Yeah, as an owner of a vehicle with these fucking things. I hate them but there's literally nothing we can do. All vehicles sold have them now, and the manufacturers have no options for softer lights. I've tried for months.
Do what I did and write your MP. This needs to be legislated.
One problem is the manufacturers have made headlights into assemblies that cannot be repaired or really disassembled, forcing you to replace the entire thing if anything goes wrong. Also they can be expensive.
Yep, driving around without lights is dangerous, it could get you pulled over. The people designing these setups know this and want to force you back to the dealership.
That 2005 model headlight also has a much shorter lifespan than most LEDs (assuming proper cooling in their enclosure). Up to 1,000 hours for a traditional headlight, and up to 50,000 hours for an LED headlight.
You do realize their goal is less bright lights, with these LED assemblies there is often little to no aftermarket, and when there is it is brighter. Example: 2023-2026 Acura integra
Well you gotta give it a few years for an aftermarket to develop. I'm happy that there are people on Lemmy privileged enough to afford a brand new car, but most of us are driving 12-14 year old vehicles, in which there's almost always an aftermarket available in that age range unless you're driving something obscure (in which case you'd have a difficult time finding even OEM parts for!).
Canada used to have regulations about the maximum lumens that could be output by headlights, but corporate lobbyists undermined this with a rule that exempted cars that rolled off the dealership lot with brighter lights in the late 90's when the manufacturers started using the bright blue halogens. Then LEDs came out and they got the same bypass automatically.
I voted against the political leaders that supported moves like this for years, but most of the population doesn't.
Yeah, we are very strict regarding max light output, but depending on what we measure, it's Candela or Lumen. And bright beams (> 2000 Lumen) need to automatically limit how far they reach to not blind people when driving over a hill for example, etc. Without all of that, it would be carnage.
This is unfortunately just not true. I'm also from Germany and I drive a lot at night, where I get absolutely blinded by random headlights every couple of minutes. My car sits very close to the ground and the average SUV headlights are way above my trunk and hood, shining directly into my cabin. It's gotten so bad in recent years. One day I'll probably crash into a tree or something because yet another idiot trusts their Matrix LED high beams to recognize my car in time.
If I illegally modified my vehicle in a way that made it worse, it would be.
This is a factory vehicle from the dealership with no alternative light options. I'm not responsible for anything with regard to the lights on it unless I'm running around with my brights on, which I don't use.
Not sure how you think the law works, but that's not it.
I've looked all over for aftermarket options, and asked the dealership repeatedly for options for 4 years.. And I have no responsibility because I won't go spending inordinate amounts of money to try and engineer a potentially worse solution...
Dude. I wasn’t joking. They make tape for this. It’s all over amazon. Search for “headlight filter tape.” We’re talking like $7 and 20 minutes of your life to have a lower chance of getting in a wreck. So do it!
what you are asking for is practically impossible, and actually literally impossible without spending multiple tens of thousands of dollars finding and paying someone to reverse engineer a car's lighting system, including the car's whole computerized network that likely controls the lights and their electrical environment, then find and pay someone to manufacture a custom, one-off modification, and finally find and pay someone to actually install it.
the result may not be legal, may void a car's warranty, may cause a car to fail a mandatory state inspection, may be unreliable and cost insane amounts of money to fix if/when needed
this is a wildly unreasonable request and expectation that you're making.
If it's from the factory, it's likely not as bad as the aftermarket ones. The problem with aftermarket is the light housing is designed for a bulb in a particular location. The aftermarket ones will often be in the wrong location, so even the low beams will shine higher than they should be. (Low/high beams have to do with height, not brightness.) Your lights might be bright, but I suspect that your low beams still don't shine upward very far. If they do, name and shame the manufacturer of your car please.
Its bad enough that people constantly flash their lights at me because they think I have my brights on. At stop signs I literally need to flash my brights back to prove they aren't. (It would be impossible, the brights will not stay on when there are any red or white lights in front of the vehicle unless you manually pullback and hold the control stick.)
I never use the brights on this thing. The headlights are already too bright
Mentioned in another thread, this is a Dodge. And Mopar makes sure no aftermarket parts exist. Dodge doesn't provide any alternative light brightnesses.
My newish car has LED headlights, but it's a CAR, and is low to the ground. I hope it doesn't blind oncoming cars like these fucking trucks that are 3,000 feet tall.
LEDs in projection housings that are properly aimed aren't an issue at all, the issues arise with 1)poorly aimed lights and 2)installing LEDs in reflector housings not meant for them
I fucking hate those things. I saw somewhere that it's almost always an alignment issue, but I feel like with today's technology it should be self-correcting if it's going to otherwise blind people. We have phones that can photograph an ant's asshole at 300 meters. they could fix this shit if they cared. They'll only care if they lose billions in a class action lawsuit.
It's super easy to adjust in most cars that don't do it automatically. There is usually a slot near the lights and you use a philips or flat screw driver and turn the adjustment nut either up or down depending on need. Instructions are in the manual or you can look it up online for every vehicle I've owned.
There is an exact method but generally line the car up facing and super close to a wall, turn the lights on, the center of the beam should be about 2-3 inches below the height of your headlights. If you have space the beam should hit the ground 7.5m or about 25 ft from where your car is parked.
A common issue in my hick town is people lifting vehicles and never adjusting the light angle. Any time you put bigger tires on a car or lift the body you should adjust the lights.
Edit:
I just wanted to add, if you get brights flashed at you a lot it's time to adjust your lights.
You're not going to tell me that some of them aren't adjusting them to be blinding on purpose. In certain segments of car culture, obnoxiousness is a virtue.
The worst part is when the other headlights are so bright you have to make yours brighter to compensate. I have astigmatism and am literally blinded by these headlights while driving at night. I had to upgrade my own headlights to LED (still dimmer than these others) just so that I could still make out the road when they drive by. Because the way my eyes work the more my eyes adjust for darkness the more blinding a light is.
I was driving my friend's car at night yesterday, first time in years, and it seemed like over half the people just don't flick off their brights when approaching these days?? I understand it's kind of impossible to see the road without them now, but I was still shocked at how g much shittier a drive in the dark was than I remembered. It's intolerable!
The technology for adaptive headlights absolutely has existed...... in super high-end cars because that's a complex optical control and microelectronics system. it requires advanced engineering, complex optical assemblies, and complicated control systems. Your Honda will never have that because most of us simply don't want to pay. Cars are complicated enough. Do want more things that can break? Do you want your replacement headlights to cost $5,000? LED technology is so far superior to any other light source for headlights. That there are idiots all over the place with poorly maintained cars is not the LEDs fault.
It’s mostly limited to expensive cars because until recently the regulations around them were super complicated. Things are finally simplified a bit and North America has finally started allowing them as well.
I'm looking at the specs of a VW Polo here and it has matrix led headlights. Not the base model, but one above it, at 23k eur. I know Polo's aren't available in the states, but if a small entry level hatchback suited for first car owners can have them, I struggle to find the reason why others can't have them too. Unless its proprietary technology?
They make LEDs specifically meant for halogen housings that shouldn't blind you. They also make "off-road use only" LEDs with 10x the lumens that go in the same bulb sockets and guess which ones people will buy
Do it. I did and it's fucking hilarious getting revenge on these people. They get so mad lol
Just don't make the mistake I did and do it to a cop (it was at night so I couldn't see what kind of car it was; all I saw was tailgating headlights). Thankfully he had a sense of humor about it.
