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Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

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Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#251

Post by delichon »

mnw21cam wrote: post #221
sanex wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm seeing the opposite. Some new cars, I THINK Camry's, have taillights so bright it's blinding to wait behind one at a stoplight. They don't need to shine just glow so you can see them.

I have never understood why everyone seems to immediately forget everything in their driving lessons as soon as they pass their test. When you're waiting at a red light, you're meant to have the hand brake on (which does not illuminate the brake lights), not your foot on the brake, unless you know that the light is going to turn green very soon, or you're trying to catch the attention of someone coming up behind who…

> When you're waiting at a red light, you're meant to have the hand brake on (which does not illuminate the brake lights), not your foot on the brake, unless you know that the light is going to turn green very soon

I was definitely not taught this as a US driving student. Is this a UK thing?

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#252

Post by bloomingeek »

Here in the states, the painted white line on the right side of the lane, is for night driving. When an oncoming car's lights are reflecting too brightly, you can judge your car's position in the lane, IF the lines are not to faded.

Crazily, we allow people to raise up their trucks so high that at night, if they're behind you in the lane, the cab of your vehicle is flooded so badly, you can hardly see sometimes. (Just wait till you experience this in a drive-through lane!)

In my state, it's against the law to run your fog lamps when the weather doesn't warrant them, the police seem to have forgotten this.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#253

Post by [deleted] »

chipsrafferty wrote: post #190
stuaxo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lights in other settings that were upgraded to LEDs became much brighter: night clubs usef to be mostly dark for instance. I don't think it happened through any plan, if anyone was looking at the specs, they probably just thought "bigger number better".

Nightclubs are still too dark. Streets are too bright.

[deleted]

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#254

Post by __s »

tanepiper wrote: post #230

I've found glasses like these work well ( https://www.amazon.nl/Antireflectie-Gepolariseerde-autorijde... ) - if I drive in Germany I can't do without them - they really help block the glare without making it unsafe to drive.

Yep, I've just taken to driving with prescription sunglasses at night

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#255

Post by marcosdumay »

bob1029 wrote: post #188
njarboe wrote: post #147

One of the main reasons people want/need brighter headlights is that there is much more light inside the car from screens. These don't let your eyes adjust to the dark properly. Older cars had dim green lighting for the gauges and even had a knob to adjust the brightness up and down. You could create a very dim interior instead of the huge amount of white light you get with modern cars and the multiple screens. I'm h…

> Older cars had dim green lighting for the gauges and even had a knob to adjust the brightness up and down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgh2zbifn7E

That's a nice feature, but the driver actively operating that camera at 70 mph is quite unsettling.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#256

Post by WickyNilliams »

TheChaplain wrote: post #202

ITT people saying you don't need strong headlights on the country side, you just need to drive slower.. One thing doesn't need to exclude the other, especially as you begin to go above 50 and your eye sight isn't as good as it was when you were twenty-five. Strong headlight that makes night go day saves lives, just remember to shut when meeting another vehicle or pedestrian.

Or don't go above 50mph down country roads at night? If your eyes aren't as good as they used to be, all the more reason to drive slower

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#257

Post by vladvasiliu »

bunderbunder wrote: post #180
vladvasiliu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 headlight…

You're right, and it's actually even worse when the road has very reflective white lines. Basically, everything outside of the road is invisible. However, in France, they somehow haven't figured how to not have their lines disappear when it rains ever so slightly.

I think that there's some kind of middle ground. Older cars used to have pretty dim lights. When my dad got a Citroën C5 with Xenon lights many years ago, it was a game changer. That car and one almost identical one (Peugeot 407) were fairly popular around these parts when they came out, and I don't remember ever having issues with their headlights blinding me.

But something started to shift some 5 years ago: more and more cars started having blinding lights. Combined with taller and taller cars, it started being a pain.

I also think that people pay less attention to the state of their cars. Some (like that C5) have auto-levelling lights, and the Xenons seem to last forever (never had to touch them in almost 20 years of service). However, I have the impression that there are more and more cars with headlights which are simply out of whack. I base that judgement on the fact that most of the time, only one of the headlights will blind me, while the other seems fine. And I'm mostly talking "basic" cars, not some high-end mercedes with matrix lights or whatever they're called which may be misdetecting something.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#258

Post by steve_gh »

tikkabhuna wrote: post #164
DannyBee wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but you should be able to safely drive the speed limit under normal (Ie not pouring rain, snow, etc) conditions. Night is a normal condition.

Bear in mind that the UK has a “national speed limit” of 60mph for much of the countryside. This is very much a limit, a maximum, and you’re expected to drive to the conditions of the road. If it’s perfect weather conditions and twisting roads not wide enough for 2 cars, you shouldn’t be driving at the speed limit.

Absolutely. The legal speed limit is 60 in the country - on any road not marked with a lower speed limit. This means that legally, you can drive at 60mph down a twisty single track road with 1.5m earth and rock banks topped with hedges.

You would be an irresponsible nutter with a death wish to try through! And if you crashed, "I was driving at / under the speed limit" wouldn't wash - you would be charged with Driving without Due Care and Attention, or Dangerous Driving depending on the consequences of the crash.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#259

Post by rreichel03 »

This is a problem with emergency vehicles too - many times I’ve been driving and unable to see a person on the road because the lights from a police or EMS vehicle are brighter than a thousand suns, hiding anything beyond. It feels like a Jurassic park thing - they made them brighter because they could (with minimal focus on externalities)

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#260

Post by nucleardog »

lucianbr wrote: post #123
donatj wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got my Honda van with stock LED headlights about a year ago, people started flashing me that my brights were on. After the first couple times I started flashing my actual brights back. They make the stock headlights too dang bright.

I'm the one who's flashing you. I'm flashing you because your headlights are bothering me. Showing me that you can bother me even more does not make it better. Still, obviously, nothing you can do, or the driver in general. And I guess the manufacturers aren't incentivised. Regulation is the only thing that I can think of that will work.

> Still, obviously, nothing you can do, or the driver in general.

You could... fix it?

All headlights can be aimed. Even the "auto-levelling" ones have adjustments. I'm sure there are some where it requires some dealer-only programming tool, but a lot still just have little knobs and things. If they don't go ask the dealer to do it.

I drove behind a friend and they told me after that my headlight was shining in their side mirror and blinding them. I put my car in the garage and spent 15 minutes with a screwdriver adjusting the aiming on the auto-leveling sealed LED headlight units so it was lower and wouldn't blind people.

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