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
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
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 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
Damn that is some fine tape lettering. Great effort.
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.
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 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!
you shouldnt do that.
Yeah mine is 30 years old, but I got LED replacements for it online.
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.
in super high-end cars
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.
Riding a motorcycle against LED’s sucks. There is a moment of blindness.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
pay to get them replaced with something that’s not dangerous
it’s your vehicle. you are responsible for it too.
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.
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.
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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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Good thing I hold up my hand at night to stop from being blinded ensuring I can’t see your oncoming superbright truck.
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.
I saw a new truck that had them FACING-BACKWARDS in the wheel well and bumper. We’re fucked.
