A new community where people can just vent about or actually do coordinate action against the pest of ultra bright LEDs.
The hell of it is, its even stock vehicles now. So many new models have these crazy bright headlights. I know it can be done right, so how about we start having the safety bodies dealing with this bullshit at the manufacturer level?
I personally think headlight brightness peaked just before LED became mainstream. Through the mid teens companies were installing projector headlights. I had a 2014 Corolla with projector headlights so bright that I got non-stop flashes from opposing drivers.
Newer LED headlights are often matrix headlights. See the entire road like you’ve got high beams on, except the oncoming car’s area is dark. Best of both worlds if implemented well enough. You can still turn off the high beams so that if the system stops malfunctioning, you have something equivalent to normal LED low beams.
My car has standard bulbs but with lenses that pivot to achieve the same effect, but I’m dreading the day that one of the servos breaks and my car starts looking like Forest Whitaker
Found the euro …. Is that even approved in the US yet?
Can we vent about loud motorcycles too?
Argh, hate them!
While we’re at it, let’s also vent about cars and trucks with loud modified exhausts.
No. Loud = safe for motorcyclists. Its the only way they can be noticed inside sound proof cars by people on their phones.
I dont ride anymore because bad drivers killed every motorcyclist i used to ride with.
My man, I watched an accident yesterday in a grocery store parking lot. A raised up truck was backing out and a car was behind it. The car honked. Laid on that horn. It was a loud horn. Truck didn’t even flinch. Backed right into it.
I’ve been passed by “loud” motorcycles many times. I saw them in my mirrors. I have a tiny blind spot, but I tracked them the entire way. What I didn’t do is hear them. Especially at highway speed, they’re undetectable.
Your argument is the equivalent of, “I saw someone get stabbed to death so you shouldnt wear your motorcycle helmet.”
I have no doubt you did see these things but that doesnt mean loud pipes dont add a bit of safety at the expense of noise comfort. Every bit of safety adds up and can save your life. There is no one thing that will do it but if you do enough it can have an effect. Maybe you didnt hear those pipes but a few hours later someone else did and didnt see them and they were saved.
As a fellow motorcyclist I hate this myth. https://www.spauldinginjurylaw.com/blogs/5758/loud-pipes-saves-lives-myth
I only know that for me, driving with windows up, radio quiet, I don’t hear most loud pipes until too late. It’s probably not a good idea to startle drivers just as you’re passing them
As someone who didnt have an excessively loud bike. … I’ve almost been killed so many times by people who didnt see or hear me and who switched lanes or pulled out in front of me.
Loud pipes do save lives and no amount of bullshit research about one particular scenario that doesnt factor in everything else will change that.
If you think you cant hear loud pipes if you are in front of or beside a motercycle then your an idiot who probably doesnt even ride.
No amount of anything will prevent headons .
But i dont ride anymore and if you do and you want to cruise quietly then you do you.
This lawyer doesn’t post the actual study referenced anywhere in that blog. After looking for the study, it seems to be referencing a quite limited series of tests in a YouTube video made by the Association for the Development of Motorcycling in Romania.
I recently had a high beam tailgating me. I moved my side and rearview mirrors to reflect it back and he passed me on a double yellow line with him in front of me I just turned on my own high beams. He turned off soon after but I hope it made his day a little more frustrating ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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perhaps there could be an automatic mirror to handle this for you. that’d be a good project
Hah I’ve thought of this maybe I can look into it, I’m an amateur Arduino enthusiast but it might even be more simple than that.
I’ve thought about turning my entire rear window into a mirror, but I imagine there is a law against it, so I haven’t looked into it.
The same crossed my mind but that would be hell for everyone around you on a sunny day. Sometimes even just a car with a lot of chrome is annoying 😔
I drive a van, so I could easily be the culprit. I therefore make a habit of adjusting my beam dip appropriately. Apparently that is unusual enough for them to note they had been adjusted in the service. There’s literally a dial on the dashboard. You’re SUPPOSED to adjust them to the vehicle and road conditions! Apparently not having them set to max is now considered a “fault” to fix!
If you normally drive the van with a load on the rear axle and it went for a service with nothing in the back, that could explain why they adjusted it higher.
The load varies, though I’ve found the suspension is hard enough that it doesn’t shift for a normal load up. I mostly do it because I’ve noticed that, when I hit a bump, my lights can sweep up over the windows of cars in front.
Also, I don’t mind them readjusting it. It’s calling it a fault that bugged me.
The brightness is one thing but also the alignment. These people install new headlights or the manufacturers just do not adjust the lights alignment correctly at all.
I installed entire new headlight assemblies in my car upgrading from weak stock crap bulbs to LEDs with running lights, but I FUCKING ADJUSTED THEM afterwards.
If I am ~50 feet from a wall there is a hard line where the top of my lights do not shine. That line is purposely placed so it won’t shine until cars in front of me unless I am every far away from them or there is an elevation difference. Sitting behind a car at the lights my lights will cut off generally right below the top of the trunk of most sedan models.