Also, don't forget to turn them off. I was on the road at about 3:30am this morning and initially thought there was a wrong way driver. It took about 20 seconds to realize it wasn't getting any closer and figure out what it actually was: a guy in a jeep had them installed on a roof rack.
I had mine installed in the rear window, so if I left it on it would be very obvious. Installing a rear-facing light on a light bar where you can't see it is a really bad idea.
Really depends on the cop, since they can pull you over and/or ticket you for any or no reason. Whether it stands in court is another story, but you gotta take it to court for that to matter. And if they just say it was on when it wasn't, it would be difficult to prove.
I got pulled over and the cop didn't give a single shit about the light, even though I blasted him with it (I thought they were a tailgater). I only got a ticket for speeding.
So it really depends. Thankfully (or unfortunately) most cops aren't familiar with the law.
My buddy had an Audi A4, probably a 2003, and one of the features was just this bright ass light that you could turn on that pointed backwards. He had another Audi after that didn't have it, never really seen one with it, other than that. It was great for dealing with tailgaters.
To be fair, depending on the housing, alignment is nearly impossible. Many housings are simply not designed to have a sharp cut off. As far as I'm concerned, LEDs should only be allowed in projector housings with projector lenses. Those are the ones that have a damn near razor blade level of light cutoff, so when you aim them to just below the windshield level of most vehicles, it's not going to blind them at all.
That is what I have done with my car, I have LEDs brighter than the sun, but I have them in projector housings with projector lenses, and I have them aimed to be below the windshield level of a typical sedan, not a stupid SUV or truck. So nobody ever flashes me or gets annoyed and I have tested by having a friend Drive towards me on a road in the car while I am in a different car
It has the added benefit of my high beams are still mostly road level rather than up in the trees like many peoples so for like a mile in front of me it is just daytime which is very helpful out where I live in the middle of absolute nowhere rural where streetlights are just a myth and the deer are plentiful.
I really appreciate your attention to properly aligning your lights... but doesn't that only help with very level roadways? Where I drive with lots of gentle hills, a car with a razor thin cut-off looks like its constantly flashing its high-beams at me. I feel like a headlight with a gradual transition would be less blinding for other drivers.
Mild unlevelness is taken into account with my aiming, obviously I can't do anything about us going opposing directions on a steep incline, but that's true of any headlight type.
As I mentioned, that's true regardless of light type. I am just as blinded by the people with standard lights on an incline as they are by my LEDs. That's just part of driving on an incline at night. People that have driven at night more than once in their life just learn to hold up one of their hands on a steep incline.
It's less I like the bright lights and more the whole there is no other source of light anywhere near me. I'm on a rural highway and I would like to be able to see the deer before I'm on top of them.
Incandescant headlights are not dim, the tyranny of the inverse square law is unavoidable. If you stare into them head on, say, as a product of a hill, you will be unsighted regardless.
And this is ignoring the fact that just because LEDs can be brighter doesn’t mean they have to be. Trying to attribute this issue to technology instead of insufficent regulation is harmful.
To be fair, depending on the housing, alignment is nearly impossible. Many housings are simply not designed to have a sharp cut off.
Yes, halogen housings. Which is why halogen headlights CAN in fact blind you more than proper factory LEDs, but people here usually won't listen to that.
I have yet to see HID or LED headlights installed from the factory that don't have sharp cutoffs.
That is what I have done with my car, I have LEDs brighter than the sun, but I have them in projector housings with projector lenses
If you retrofitted those, that's most likely still illegal in the EU. The LEDs that you're allowed to retrofit to halogen projectors are pretty dim actually. And headlights above a certain lumen count have to be auto-adjusting for when you've got a load and the rear end is sagging for example. Which is why it's difficult for me to share in LED hate. HIDs and LEDs literally legally require proper aiming and cutoffs, whereas halogens are "do whatever the fuck you want" outside of having to make sure the aim is right for the annual inspection (which sometimes they'll just adjust for you anyway and nobody's stopping you from aiming it wrong again after you leave).
In that case, I hope you either have bulbs that are legal for halogen projectors, or you were very particular about how you aimed them, because LED, HID and halogen projectors all work a little bit differently as I understand it.
But if there's nobody blinking at you at night when you're using your low beams, then it's probably fine.
Yeah, somewhere in this ridiculous thread I mentioned I also used a different vehicle to do a pass by of each other to make sure it was good. It's also just pretty easy to see where the light is. The cutoff is quite sharp and defined. It's fairly clear what it's hitting and what it's not.
LEDs are so point source and intense that any misalignment, which is very common, is going to be an issue. Plus they blind you much more when a car's nose is elevated relative to you. Put HID or LED lights on trucks and they are always in your face, and it feels like 50% of the vehicles are massive trucks.
It's strange though since LED lights are extremely much more powerful, and this is a current and ongoing and big complaint by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Maybe you have a rare genetic eye disorder that makes you impervious to being blinded. Good for you. The rest of us get blinded by LEDs.
I don't blind people, I have HIDs and the projectors are still functioning well enough to get a razor sharp cutoff. Current ones aren't even that bright, still on the original Hella E55s which are a lousy projector and burn out quickly.
But I also don't get blinded by oncoming factory LEDs like, ever. It happens about as often as with old pre-projector halogens that spew their (admittedly dimmer) light all over the place. Which is to say, never.
Which leads me to think that perhaps the people who say they used to get blinded less back in the day and can barely see now, have gotten worse eyesight over the years, rather than LEDs in particular being the problem.
OR maybe it's yet another North America special, where everyone's driving tall as fuck trucks with their low beams aimed straight forward, especially in retrofitted LED lights. Doing any of that near me would be highly illegal, which is why pretty much the only times I get blinded by LEDs, it's some asshole's lightbar they decided to install to supplement their high beams instead of fixing whatever is fucked up with their headlights. Somehow that's the one loophole we have: You can have super bright additional lighting on your car as long as it's ONLY high beam.
I actually was asked one time why I didn't do that myself when I had crappy burnt out headlights and decided to go the more expensive route of getting brand new bi-xenon projectors installed in a car I had (~500€ all in for parts, installation, polishing, and of course it came with a pair of new high-end bulbs, also included in that price, compared to ~100€ for a super bright stupid fucking LED lightbar). My answer was that I wanted my low beams to be good too, so I don't have to switch over at the last possible moment and blind everyone with a light bar. I was right, too. I barely even felt the need to use the high beams, and NOBODY flashed at me for my low beams, which were about 20x brighter than the burnt out OE projectors. Like those HIDs were brighter than many people's LEDs after that, compared to the old E55s (as you can probably tell, I hate the Hella E55, super common bi-xenon projectors in 00s German cars and even some Japanese ones), which made my old 1992 Audi 80's halogens look bright. And not a single time did anyone flash at me. I even asked a friend to drive towards me and tell me if I was blinding him. Nope. Two days later, said headlight restoration/upgrade actually saved me from hitting a couple of deer hiding in bushes, so there's a point for bright headlights. I can see well enough without them, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't have seen those deer. I don't think anyone could have with dim headlights.
Almost everything we buy is "pushed" on us out of profit motives, not as a public service. And yes, we shouldn't buy things just because they're "new and improved", but I'm not sure how that's relevant to aiming headlights too high - a problem as old as cars.
Food, energy, drinking water, health care, fire and police, none of those are pushed out of profit motives. They are things we need to survive and have a society. The problem is when the system itself stops being just the set of rules regulating trade to being an active participant and incentive in and of itself.
