It's because the autronic eye in the '50s was so bad that regulations were created that prevent automatic dipping of the headlights.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/great-info-on-th...
Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
261–270 of 493 posts
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#262It's because the autronic eye in the '50s was so bad that regulations were created that prevent automatic dipping of the headlights. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/great-info-on-th...
What does autronic mean?
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I am cycling at night, I sometimes carry a flashlight to shine at the windscreen of people who can't not blind me.
Are you sure temporarily blinding someone coming toward you in a vehicle is a wise tantrum to throw?
Eh, as someone who rides a road bike pretty often, this is par for the course for the "community"
We should be glad the kind of person who would go out of their way to endanger themselves and others with something as useless and petty as... retaliatory light flashing is on a bicycle instead of a 2 ton vehicle.
The people who give cyclists a bad name are never self-aware
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#264Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#265So, basically the same reason we have bad everything . Our institutions and regulations are outdated relative to the rest of the world, so we get stuck with shitty stuff.
For instance: payments. Europe and Asia got chip cards and tap-to-pay decades before we did, even though Mastercard and Visa took part in their invention. America had credit card infrastructure first, so our payment networks were stuck with it, while other countries could start off with better stuff. Without the consumer demand that Google/Apple Pay (and later coronavirus) created, we still probably wouldn't have wid…
And also instant free wire transfers. Paypal would probably never happened if US had a banking system like the one in some European countries.
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing it's only available if you already have the package with distronic/lane-keep/autobrakes, which has the computing hardware.
Distronic: MB; these headlights: Porsche.
You know what Distronic is well enough to drop this nitpick as if it wasn't painfully clear what they meant?
I hopr you don't say "band-aid" or "xerox"
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#267Even more importantly: Why is America still stuck with cars that honk when they're locked and that have indicator lights flashing in the same color as the tail-lights? One is a nuisance, the other one a straight-up safety issue.
I thought that was the dumbest thing when I first moved to Canada. Then I bought a car and continued to think it was dumb for a couple of years before I realised that my car too used the brake lights to indicate. They aren't red indicators, the car just flashes the brake lights. There's no difference for the observer between indicating and a dodgy connection.
Wow, that's even worse, yeah.
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even the came-with-the-car headlights are often dangerously bright, no need to assume they're aftermarket.
I assume they're aftermarket when they're on an early 90s economy cars, they're two different colors, and the refractor is scattering the light up past street signs -- not when they're just bright. brightness isn't the issue, precision is.
In my experience at least, the cars I always have issues with are new ones with stock headlights, not modded cars. There are far less modded cars of course, but they always seem to be aimed lower to the road because they are lower cars in general.
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#269groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups to America due to laws pertaining to high / low beams -- meanwhile every Jack and Jill on the road has glaringly illegal aftermarket Xenon bulb setups in refractor headlight housings rather than proper projectors, blinding the hell out of everyone on the road, and the police seem to do nothing about it. I mean, hey -- i'm usually happy about au…
>groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups
Unfortunately those fancy LED setups are a headache for the rest of us drivers sharing the roads with those models, because they're also bright as hell from the factory.
Fortunately the tacky way Audi had implemented its rear-lights signalling wasn't adopted by the wider industry, and I think the VW group itself is having second thoughts about it. A rear-light should only inform me about the driving intentions of the car's owner, not visually distract me with its rear-life -like implementation.
Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I lived in Canada we had to turn on the honk mode because there were too many people using devices that block remote vehicle locking. The honk is an obvious indicator that the car did, indeed, lock.
The range of the key should be tiny, so it should be easy to see the lights flash even in daylight (and often rearview mirrors fold).
The range can be surprising: I had a car that could be locked and unlocked from our apartment on the other side of the complex.