I have never seen a headlight that could not be adjusted up and down with a little screw. Maybe the newest cars need an app or something stupid but I would be willing to bet they can also be adjusted.
You haven’t bought eBay replacement headlights before then! I have never been able to get them adjusted properly to the point where they match even close to the factory pattern. I usually end up pointing them away to low just to be kind to anyone in front of them. The only saving grace is a love in the city and want didn’t need to rely on them for proper lighting.
You would be correct. I buy replacement lights from reputable brands with quality parts and adjustability lol
My dad bought some replacement lights for his car recently and he was so angry about the way they were pointed he apparently sent them a super angry letter. I then showed him I could adjust the beams down with my hands and he went back inside to send them another email apologizing hahahahah
Where do you get those? Or is it just for a few models?
My car has nice LED projectors but my old car that my kids are driving has older xenon bulbs that were bright when new but insufficient in the face of modern glare. I’m tempted to get the glaring ones because then at least my kids could see but if I had a way to upgrade the right way I would
If you want OEM look I would recommend: https://www.genera.com/Headlight.html
If you want different styling I would go with: https://www.carid.com/headlights.html
It’s also the height of install. If you drive a subcompact a lot of vehicles will just have lights so high up to you that what’s a reasonable angle for them is directly in your mirror
This is another issue. The ride of the front of certain vehicles. Namely large trucks. I’m 5’11" and there are many trucks sold now that have headlights at my shoulder level. It’s ridiculous.
They need to lower the front hoods of all these vehicles. It’s dangerous for pedestrians and just general road safety but it also would help alleviate some of the headlight woes others experience.
Oh, it’s bullshit. It’s a bunch of cockfucking bullshit.
You’re sitting, waiting for the bus, trying to look down the street to see if you notice the bus coming. What do you see instead? White. Just an all encompassing blinding white light which just consumes all reality and everything you’re experiencing right now.
NOW how am I supposed to know if I should be getting my bus pass out? Also, 50% chance my retinas were just singed to a crisp.
You know how solar eclipse glasses allow you to see the sun surface without any glare by essentially reducing the light by like 50,000 times?
You can also point the glasses at a regular light to see the bulb.
I need the same thing that let’s me check really quick if some scrub has their high beams on so I can reflect their blinding light of death back at them because I’m too nice to do the same against morons who threw nuclear bombs into their regular low beam enclosure.
Although I am also very close to buying a rally high beam light array to do the light equivalent of telling people to shut up.
I’mma get some downvotes for this. But is this community also for the headlights of bicycles who like to shine into the face of other road users instead of illuminating the road?
Totally, I’m commuting by bike almost every work day of the year and it’s infuriating how many cyclists have their headlights misaligned.
Yesterday, some idiot on a bike came right at me with a strobing light pointing at my eyes. Fuck you…
What I currently do is to take out my own headlight from its holder and deliberately point into their eyes. At least the message should be clear.
Oh god yes, especially now that all of them use led lights. Mine still uses an old-fashioned light, which is great when you’re alone on the road because your night vision can deal with the rest. But I turn completely blind when an oncoming bike shines one of those led-lights directly in my face.
I’ve already ran off the path twice so far because I couldn’t see where I was cycling (it was at a bicycle path through the park without street lights)
Ugh yeah that’s been an increasing problem too. I had some guy last year just as dusk was starting to set with a bike headlight blinding me on the bike trail.
❤️ StVZO-compliant illumination ❤️
No downvotes from me. I cycle every day, it’s my only mode of transportation, and the number of poorly adjusted lights on other people’s bikes is staggering.
Like the sun, if the lights are bright, don’t look at them. Problem solved.
So I’m on an undivided highway at night, curving leftward. Oncoming traffic is using bright ass light, blinding me, I can’t even see lane or lines. I’m supposed to look away and hope for the best?
Or even better, there’s divider, about 1m tall and there’s always some douchebag in pick up truck that have their lights just high enough to blast over the divider over to my eyes and I can’t even see lane beside me or where the divider are.
So please, use your actual common sense when posting nonsense like this. It’s a legitimate concern.
Thank you for this useful insight. What do I do when my eyes quickly adapt to this stupidly bright light in my peripheral vision and I now can’t see anything in my own headlights ?
I have tried closing my left eye before, out of desperation. Doesn’t really work and I wouldn’t recommend losing depth perception while driving.
I mean, sort of, but I live in a place with narrow winding roads that all too often don’t have a line painted on the edge of the road.
There’s definitely a strategy to look down at the edge of the road until the perpetrator has passed, but that assumes you have something to look at that will help
I came back from the mall, they had one of those little trains for kids. The locomotive had two incredibly bright 6000K (blue-white) headlights. What for? You’re in a mall. It’s lit. You’re going 2 km/h. It’s just cheap one size fits all Aliexpress junk. Not a single thought went into the selection of these abominations.
The main issue I see comes from regular headlights being replaced with LEDs and other High-Intensity bulbs. Don’t get me wrong, Bubba with his lift kit is just redneck high-beams, but I get more frequent glare from someone in a Sentra who decided to put LEDs in her stock headlight assembly that wasn’t made for LEDs.