Capitalism has its own prejudice- profit, over and at any and all costs.
Humans need food, energy, water, health care and so on, and we will need that regardless of what capitalism has to say about how to provide it. And there is a lot to say about what capitalism has to say about how to provide it.
I see the edges now with that hexagonal pattern, thought it was just fluo tape, but you're right (I just shill for that stuff cause it saved my bacon riding a bike back before every driver became a hazard)
People keep telling me that acktually Tesla headlights have hi-tech sensors that avoid blinding people. And I’m like “I’m people, and they blind me all the time!”
In many countries there are biannual safety checks, we have that here, and I haven't noticed that.
But it is also known that Tesla recommendations for safety are very lacking. So 30-40% if Tesla cars fail the safety check here, and have to go to the shop and get fixed before being able to drive on the road legally.
There is no US regulation on headlight brightness, so it's a little of that and also new cars maxing out what they can put on the car. Add to that the height of trucks and SUVs.
LED lights are far brighter though, and the worst color wavelength for vision.
Yeah, I think a good amount of the issue with them could be resolved simply by using warmer color LEDs - it seems so obvious that I don't get why they don't.
There are regulations but the regulations haven’t been updated since the halogen bulb era. Tests designed for headlights with a single light source can be gamed by led headlight manufacturers to get approval for lamps that are way brighter than the law ever intended. Additionally, the regulations we have aren’t enforced after the design is approved. Manufacturers have to get approval of new designs but no one ever gets a ticket for blindingly bright lights. Lifting your truck or adding extra high wheels requires adjusting the angle of the headlights, but no one ever does that.
That actually used to be the case, but then people got used to it, and now people think regular headlights are too dim because they don't illuminate way up into the sky like a second sun, and so new cars are coming out with brighter headlights (with higher angles, presumably). But there's no technical reason LEDs have to have their terrible reputation in headlights, so the spirit of your post is correct.
LED replacement bulbs are a common problem. The beam dip is designed around a single element. However, LEDs can't produce the intense light of an incandescent or halogen type bulb. To compensate, they use an array of LEDs. This creates a large emission surface. Some of the surface is a significant distance from where the element used to be. This completely messes up the beam shaping, throwing light where it shouldn't be.
Combine poor beam forming with higher vehicles, and higher outputs, and LEDs get a very bad rep.
A properly designed LED headlight has far less issues. Unfortunately there are a lot of stock units which also have poor designs.
They don’t teach people how to aim headlights anymore and people refuse to read the manual for the 4000 pound death machine they just purchased. So they even come from the dealership misaimed now and nobody does anything about it. We don’t even have annual inspections in my state anymore since 2002.
As with great many things, half the problem is education.
I hate that this is always the excuse. People are not replacing their headlights with the frequency that would be required for how insanely common blindingly bright headlights are these days.
I don't blame the individuals, no one is recomending shops to their friends on how to get these adjustments.
The fact that no one believes in regulation, or MAINTAINING regulation depending on our needs, that these things happen.
Wish I could blame the assholes, but I leave that for the people who commute in big fucking truck 1000 because they are too insecure to buy anything else for their commuting machine.
There is a bill before the US congress right now that would mandate a study to gather hard numbers on safe luminosity and proper mounting of vehicle headlamps. I've written my rep asking them to support, if not sponsor, the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7772/text
I'm in Japan and I get blinded by lights by a lot of cars these days. It shouldn't be aiming as we have bi-yearly inspections that check that (both for regular and highbeams). It is possible, though, that people change the lights for inspection and swap them out after (though this is not legal).
SE Asia was brutal when I went there. India had all nice old yellow lights and sometimes light bulbs and sometimes oil lamps or candles to light their way. That was nice, and constantly terrifying.
You might be increasing your risk while night driving doing that by making it substantially easier to overdrive your headlights and reducing visibility.
Im not saying dont properly adjust them, but going to the lowest setting possible is likely not the answer and a very real risk factor.
Cars missing that dial are auto-adjusting, you only change the initial setting if they're wrong. It's adjustable on the headlight assembly itself. 1% decline is what you're meant to be aiming for. It may also be adjustable via dealer-level diagnostics.
I am enthused by the anti-led headlight comments in this thread
it's nice to see people recognizing the danger for what it is and not just making false claims about how it's only illegal headlights that are dangerous and stock LEDs are fine
I'm proud of all you people shitting on LED headlights. keep up the good work
edit: to the guy who respectably tried to find alternatives for their blinding headlights and couldn't and wrote their MP about it - good work. but that's not enough. it's your vehicle, and you as the owner and operator are responsible for its safety. you chose that vehicle. you were aware of the headlights. you made that trade off of blinding headlights for the rest of the package. that was YOUR decision. don't fuck my life up as a result and say "whoopsie, nothing I can do, not my fault". that's disgusting. have some responsibility for your actions. yes the manufacturers fucked you. don't use that as an excuse to fuck the rest of us.
there are still enough people who aren't very conservative and still just shrug and say "nothing I can do about it", instead of y'know owning up to their shit
the edit to my top level comment should make my opinions clear
I wasn't directing this at you, just adding that plenty of left-leaning people wash their hands of it and say "it came like this" like that absolves them of all responsibility for something they chose to buy
A lot of them are now automatic and older not Lazer beam lights don't deactivate them. And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this... To be fair many many people have no business behind the wheel of literally anything but I digress.
I have automatic high beams and they almost never turn on. I don't really think I've had an issue with them not turning off. EXCEPT for one time I was driving around with my normal low beams on as usual and they just decided to pop on briefly to blind the person right in front of me. I felt so bad because wtf???
And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this…
The number of people I've encountered who believe that their automatic headlights will always come on when they need one and therefore they do not need to ever manually turn them on so that other drivers can see their white car in the white fog as they drive down the centerline...
Seriously just turn on your headlights. Makes your car way easier to see regardless of the weather or lighting
Do people not verify lights are on by checking the dang illuminated symbol on their dash?! I keep mine on auto and sometimes have to override it but it’s still convenient enough to not have to dick with my lights 90% of the time.
I used to have a foot button on the left side for brights/dims back in the day, left foot isn’t used for anything else, I miss that shit so much.
Weird that so many claim to have problems wit it. I don't really see this getting worse, on the contrary. Most newer cars with LED here work fine. It's the older cars with high brightness bulbs that create the problems. And those are not always LED.
LED is better than older lights in every way, including AVOIDING to blind other drivers, because the LED light can be directed way more accurately.
The problem is bad headlights, not LED.
PS:
This is for Denmark/EU, it may be different in other countries?
This only works on flat roads. Where I am, this results in what looks like the driver behind you rapidly flicking their high beams on and off every time you go over a one foot hump in the road. It's possibly worse than just having it be consistently too bright.
I agree, but bumpy roads like that are annoying disregarding what headlights are used.
We have roads that have bumps to slow traffic, and THAT is annoying IMO. Not that I can figure out a much better solution, so I guess we have to live with it, but it's still annoying to be blinded by a car half a kilometer away because there's a bump is super annoying.
I guess that at some point the cars will be able to prevent it automatically, Matrix light technology should definitely be able to in theory.
It happens on rolling hills too, which aren't very annoying on their own. And sure it might be possible to fix this issue in the future, but currently headlights assuming down = bright is an issue.
Are you by any chance describing Adaptive Driving Beam headlights?
I believe they've been in available in the EU for quite some time, but only allowed in the US since 2022.
