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Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

bbc.com

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Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#201

Post by phatfish »

kappi wrote: post #169
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…

When you are driving in the night during heavy rainfall, good head light is difference between life and death. Get out of your bubble please!

And when your ridiculous LED lamps blind the oncoming driver on a corner during heavy rain and they crash into you, you wish weren't so selfish.

I guess it is more likely they crash into the car behind you or just run off the road themselves. Unfortunately being a selfish pays off most of the time.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#202

Post by TheChaplain »

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.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#203

Post by Leif24 »

graemep wrote: post #168
crazygringo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there won't be pedestrian foot traffic You think kids aren't running across the street at night out in the country? Chasing a soccer ball? There are all sorts of things you need to be able to see to avoid. People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and on. Not to mention spotting dangerous icy patches at night in the winter. I take it you don't real…

> You think kids aren't running across the street at night out in the country? Chasing a soccer ball? Only in well light areas, usually with a low speed limit too. > People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and on. Of those only people are at all common, and not on large roads. I have never even seen roadkill large enough to be unsafe to drive over.…

>> You think kids aren't running across the street at night out in the country? Chasing a soccer ball?

>Only in well light areas, usually with a low speed limit too.

Not something I've commonly seen when driving, but certainly as a kid out in the country I ran around in the dark near the road.

>> People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goes on and on.

>Of those only people are at all common, and not on large roads. I have never even seen roadkill large enough to be unsafe to drive over.

>I have only once come close to hitting any of these on country roads in the UK. I have been dangerously dazzled by oncoming bright headlights all the time.

I've seen all of these multiple times (tbf the trash cans were in the city, not the country) out in upstate NY and rural Indiana and Kentucky. Maybe trees don't drop branches over in the UK, but over in the US that is certainly a hazard to be expected during and after severe weather.

To be clear, I agree that excessively bright running lights and people who can't seem to properly transition between hibeams and lowbeams are problem. I just don't agree with the sentiment from the gp that "[o]ut in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights."

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#204

Post by globular-toast »

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…

> In the city, it's so bright that you don't even need headlights to see whatsoever.

And, in the UK at least, you don't legally need to use them either. If it's lit and the speed limit is no more than 30mph, you only need sidelights and taillights on in the dark.

Unfortunately most people will flash their lights at you if they see it as they assume you've forgotten to put them on.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#205

Post by meindnoch »

1. Headlights are migrating upwards, thanks to the proliferation of SUVs and pickups.

2. The color temperature of modern headlights is worse for the eye than previous generations'.

3. Automatic high beams still blind the oncoming traffic for the first 1-2 seconds or so, before the vision algorithm realizes that maybe it's time to turn them off.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#206

Post by mnw21cam »

mapt wrote: post #76
bayindirh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maximum brightness is already regulated in US and Europe. US allows a lower brightness level. Some car manufacturer (Ford?) recalled their cars to fix their cars' headlight settings to match US regulations in the last 6-8 months IIRC. Also, light temperature has limits. I believe >4000K lights are already road illegal in UK and EU. They are also recently outlawed in my country, but there are many cars with after…

Do we enforce it? At all? It isn't just retrofits that are a problem, it's brand new cars. It's not just about not wanting to be uncomfortably blinded by lasers shooting into your eyes at night. (Lasers well under 3000 lumens!). It's that this kills people. Frequently. It's a form of assault with hundreds of dead victims and thousands of injured victims a year.

Given how many cars I see on the road with only one headlamp working, we have a long way to go before enforcing anything like this.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#207

Post by potato3732842 »

mapt wrote: post #127
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…

Just because this is YC, I thought I should pitch in - A high-trust society that solved coordination problems through legislation, could solve this with a win-win technofix solution where everybody's headlights are as bright as the sun and nobody suffers ill effects. That technofix solution is polarized headlights, and right-angle-polarized night driving glasses or windshield tints.

> high-trust society that solved coordination problems through legislation

What is the point of being high trust in the first place if you have to have a government violence backed law for everything?

High trust societies don't have governments dealing BS minutia like automobile headlights. That is expensive in all sorts of ways, assuming you even do it right and don't accidentally create some perverse rent seeking bureaucracy or certification group that has incentive to push things in a dumb direction over time. And high trust societies don't need to do that stuff because they're high trust and collaborative in the first place so those problems solve themselves. The big players identify the problem, mostly solve it with some sort of industry standard, and whatever rounding error is left is a nuisance so small it's not worth addressing.

This is how like the overwhelming majority of automotive (and a million other industries too, computer stuff being a particularly relevant one here) stuff was done before regulation and how a lot of the more cutting edge stuff is still done now with the added step of the regulator saying "hey that thing everyone's mostly doing, it's law now, errybody do it" once things settle.

I don't mean to pick on you specifically, the questionable take you're peddling is pervasive all over HN.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#208

Post by Aachen »

lucianbr wrote: post #184
Aachen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing they can do"? I've never owned a car so genuinely don't know but surely you can buy whatever lights you want for it and/or correct the alignment? I helped a friend with aligning the headlight after changing the bulb some years ago, I hear newer cars don't let you change the bulb yourself necessarily but then surely the mechanics can be asked to do this when they change it anyway, or upon the next inspection…

> whatever lights you want For the cars I owned, only one set of official lights existed. Aftermarket would be nearly guaranteed to be worse quality and poorer alignment. And no changing them in the warranty period either. Car parts are not like PC parts, where you can buy your own and mix-and-match. No, things with car lights are not as you think. In many modern cars there are no bulbs, but laser diodes and complex…

That... is a sorry state of affairs and explains a lot. Thanks for making me aware.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#209

Post by semi-extrinsic »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #79
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only solution is to fit a 300W LED bar and consistently flash those guys until they are bothered enough to go into the menu of their computer-on-wheels and turn off this "feature".

...or piss those guys enough that they will call police on you for blinding them and creating a road hazard, or someone unhinged enough gets pissed off and will follow you, after which your behind will dearly regret buying such a long LED bar. This is the same kind of useful advice as the one to brake check those whose driving style you don't like very much, fight (real or perceived) road hazard with deliberately cre…

Sorry, I forgot to emphasize the irony with this: https://xkcd.com/3167/

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#210

Post by kubanczyk »

Aurornis wrote: post #192
alistairSH wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed correctly. This is the biggest problem. Even talk SUV headlights from the factory must meet standards for masking off light and the angles at which they can illuminate. But when people buy LED retrofit kits and jam them into reflectors not designed for those bulbs, the reflectors don’t mask properly. Lig…

Aren't there any checks for that?

In EU most DMV equivalents check headlights yearly to catch illegal illumination envelopes (along with other safety-related aspects, brakes and whatnot).

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