Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 900 posts

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#171

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

Sunspark wrote: post #136
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #65

Same in Poland, I often drive after dark thinking, "those oncoming idiots and their high beams", but then they flash their high beams at someone and I realize that those are not their high beams. Granted, my Yaris with full LED lights and their atrocious cool white light is a part of the problem, so I'm in no position to complain, but at least my lights are aimed correctly, so there's that.

In North America, the problem is other than the fact they didn't allow dimming lights for whatever reason, they made a separate regulation for LED lights compared to the old incandescent lights. The old light regulation actually had a limit on how bright the running lights could be. The new LED light regulation says you can have it as bright as the manufacturer wants it to be. So now there is the problem of misaligne…

Another problem in North America is that the sizes and heights of cars keep going up. Reminds me of loudness wars in music somehow. Don’t know if this apparent size translates to more space inside; from my limited experience riding in American cars, not very much.

There’s someone in my neighborhood who has an imported Toyota Sequoia. Magnificent machine. His car could be mistaken for a small bus. When he vacates the spot, two normal sized cars can park in it. Our actual buses and semis often have lower headlights than that thing.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#172

Post by jeffwass »

nanna wrote: post #5

Same for bicycle lights too, and street lights.

I don’t understand the seeming lack of regulation for flashing bike lights.

I don’t mean a simple “normal” flashing light, but the super bright ones that are like a camera flash strobe going off 2-3x per second which hurts your eyes and kills your night vision, making it hard to see anything including the actual cyclist.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#173

Post by graemep »

Maxion wrote: post #43
Lio wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moose are less of a problem in the UK than you might expect. ;) (I'll give you other animals though.)

There are other countries than the UK.

The story is about the UK. it would b ridiculous to set UK brightness levels on the grounds of what would be needed in Finland.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#174

Post by fusslo »

alistairSH wrote: post #42
Taek wrote: post #2

I feel the same way in America, I think there should be stricter regulations on how bright a car's headlights are allowed to be for it to be street legal. Wouldn't mind having a cap on blue-light levels in addition.

There are a two things contributing to "headlights too bright" in the US... First, SUVs are really tall... If you're in a sedan (or worse, a Miata) and get close enough to an oncoming SUV, even well-aimed, legal lights are going to feel bright because they're pointed down at you. Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed correctly.

My 2024 outback has no 'high beams'. My low beams are the same brightness as high beams. The only difference is the field of view. I switch on the high beams on and height of the beam increases, but intensity stays the same.

I feel awful about essentially high-beaming everyone unless the road is flat.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#175

Post by givemeethekeys »

fghorow wrote: post #159

I need the brights at night for deer (in N. America) and kangaroos (in Oz). Steering them away automagically from oncoming traffic is a better solution than abandoning them altogether. (And yes, I do have cataracts. So oncoming lights _are_ a problem for me.)

Isn't that what high beams are for? Why are the low beams so bright these days?

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#176

Post by okdood64 »

ghusto wrote: post #140
lan321 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bothers you about tints? I've never bothered to get one since it's illegal where I'm at but the new ones seem pretty cool for cave dwellers who fear the light. They tint well during the day but you can still see at night from what I've seen on friends cars.

It's like driving behind a truck or van, you can't see past the (tinted) car in front. The solution would be to overtake people with tinted windows. Unfortunately, the type of people with tinted windows are exactly the type you shouldn't overtake.

> Unfortunately, the type of people with tinted windows are exactly the type you shouldn't overtake.

So every soccer mom SUV?

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#178

Post by ComputerGuru »

thedanbob wrote: post #38
everdrive wrote: post #10

I understand that currently this is sort of a collective action problem, but I'm a bit baffled why people ever thought they needed brighter headlights in the first place. In the city, it's so bright that you don't even need headlights to see whatsoever. When cars started automatically dimming the dash via a light sensor, there was actually a period of time where I totally forgot to turn on my headlights because thing…

> And generally speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them. Animals, specifically deer. That said, you can use brights when no other cars are nearby, and when there is a car coming its worth a few seconds of extra risk to not blind the other guy and put him at risk.

> its worth a few seconds of extra risk

There really isn’t that much increase; when there’s another driver then you both have the combined the light output of both headlights, coming from two different directions.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#179

Post by dredmorbius »

So ... how does a problem such as this get remedied?

I'm thinking a mandatory recall order / fix-it ticket for all offending makes/models. The sticker shock alone might get manufacturers attention.

That and contributory liability in any associated accidents.

(Insurance costs / liability is a highly under-appreciated regulatory mechanism.)

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#180

Post by bunderbunder »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #141
everdrive wrote: post #10

I understand that currently this is sort of a collective action problem, but I'm a bit baffled why people ever thought they needed brighter headlights in the first place. In the city, it's so bright that you don't even need headlights to see whatsoever. When cars started automatically dimming the dash via a light sensor, there was actually a period of time where I totally forgot to turn on my headlights because thing…

> Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright light…

Same for rural parts of North America, and you also have to worry about animals on the road.

But I find that bright white headlights actually make that second problem worse. The bright white light means your eyes don't adjust as well to the dark, so you can really only see straight ahead. So it's much harder to spot deer standing in the relative gloom along the side of the road than it is with older halogen headlights.

Post reply on HN