No the fact that LED lights can be better focused go for both Matrix and standard LED headlights.
Our own car has Matrix lights, but that's still way way in the minority. However we do have 90+% adoption rate of EV, so we have a lot of cars with LED headlights.
I heard the same arguments about 20 or more years ago. "These new damn headlights are too bright. They blind all the oncoming traffic. These headlights should be banned by law." Ofcourse the one making these complaints was my dad and xenon headlights were becoming quite common at that point, even on some cheaper cars. The only time i've had problems with "bright" headlights is when the car that i'm driving has either terrible lights (so old and tired bulbs) or the lights are not adjusted correctly and point down way too much. Funnily enough the 2 cars i head with terrible lights both had xenon bulbs. The last 2 cars that i've had so far both have halogen bulbs. No issue with headlights that are too bright. Then again me not having any issues doesn't mean that complaints from others arent valid but incorrectly aimed lights with bad bulbs are already an issue in my circle so i'd imagine that these are the people that complain about LEDs the most. I also live in the EU so yearly inspectons atleast don't let you pass if your headlights are terrible.
Yes, and that will remain a problem disregarding the type of light.
Funnily enough the 2 cars i head with terrible lights both had xenon bulbs.
That's strange, do they get weak as they get old?
Funny enough I had just replaced the halogen bulbs in our old car to some crazy expensive ones with shorter lifespan, just before we got our EV.
Then when I got home, I found out that for the same price, I could have had LED bulbs. 🤥
I just hope our headlights last really long, because they cost $2000 to replace a piece!
On my first car the mechanism that is supposed to adjust the headlight level was broken so the lights "fell" into their lowest position so only the front of my car was lit up. On my second car i took the time to fix everything and adjusted the headlights to a correct position but the bulbs themselves were old and probably had weaker or less brightness than new halogen bulbs.
As far as LED bulbs, i only use LEDs in my high beams. I don't want to be that guy who blinds everyone with their cheap LEDs but with high beams you're supposed to switch them off anyway. Doesn't really make much of a difference to me if you use LED high beams or if you add a LED Bar (so extra lights) to your car. LED high beams just don't add an ugly extra lights to your car while also being a bit weaker, so if you forget or drive on a windy road then you don't blind others as much.
I drive a compact sports coupe, there's no world in which modern SUV headlights aren't flooding my rearview with LED ultra white brightness. Their headlights are literally the same height as my rearview.
They work, but when an SUV/truck pulls up behind me at a light it doesn't matter basically at all. The lights are so big and so bright the entire mirror is filled with their glare.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I recall that tape being crazy bright. Led headlights drivers are fucked up, but not fucked up enough to deserve getting in a wreck and almost dying if they get blinded by the tape.
presumably reflectice tape. if you want to go the extra mile for a bit like this there's a special nautical version that reflects much higher % and directly back at source
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I hope thats reflective tape.
Kinda obvious that it is reflective tape, thus the message.
I didn't think it was reflective tape at first. I think I thought it was just a little pixelated.
it is
Yeah, as an owner of a vehicle with these fucking things. I hate them but there's literally nothing we can do. All vehicles sold have them now, and the manufacturers have no options for softer lights. I've tried for months.
Do what I did and write your MP. This needs to be legislated.
Yes you can! You can get them adjusted at a mechanic, or get the internal reflector swapped out
One problem is the manufacturers have made headlights into assemblies that cannot be repaired or really disassembled, forcing you to replace the entire thing if anything goes wrong. Also they can be expensive.
https://daxstreet.com/cars/419253/10-cars-where-a-headlight-assembly-costs-2000-dollars/
Also sometimes the new headlight needs to be programmed by the dealership to work correctly
Wtf, on my 2005 car changing the lights costs 30 bucks. They are purposefully low price because you don't want people around going without lights
Yep, driving around without lights is dangerous, it could get you pulled over. The people designing these setups know this and want to force you back to the dealership.
That 2005 model headlight also has a much shorter lifespan than most LEDs (assuming proper cooling in their enclosure). Up to 1,000 hours for a traditional headlight, and up to 50,000 hours for an LED headlight.
this is one of many reasons I won't buy a newer car.
Then get aftermarket headlights! Why are you guys acting like OEM housing is the only way?
You do realize their goal is less bright lights, with these LED assemblies there is often little to no aftermarket, and when there is it is brighter. Example: 2023-2026 Acura integra
Well you gotta give it a few years for an aftermarket to develop. I'm happy that there are people on Lemmy privileged enough to afford a brand new car, but most of us are driving 12-14 year old vehicles, in which there's almost always an aftermarket available in that age range unless you're driving something obscure (in which case you'd have a difficult time finding even OEM parts for!).
I've checked with different spots for 3 years. Maybe for some makes and models, but not for dodge.
I have them as well and a lot of others around me and they're awesome!
As long as they're regulated properly. I'm in Germany and we love regulating stuff!
Canada used to have regulations about the maximum lumens that could be output by headlights, but corporate lobbyists undermined this with a rule that exempted cars that rolled off the dealership lot with brighter lights in the late 90's when the manufacturers started using the bright blue halogens. Then LEDs came out and they got the same bypass automatically.
I voted against the political leaders that supported moves like this for years, but most of the population doesn't.
So, here we are.
Yeah, we are very strict regarding max light output, but depending on what we measure, it's Candela or Lumen. And bright beams (> 2000 Lumen) need to automatically limit how far they reach to not blind people when driving over a hill for example, etc. Without all of that, it would be carnage.
This is unfortunately just not true. I'm also from Germany and I drive a lot at night, where I get absolutely blinded by random headlights every couple of minutes. My car sits very close to the ground and the average SUV headlights are way above my trunk and hood, shining directly into my cabin. It's gotten so bad in recent years. One day I'll probably crash into a tree or something because yet another idiot trusts their Matrix LED high beams to recognize my car in time.
Never had that issue with my normal cars (like Golf class). What kind of Tarnmobil are you driving?
It's a lowered 1989 Mercedes E-Class. Sitting in the car my level of sight is at about 110 cm.
Yeah well. That might be the price of lowering. Cool ride though.
Oh and fuck SUVs 😑
True, I don't even want to know how bad it would be in a MX-5, SLK or even a Smart Roadster.
I still like that MX-5 though.
pay to get them replaced with something that's not dangerous
it's your vehicle. you are responsible for it too.
There are no replacement options, see other threads.
Just build your own sodium bulb how hard could it be
Transparent yellow filter tape time
bare minimum, yeah
go custom or eat the loss. at least tint the housings and lenses.
this is your problem because it's your vehicle, don't make it everybody else's
If I illegally modified my vehicle in a way that made it worse, it would be.
This is a factory vehicle from the dealership with no alternative light options. I'm not responsible for anything with regard to the lights on it unless I'm running around with my brights on, which I don't use.
Not sure how you think the law works, but that's not it.
You have a warped view here, I have to say.
I've looked all over for aftermarket options, and asked the dealership repeatedly for options for 4 years.. And I have no responsibility because I won't go spending inordinate amounts of money to try and engineer a potentially worse solution...
Right... Great viewpoint you have there.
