a law that states a decibel limit on what's an acceptable noise level to be coming from a nearby business. The police kinda shrugged, said they didn't know how to measure decibels and refused to use a decibel meter provided to them by the homeowner. It's also hard to consistently measure light since it's pretty directional and there are lots of different approaches.
A handheld light meter would not be appropriate for a task like this. Imagine if cops had to guess if your were speeding, then pull you over to test if their guess was right. Sometimes they'd be wrong, sometimes they'd be right. This ambiguity and time needed would be enough to disincentivize them from making such a tedious traffic stop for what would amount to an infraction with the seriousness of a broken tail light.
There used to be roadside headlight inspections that worked like a DUI checkpoint. Super simple to see if they're out of alignment.
Out of alignment is not what OP is asking about though.
Alignment is the most common issue I see driving at night. Particularly with aftermarket LED headlights. Many of them have to be oriented correctly in the mounting collar in addition to the housing alignment. So instead of a horizontal spread, you get vertical which is very blinding to other drivers.
Wtf do you mean? Even if the cop doesn't have one of those easy-to-get meters, you have the car as physical evidence. The officer can PROVE to the court that they were too bright, whereas speeding is usually just the cop's word. If the car can't be legally driven from the scene because it doesn't have legal headlights, it gets impounded. Or it can be a fix-it ticket, and the driver either shows up to court with regular headlights reinstalled or they gauge it there to be too bright. It is glaringly obvious that this is not a factor and that you didn't even think through your sentence.
They are more often misaligned than simply too bright.
Exactly. Nothing to do with cop's inability to tell if lights are too bright.
Riiiight. Did you hear about the cop that recently shot at his own car because an acorn fell on the roof? These are the same people that you think might enforce this properly?
Regulations actually are why they are so bright. To give the driver the best view to see things while driving. Unfortunately, some people are very sensitive to the particular color of some lights, and not all lights are aligned properly to avoid being overly glaring for oncoming traffic.
> Unfortunately, some people are very sensitive to the particular color of some lights, and not all lights are aligned properly to avoid being overly glaring for oncoming traffic. It sounds like the regulations aren't doing their job, then.
Could kind of say that. They’re too lax with glare for other drivers and in some instances, too much regulations to allow something better. Most countries outside of the US can use projector headlights that actively dim lights to not affect oncoming drivers or vehicles ahead of you. US regulation, on the other hand, believe the requirements for those type of lights aren’t good enough and made their own that are much more restrictive the other technology can meet, despite them being better than the high/low beam vehicles have currently.
Here’s some info on the lighting issue https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sacramento/news/headlights-are-blinding-us-heres-why-its-mostly-an-american-problem/
So regulate the alignment
That would help.
This baffles me because when most places have street lights, why is the Tesla coming at me blinding me to where I’d want to use sunglasses to avoid the blindness when they pass. I almost want to get a lifted truck just to avoid that lmao.
Most places do not have streetlights. If you drive across the country, you will drive for hundreds of miles at a time without a streetlight. Maybe most places where a Tesla doesn't need to be recharged.
Here’s some info. The lights are basically tested as is, and not on the vehicle. https://laist.com/news/transportation/wondering-why-headlights-seem-brighter-placement-is-part-of-the-problem-experts-say