That’s my feeling as well, but it would be great if any data exists. Most of the intentional LEDs may be super tight but also have very sharp cutoffs, no problem
How many of these blinding headlights are
- idiots driving with high beams
- idiots with aftermarket LEDs that should be illegal
- idiots who raised their truck enough that headlights can’t be aligned correctly
Ooh a place for the cult of the Honda Fit to congregate
If all LED headlamps followed a new polarization standard, things could be very cool. As an example, let’s say the headlights could only shine horizontally polarized light and the windshields could only pass vertically polarized light. That means that one could see every thing very clearly because you wouldn’t be blinded by the cars coming on the opposite side. Your light would illuminate everything in from of you, which would then reflect non polarized light back at you plus all other light reflections from other sources like street lamps. Houses could be fitted with the same filter film as older cars. Similarly, people could wear polarized glasses and get the same benefit.
I didn’t pay attention in physics class, why is the light reflected back not polarized? what happened to the once polarized photons that they come back non polarized?
Also what is polarization? I know that Electro Magnetic Radiation or EMR is made up from pulsating magnetic and electrical fields that propagate through space at a fixed rate or frequency… but what does polarization mean? does it mean the fields are slanted to one side or into one direction or something? or is it like some sort of spin or other sort of modulation?
There’s Horizontal and vertical polarization as well as circular polarization. In a simple explanation , think of horizontal as a fence with horizontal bars so that only the horizontal part of the photons pass thru. Now once those horizontal photons pass, they will meet surfaces, which will reflect back their light so your eyes can see it. However, in this experiment only the vertical photons will pass your windshield. Because polarization depends on the angle of incidence, you will get some of the horizontally polarized light back as vertically polarized light which will pass thru. The effect is psychedelic. I totally recommend you to try it. You need polarized glasses, a flashlight and a piece of polarized film to place on your flashlight. The colors and shapes come back to you without defined form or glimmers so stuff looks normal, but weird as heck.
I don’t want anything about driving at night to look psychedelic or weird as heck
I think ‘uncanny’ would fit better, as certain surfaces would fluoresce despite having no apparent source of light, artifacts, or glaring that you could see.
Its just weird. Once you see it, its just like any other thing in life.
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It would add to the price, which would suck, but I’d love to see some sort of HUD assist system. Even if it was a wire frame or something that appears as a HUD on the windshield. Not bright enough to blind you or be in the way, but enough to see. User could adjust the color (within limits to maybe not negate the system). To me, we don’t take enough advantage of HUD tech and different types of vision that a computer could do that a human can’t. Make it come on with the headlights or something. That way it’s not on during the day.
One big challenge with this is that the human eye has not followed all the technological advances… Its still gonna give you shit after the age of 40. So that means you cannot have a simple mirror reflection system where the driver simply focuses on stuff outside of the car and then from time to time onto the HUD. But I think Mamazon and the apple companies have figure either automated focusing or long distance focusing such that the eye doesn’t have to focus on shit up close while driving. So it’s totally doable.
Yeah but see that would require the government to do something, and right now they can’t even tell their asses from their elbows. Oh and they’re cutting at least half the jobs. Because eFiShAnSeE.
Maybe guns are the solution. Just gotta aim for the LED’s! Lol.
Yup pretty simple.
But check the date this is a very old idea. Would probably make a very interesting YouTube video or two
I know. It’s not my idea, this is old old. So its amazing how much we seem to like people crashing at night.
I do have some concerns about polarizing the light. If I can get a hold of some cheap filter material I might be inclined to do some tests. Maybe I can rescue the polarizer out of an old LCD TV.
Polarizing’s not completely magic, It does seriously reduce the amount of light coming in. There’s just usually enough light around that it doesn’t affect us, our pupils dilate a fraction of a fraction and it’s no big deal.
But at night when there’s already relatively little light out, It does reduce the overall light amount.
I’m also concerned that any light that bounces off something but maintains the polarization will be blocked, so there will be a higher chance of you not being able to see some percentage of your own headlight illumination, I would think that the average diffraction off everything in front of you would thoroughly destroy the coalescence of polarization but I don’t really know for sure, it’s possible that would make your own headlights less effective to you.
I suspect if we were thinking about this in the '50s if it were viable somebody would have pulled it off by now. But we only have had windshield sized polarizers in TVs for maybe a decades so maybe?
All I can say is that it works. I’ve tested this using a flashlight and polarized film on the lamp and on my safety glasses. It makes everything evenly lit. Other light sources become useful since you’re not blinded by the incoming light.
In North America we can’t even get signal lights to not look different than break lights. I hope Europe has better luck.
Edit: that sounds like an awesome idea
I agree with you. Our king Elon tried to make our cars automatic. Our felon president trumpfus will be banning electric cars and orange lights because he doesn’t like to be called orange face.
But yeah otherwise not too crazy of a solution.
Yes ! I hate these as well!
I’m just glad the Xenon fad is practically over