Dude. I wasn’t joking. They make tape for this. It’s all over amazon. Search for “headlight filter tape.” We’re talking like $7 and 20 minutes of your life to have a lower chance of getting in a wreck. So do it!
what you are asking for is practically impossible, and actually literally impossible without spending multiple tens of thousands of dollars finding and paying someone to reverse engineer a car's lighting system, including the car's whole computerized network that likely controls the lights and their electrical environment, then find and pay someone to manufacture a custom, one-off modification, and finally find and pay someone to actually install it.
the result may not be legal, may void a car's warranty, may cause a car to fail a mandatory state inspection, may be unreliable and cost insane amounts of money to fix if/when needed
this is a wildly unreasonable request and expectation that you're making.
Why did you buy it?
Needed a vehicle and I won't buy older than 10 years. Every vehicle in the last 10 years has led lights. That's it.
I held off with the 2014 as long as possible, but when its maintenance costs got to be unreasonable, it was time to replace it.
Oof
If it's from the factory, it's likely not as bad as the aftermarket ones. The problem with aftermarket is the light housing is designed for a bulb in a particular location. The aftermarket ones will often be in the wrong location, so even the low beams will shine higher than they should be. (Low/high beams have to do with height, not brightness.) Your lights might be bright, but I suspect that your low beams still don't shine upward very far. If they do, name and shame the manufacturer of your car please.
Its bad enough that people constantly flash their lights at me because they think I have my brights on. At stop signs I literally need to flash my brights back to prove they aren't. (It would be impossible, the brights will not stay on when there are any red or white lights in front of the vehicle unless you manually pullback and hold the control stick.)
I never use the brights on this thing. The headlights are already too bright
Mentioned in another thread, this is a Dodge. And Mopar makes sure no aftermarket parts exist. Dodge doesn't provide any alternative light brightnesses.
My car has them too, from the factory. Maybe there are tints that can be applied to the light thing. Maybe that's illegal tho 🤷
The factory ones are bright but not blinding. Its always the aftermarket's that aren't set up properly or regulated that are blinding.
nope, the factory ones are blinding too
For reference where are you located?
The factory LEDs from any north american car manufacturer are absolutely blinding.
Spray-on tint lol.
My newish car has LED headlights, but it's a CAR, and is low to the ground. I hope it doesn't blind oncoming cars like these fucking trucks that are 3,000 feet tall.
LEDs in projection housings that are properly aimed aren't an issue at all, the issues arise with 1)poorly aimed lights and 2)installing LEDs in reflector housings not meant for them
I fucking hate those things. I saw somewhere that it's almost always an alignment issue, but I feel like with today's technology it should be self-correcting if it's going to otherwise blind people. We have phones that can photograph an ant's asshole at 300 meters. they could fix this shit if they cared. They'll only care if they lose billions in a class action lawsuit.
It's super easy to adjust in most cars that don't do it automatically. There is usually a slot near the lights and you use a philips or flat screw driver and turn the adjustment nut either up or down depending on need. Instructions are in the manual or you can look it up online for every vehicle I've owned.
There is an exact method but generally line the car up facing and super close to a wall, turn the lights on, the center of the beam should be about 2-3 inches below the height of your headlights. If you have space the beam should hit the ground 7.5m or about 25 ft from where your car is parked.
A common issue in my hick town is people lifting vehicles and never adjusting the light angle. Any time you put bigger tires on a car or lift the body you should adjust the lights.
Edit: I just wanted to add, if you get brights flashed at you a lot it's time to adjust your lights.
You're not going to tell me that some of them aren't adjusting them to be blinding on purpose. In certain segments of car culture, obnoxiousness is a virtue.
So this is why I feel like I'm being attacked whenever I go up a slight incline with incoming traffic?
States are reducing inspections so I see this getting worse.
The worst part is when the other headlights are so bright you have to make yours brighter to compensate. I have astigmatism and am literally blinded by these headlights while driving at night. I had to upgrade my own headlights to LED (still dimmer than these others) just so that I could still make out the road when they drive by. Because the way my eyes work the more my eyes adjust for darkness the more blinding a light is.
Adding a yellow tint to your glasses massively helps with cutting the glare out, makes computer screens less headachey as well.
Sadly I have a big ass head and everytime I try to wear glasses it makes me get a migraine.
Tried having a look at prescription safety glasses?
They're usually built for people that are built bigger, and are mostly cheaper than buying off the shelf.
My cars are older with not LEDs and I just drive with my brights on all the time. Still dimmer than everyone else's lights and helps my eyes
I was driving my friend's car at night yesterday, first time in years, and it seemed like over half the people just don't flick off their brights when approaching these days?? I understand it's kind of impossible to see the road without them now, but I was still shocked at how g much shittier a drive in the dark was than I remembered. It's intolerable!
Yeah mine is 30 years old, but I got LED replacements for it online.
you shouldnt do that.
That feels like a bullshit handwaving excuse "well it's really the user's fault!". No, manufacturers are responsible.
Don't we finally get the headlifhts ike EU that then off some when a car is coming.
The technology for adaptive headlights absolutely has existed...... in super high-end cars because that's a complex optical control and microelectronics system. it requires advanced engineering, complex optical assemblies, and complicated control systems. Your Honda will never have that because most of us simply don't want to pay. Cars are complicated enough. Do want more things that can break? Do you want your replacement headlights to cost $5,000? LED technology is so far superior to any other light source for headlights. That there are idiots all over the place with poorly maintained cars is not the LEDs fault.
Luckily nobody outside of a car has eyes or this would be pretty terrible.
If they are wearing reflecting clothing (which they should if they are on a road after dark) , they will be detected.
If they are not, they have much bigger problems to worry about than leds.
Isn't there simpler self-calibrating? Like just the level?
It’s mostly limited to expensive cars because until recently the regulations around them were super complicated. Things are finally simplified a bit and North America has finally started allowing them as well.
I'm looking at the specs of a VW Polo here and it has matrix led headlights. Not the base model, but one above it, at 23k eur. I know Polo's aren't available in the states, but if a small entry level hatchback suited for first car owners can have them, I struggle to find the reason why others can't have them too. Unless its proprietary technology?
They were saying lots of words to make their point seem a lot more salient than your actual lived experience proves
You’re right.
Tip: DO NOT install LEDs if you had halogen previously.
They make LEDs specifically meant for halogen housings that shouldn't blind you. They also make "off-road use only" LEDs with 10x the lumens that go in the same bulb sockets and guess which ones people will buy
You know, I've thought about getting one of those obnoxiously bright, completely unfocused LED lights bars.
And mounting it on the back.
Do it. I did and it's fucking hilarious getting revenge on these people. They get so mad lol
Just don't make the mistake I did and do it to a cop (it was at night so I couldn't see what kind of car it was; all I saw was tailgating headlights). Thankfully he had a sense of humor about it.
Yeah I'd end up eating a curb with my self-control around cops.
Also, don't forget to turn them off. I was on the road at about 3:30am this morning and initially thought there was a wrong way driver. It took about 20 seconds to realize it wasn't getting any closer and figure out what it actually was: a guy in a jeep had them installed on a roof rack.
I had mine installed in the rear window, so if I left it on it would be very obvious. Installing a rear-facing light on a light bar where you can't see it is a really bad idea.
You will be the one pulled over and ticketed, even if you aren't actually using it.
I don't know about the second part, but yeah, using it is definitely illegal on the road.
Really depends on the cop, since they can pull you over and/or ticket you for any or no reason. Whether it stands in court is another story, but you gotta take it to court for that to matter. And if they just say it was on when it wasn't, it would be difficult to prove.
Having them installed is legal as far as I know because they're legal for off road use.
Yeah. That's what I meant. As long as you don't use them to blind other drivers. Even if it is just for the lulz.
I got pulled over and the cop didn't give a single shit about the light, even though I blasted him with it (I thought they were a tailgater). I only got a ticket for speeding.
So it really depends. Thankfully (or unfortunately) most cops aren't familiar with the law.
Wow, that's wild! Glad you got off though.
Hit em with the uno reverse!
My buddy had an Audi A4, probably a 2003, and one of the features was just this bright ass light that you could turn on that pointed backwards. He had another Audi after that didn't have it, never really seen one with it, other than that. It was great for dealing with tailgaters.
Rear fog light? Ive had a few with that. Makes me feel betterhaving that on in blizzards.
Don't blame LEDs, it's because of the alignment of the headlights. Any type of headlight can be misaligned.
Yeah, but the LEDs really.... highlight the situation.
To be fair, depending on the housing, alignment is nearly impossible. Many housings are simply not designed to have a sharp cut off. As far as I'm concerned, LEDs should only be allowed in projector housings with projector lenses. Those are the ones that have a damn near razor blade level of light cutoff, so when you aim them to just below the windshield level of most vehicles, it's not going to blind them at all.
That is what I have done with my car, I have LEDs brighter than the sun, but I have them in projector housings with projector lenses, and I have them aimed to be below the windshield level of a typical sedan, not a stupid SUV or truck. So nobody ever flashes me or gets annoyed and I have tested by having a friend Drive towards me on a road in the car while I am in a different car
It has the added benefit of my high beams are still mostly road level rather than up in the trees like many peoples so for like a mile in front of me it is just daytime which is very helpful out where I live in the middle of absolute nowhere rural where streetlights are just a myth and the deer are plentiful.
I really appreciate your attention to properly aligning your lights... but doesn't that only help with very level roadways? Where I drive with lots of gentle hills, a car with a razor thin cut-off looks like its constantly flashing its high-beams at me. I feel like a headlight with a gradual transition would be less blinding for other drivers.
Yep every little hill and it is blinding.
Mild unlevelness is taken into account with my aiming, obviously I can't do anything about us going opposing directions on a steep incline, but that's true of any headlight type.
...which is exactly why you shouldn't be allowed to have the intense, blinding lights on your vehicle.
"It's unavoidable but fuck y'all, i like the bright lights" is a wild stance to take.
As I mentioned, that's true regardless of light type. I am just as blinded by the people with standard lights on an incline as they are by my LEDs. That's just part of driving on an incline at night. People that have driven at night more than once in their life just learn to hold up one of their hands on a steep incline.
It's less I like the bright lights and more the whole there is no other source of light anywhere near me. I'm on a rural highway and I would like to be able to see the deer before I'm on top of them.
Incandescant headlights are not dim, the tyranny of the inverse square law is unavoidable. If you stare into them head on, say, as a product of a hill, you will be unsighted regardless.
And this is ignoring the fact that just because LEDs can be brighter doesn’t mean they have to be. Trying to attribute this issue to technology instead of insufficent regulation is harmful.
They should be behind diffusers to break up the laser like focus of them.
Oh man I had never thought about a laser array for headlights. New goal unlocked.
Yes, halogen housings. Which is why halogen headlights CAN in fact blind you more than proper factory LEDs, but people here usually won't listen to that.
I have yet to see HID or LED headlights installed from the factory that don't have sharp cutoffs.
If you retrofitted those, that's most likely still illegal in the EU. The LEDs that you're allowed to retrofit to halogen projectors are pretty dim actually. And headlights above a certain lumen count have to be auto-adjusting for when you've got a load and the rear end is sagging for example. Which is why it's difficult for me to share in LED hate. HIDs and LEDs literally legally require proper aiming and cutoffs, whereas halogens are "do whatever the fuck you want" outside of having to make sure the aim is right for the annual inspection (which sometimes they'll just adjust for you anyway and nobody's stopping you from aiming it wrong again after you leave).
Not in the EU but no the car came with projectors already i just changed the bulbs
In that case, I hope you either have bulbs that are legal for halogen projectors, or you were very particular about how you aimed them, because LED, HID and halogen projectors all work a little bit differently as I understand it.
But if there's nobody blinking at you at night when you're using your low beams, then it's probably fine.
Yeah, somewhere in this ridiculous thread I mentioned I also used a different vehicle to do a pass by of each other to make sure it was good. It's also just pretty easy to see where the light is. The cutoff is quite sharp and defined. It's fairly clear what it's hitting and what it's not.
LEDs are so point source and intense that any misalignment, which is very common, is going to be an issue. Plus they blind you much more when a car's nose is elevated relative to you. Put HID or LED lights on trucks and they are always in your face, and it feels like 50% of the vehicles are massive trucks.
Or if they're loose and the car's engine vibration shakes them at you.
Headlights didn't use to blind me.
Then came LEDs.
Now headlights blind me.
I blame LEDs.
Halogens blind me just as much as LED and there are LED lights that don't blind me.
It's strange though since LED lights are extremely much more powerful, and this is a current and ongoing and big complaint by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Maybe you have a rare genetic eye disorder that makes you impervious to being blinded. Good for you. The rest of us get blinded by LEDs.
Lucky I've been blinded by lights pre led. It is way more common know.
If your eyesight has gotten bad because of old age, perhaps you shouldn't be driving.
I see zero correlation between what you said and I said. Yes you are right. If you can't see, don't drive.
Also, if you drive, don't blind people on and off the road.
I don't blind people, I have HIDs and the projectors are still functioning well enough to get a razor sharp cutoff. Current ones aren't even that bright, still on the original Hella E55s which are a lousy projector and burn out quickly.
But I also don't get blinded by oncoming factory LEDs like, ever. It happens about as often as with old pre-projector halogens that spew their (admittedly dimmer) light all over the place. Which is to say, never.
Which leads me to think that perhaps the people who say they used to get blinded less back in the day and can barely see now, have gotten worse eyesight over the years, rather than LEDs in particular being the problem.
OR maybe it's yet another North America special, where everyone's driving tall as fuck trucks with their low beams aimed straight forward, especially in retrofitted LED lights. Doing any of that near me would be highly illegal, which is why pretty much the only times I get blinded by LEDs, it's some asshole's lightbar they decided to install to supplement their high beams instead of fixing whatever is fucked up with their headlights. Somehow that's the one loophole we have: You can have super bright additional lighting on your car as long as it's ONLY high beam.
I actually was asked one time why I didn't do that myself when I had crappy burnt out headlights and decided to go the more expensive route of getting brand new bi-xenon projectors installed in a car I had (~500€ all in for parts, installation, polishing, and of course it came with a pair of new high-end bulbs, also included in that price, compared to ~100€ for a super bright stupid fucking LED lightbar). My answer was that I wanted my low beams to be good too, so I don't have to switch over at the last possible moment and blind everyone with a light bar. I was right, too. I barely even felt the need to use the high beams, and NOBODY flashed at me for my low beams, which were about 20x brighter than the burnt out OE projectors. Like those HIDs were brighter than many people's LEDs after that, compared to the old E55s (as you can probably tell, I hate the Hella E55, super common bi-xenon projectors in 00s German cars and even some Japanese ones), which made my old 1992 Audi 80's halogens look bright. And not a single time did anyone flash at me. I even asked a friend to drive towards me and tell me if I was blinding him. Nope. Two days later, said headlight restoration/upgrade actually saved me from hitting a couple of deer hiding in bushes, so there's a point for bright headlights. I can see well enough without them, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't have seen those deer. I don't think anyone could have with dim headlights.
Also the increasing height of lights, even low beams travel fucking long
Prevailing thought on social media seems to prefer demonizing technology over discussing how to use it better.
A lot is getting pushed on us strictly out of profit motives, you shouldn't just blindly accept "new and improved" just because capitalism says so.
Yeah, being able to see animals about to jump into the road is suuuuuch a bad thing, only because of capitalism do people want it.
We were already able to do that. So what is the improvement besides blinding people?
Almost everything we buy is "pushed" on us out of profit motives, not as a public service. And yes, we shouldn't buy things just because they're "new and improved", but I'm not sure how that's relevant to aiming headlights too high - a problem as old as cars.
Food, energy, drinking water, health care, fire and police, none of those are pushed out of profit motives. They are things we need to survive and have a society. The problem is when the system itself stops being just the set of rules regulating trade to being an active participant and incentive in and of itself.
Capitalism has its own prejudice- profit, over and at any and all costs.
Humans need food, energy, water, health care and so on, and we will need that regardless of what capitalism has to say about how to provide it. And there is a lot to say about what capitalism has to say about how to provide it.
Add a border of that 3M high reflective silver tape and they'll notice real quick
I think that’s yellow reflective tape already, though a tasteful border wouldn’t go amiss.
I see the edges now with that hexagonal pattern, thought it was just fluo tape, but you're right (I just shill for that stuff cause it saved my bacon riding a bike back before every driver became a hazard)
Gotta get some retroreflective mirrors on there
Poorly installed aftermarket headlights. Being LED has little to do with it.
Not just aftermarket. Teslas are notorious for having overly bright, misaimed headlights.
People keep telling me that acktually Tesla headlights have hi-tech sensors that avoid blinding people. And I’m like “I’m people, and they blind me all the time!”
You're not a person by Elon's standards. It uses AI facial recognition to see if you're a billionaire and if you're not, it re-aims to blind you more.
"Yeah but that's just an anecdote bro"
In many countries there are biannual safety checks, we have that here, and I haven't noticed that.
But it is also known that Tesla recommendations for safety are very lacking. So 30-40% if Tesla cars fail the safety check here, and have to go to the shop and get fixed before being able to drive on the road legally.
Teslas notoriously have almost no quality control, so that makes sense.
There is no US regulation on headlight brightness, so it's a little of that and also new cars maxing out what they can put on the car. Add to that the height of trucks and SUVs.
LED lights are far brighter though, and the worst color wavelength for vision.
Yeah, I think a good amount of the issue with them could be resolved simply by using warmer color LEDs - it seems so obvious that I don't get why they don't.
Need regulations, but it's hilarious to think that the Trump Admin will force the NHTSA to do this.
I despise the color of LEDs. Give me a headache and actually Make it harder to see.
There are regulations but the regulations haven’t been updated since the halogen bulb era. Tests designed for headlights with a single light source can be gamed by led headlight manufacturers to get approval for lamps that are way brighter than the law ever intended. Additionally, the regulations we have aren’t enforced after the design is approved. Manufacturers have to get approval of new designs but no one ever gets a ticket for blindingly bright lights. Lifting your truck or adding extra high wheels requires adjusting the angle of the headlights, but no one ever does that.
Edit: this article talks about it a bit more https://www.cbtnews.com/modern-headlights-too-bright-and-dangerous/
No way, stock leds are everywhere and they're bullshit.
That actually used to be the case, but then people got used to it, and now people think regular headlights are too dim because they don't illuminate way up into the sky like a second sun, and so new cars are coming out with brighter headlights (with higher angles, presumably). But there's no technical reason LEDs have to have their terrible reputation in headlights, so the spirit of your post is correct.
No. 10 years ago you might've had a point but nowadays every new car on the road has blinding LED headlights
This is a real Mercedes-Benz as they ran in magazines, showing you can check how far along a cow's pregnancy is with their stock headlights.
Definitely looks like some Ai image they used.
LED replacement bulbs are a common problem. The beam dip is designed around a single element. However, LEDs can't produce the intense light of an incandescent or halogen type bulb. To compensate, they use an array of LEDs. This creates a large emission surface. Some of the surface is a significant distance from where the element used to be. This completely messes up the beam shaping, throwing light where it shouldn't be.
Combine poor beam forming with higher vehicles, and higher outputs, and LEDs get a very bad rep.
A properly designed LED headlight has far less issues. Unfortunately there are a lot of stock units which also have poor designs.
They don’t teach people how to aim headlights anymore and people refuse to read the manual for the 4000 pound death machine they just purchased. So they even come from the dealership misaimed now and nobody does anything about it. We don’t even have annual inspections in my state anymore since 2002.
As with great many things, half the problem is education.
False.
I hate that this is always the excuse. People are not replacing their headlights with the frequency that would be required for how insanely common blindingly bright headlights are these days.
The other is idiots lifting their 4×4s and not readjusting the angles. They probably wonder why they don't see as well now too.
incorrect. stock LED headlights are blinding
I don't blame the individuals, no one is recomending shops to their friends on how to get these adjustments.
The fact that no one believes in regulation, or MAINTAINING regulation depending on our needs, that these things happen.
Wish I could blame the assholes, but I leave that for the people who commute in big fucking truck 1000 because they are too insecure to buy anything else for their commuting machine.
There is a bill before the US congress right now that would mandate a study to gather hard numbers on safe luminosity and proper mounting of vehicle headlamps. I've written my rep asking them to support, if not sponsor, the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7772/text
I'm in Japan and I get blinded by lights by a lot of cars these days. It shouldn't be aiming as we have bi-yearly inspections that check that (both for regular and highbeams). It is possible, though, that people change the lights for inspection and swap them out after (though this is not legal).
SE Asia was brutal when I went there. India had all nice old yellow lights and sometimes light bulbs and sometimes oil lamps or candles to light their way. That was nice, and constantly terrifying.
Why do people feel the need to have headlights so bright they can see to the horizon?
The problem isn't really the brightness, it's that they don't bother aiming them.
First thing I do in a car is set them to the lowest they go. Some recent cars are missing that dial though...
You might be increasing your risk while night driving doing that by making it substantially easier to overdrive your headlights and reducing visibility.
Im not saying dont properly adjust them, but going to the lowest setting possible is likely not the answer and a very real risk factor.
I use high beams or adjust them in places that require it, most roads around where I live are well lit at night.
Cars missing that dial are auto-adjusting, you only change the initial setting if they're wrong. It's adjustable on the headlight assembly itself. 1% decline is what you're meant to be aiming for. It may also be adjustable via dealer-level diagnostics.
They come with most cars. Its not typically a choice.
Riding a motorcycle against LED's sucks. There is a moment of blindness.
I am enthused by the anti-led headlight comments in this thread
it's nice to see people recognizing the danger for what it is and not just making false claims about how it's only illegal headlights that are dangerous and stock LEDs are fine
I'm proud of all you people shitting on LED headlights. keep up the good work
edit: to the guy who respectably tried to find alternatives for their blinding headlights and couldn't and wrote their MP about it - good work. but that's not enough. it's your vehicle, and you as the owner and operator are responsible for its safety. you chose that vehicle. you were aware of the headlights. you made that trade off of blinding headlights for the rest of the package. that was YOUR decision. don't fuck my life up as a result and say "whoopsie, nothing I can do, not my fault". that's disgusting. have some responsibility for your actions. yes the manufacturers fucked you. don't use that as an excuse to fuck the rest of us.
Blinder-lovers tend to lean conservative (comes with the "Doesn't hurt me = Not a problem"), and Lemmy is definitely not very.
There is a lot of "my freedom!" bullshit when it comes to cars.
there are still enough people who aren't very conservative and still just shrug and say "nothing I can do about it", instead of y'know owning up to their shit
If you squint a bit, I guess that accusation could apply to me? Hard to say when you're being this vague.
the edit to my top level comment should make my opinions clear
I wasn't directing this at you, just adding that plenty of left-leaning people wash their hands of it and say "it came like this" like that absolves them of all responsibility for something they chose to buy
Good thing I hold up my hand at night to stop from being blinded ensuring I can't see your oncoming superbright truck.
I love this idea lol
Damn that is some fine tape lettering. Great effort.
Lately I’ve seen people driving around with their high beams on at dusk.
Might have to do with living next to a retirement community.
A lot of them are now automatic and older not Lazer beam lights don't deactivate them. And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this... To be fair many many people have no business behind the wheel of literally anything but I digress.
I have automatic high beams and they almost never turn on. I don't really think I've had an issue with them not turning off. EXCEPT for one time I was driving around with my normal low beams on as usual and they just decided to pop on briefly to blind the person right in front of me. I felt so bad because wtf???
The number of people I've encountered who believe that their automatic headlights will always come on when they need one and therefore they do not need to ever manually turn them on so that other drivers can see their white car in the white fog as they drive down the centerline...
Seriously just turn on your headlights. Makes your car way easier to see regardless of the weather or lighting
Do people not verify lights are on by checking the dang illuminated symbol on their dash?! I keep mine on auto and sometimes have to override it but it’s still convenient enough to not have to dick with my lights 90% of the time.
I used to have a foot button on the left side for brights/dims back in the day, left foot isn’t used for anything else, I miss that shit so much.
A lot of cars have daytime running lights that won't show a symbol on the dashboard when they're on.
Interesting, my daytime running lights are always on unless I turn the headlights on or park and engage the parking brake
I thought this, but then after flashing a few of them I realized those are actually their low beams, and they're just stupidly bright LEDs.
I saw a new truck that had them FACING-BACKWARDS in the wheel well and bumper. We're fucked.
Weird that so many claim to have problems wit it. I don't really see this getting worse, on the contrary. Most newer cars with LED here work fine. It's the older cars with high brightness bulbs that create the problems. And those are not always LED.
LED is better than older lights in every way, including AVOIDING to blind other drivers, because the LED light can be directed way more accurately.
The problem is bad headlights, not LED.
PS:
This is for Denmark/EU, it may be different in other countries?
This only works on flat roads. Where I am, this results in what looks like the driver behind you rapidly flicking their high beams on and off every time you go over a one foot hump in the road. It's possibly worse than just having it be consistently too bright.
I agree, but bumpy roads like that are annoying disregarding what headlights are used.
We have roads that have bumps to slow traffic, and THAT is annoying IMO. Not that I can figure out a much better solution, so I guess we have to live with it, but it's still annoying to be blinded by a car half a kilometer away because there's a bump is super annoying.
I guess that at some point the cars will be able to prevent it automatically, Matrix light technology should definitely be able to in theory.
It happens on rolling hills too, which aren't very annoying on their own. And sure it might be possible to fix this issue in the future, but currently headlights assuming down = bright is an issue.
For whatever reason the US has not approved the adaptive headlights. We still have dumb lights, that keep getting brighter.
FREEDOM 😋
Are you by any chance describing Adaptive Driving Beam headlights? I believe they've been in available in the EU for quite some time, but only allowed in the US since 2022.
No the fact that LED lights can be better focused go for both Matrix and standard LED headlights.
Our own car has Matrix lights, but that's still way way in the minority. However we do have 90+% adoption rate of EV, so we have a lot of cars with LED headlights.
I heard the same arguments about 20 or more years ago. "These new damn headlights are too bright. They blind all the oncoming traffic. These headlights should be banned by law." Ofcourse the one making these complaints was my dad and xenon headlights were becoming quite common at that point, even on some cheaper cars. The only time i've had problems with "bright" headlights is when the car that i'm driving has either terrible lights (so old and tired bulbs) or the lights are not adjusted correctly and point down way too much. Funnily enough the 2 cars i head with terrible lights both had xenon bulbs. The last 2 cars that i've had so far both have halogen bulbs. No issue with headlights that are too bright. Then again me not having any issues doesn't mean that complaints from others arent valid but incorrectly aimed lights with bad bulbs are already an issue in my circle so i'd imagine that these are the people that complain about LEDs the most. I also live in the EU so yearly inspectons atleast don't let you pass if your headlights are terrible.
Yes, and that will remain a problem disregarding the type of light.
That's strange, do they get weak as they get old?
Funny enough I had just replaced the halogen bulbs in our old car to some crazy expensive ones with shorter lifespan, just before we got our EV.
Then when I got home, I found out that for the same price, I could have had LED bulbs. 🤥
I just hope our headlights last really long, because they cost $2000 to replace a piece!
On my first car the mechanism that is supposed to adjust the headlight level was broken so the lights "fell" into their lowest position so only the front of my car was lit up. On my second car i took the time to fix everything and adjusted the headlights to a correct position but the bulbs themselves were old and probably had weaker or less brightness than new halogen bulbs. As far as LED bulbs, i only use LEDs in my high beams. I don't want to be that guy who blinds everyone with their cheap LEDs but with high beams you're supposed to switch them off anyway. Doesn't really make much of a difference to me if you use LED high beams or if you add a LED Bar (so extra lights) to your car. LED high beams just don't add an ugly extra lights to your car while also being a bit weaker, so if you forget or drive on a windy road then you don't blind others as much.
Doing god's work
Kind of a dick move but I chuckled
If their lights are properly aligned it won't be an issue.
If they aren't, then it's the owner's responsibility to fix them. They're a danger to everybody else on the road.
I drive a compact sports coupe, there's no world in which modern SUV headlights aren't flooding my rearview with LED ultra white brightness. Their headlights are literally the same height as my rearview.
Does the dimmer on your rear view not work?
They work, but when an SUV/truck pulls up behind me at a light it doesn't matter basically at all. The lights are so big and so bright the entire mirror is filled with their glare.
When they flood the entire cabin of your car with a ridiculous amount of light, the mirror is the least of the concern...
I live on a windy mountain road and they blind me in absolute darkness. I wish people had more sense.
How is making your vehicle highly visible a dick move? Probably safter than most others.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I recall that tape being crazy bright. Led headlights drivers are fucked up, but not fucked up enough to deserve getting in a wreck and almost dying if they get blinded by the tape.
It's reflective tape, won't be brighter than the light used on it. I have stuck some to my bike before.
Oh ok so I probably overestimated the effect.
In place of that, just put a mirror.
Is this duck tape? Regardless of the message, that’s dedication.
presumably reflectice tape. if you want to go the extra mile for a bit like this there's a special nautical version that reflects much higher % and directly back at source
Boneappletea.
Edit: I guess it is a brand of duct tape.
It's a brand now. But the name predates duct tape by 50-odd years. It came from the "cotton duck cloth" used in the design.
TIL "canvas" is derived from "cannabis".
"What do you use for your creative design stuff?"
"Canva"
When I was much younger I thought the name came from the fact that it was waterproof. It repels liquid like water off a duck's back.
TIL