Car headlights don't have to be this blinding • Hacker News Board

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#31

Post by epistasis » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

calmbonsai wrote: post #18

This is largely poor regulation. The assumption that "more bright = more safe" and the lack of enough real-world testing. The only other product analogy that comes to mind is "thicker = better" for hiking socks. When they got too thick, they applied too much pressure to the heal and also provided additional moment distance making it far easier to roll an ankle.

Yes, and this poor attitude of "safety" meaning "safe for the driver" extends to all sorts of terrible safety regulations.

41% of vehicle deaths are people not even in a car[1]. Yet car safety regulation is heavily focused on the 59% that are, nothing to regulate the ridiculous gender-affirming hood heights or aftermarket lifts that turn a survivable collision into a deadly collision.

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... Table 1, paragraph above

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#32

Post by bradfa » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #24

torginus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is worse - an F150s headlights are at eye level if you're sitting in a Corolla. Nothing on European roads is quite as bad.

I don't understand why headlight elevation isn't standardized.

It was. We had sealed beam headlights for a while till we didn’t. There were common rules for aiming and it worked. The lights weren’t all that bright and the styling was not stellar, however.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#33

Post by 404mm » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

7e wrote: post #3

Tesla is a big part of this. They ship their headlights misaligned from the factory, so they point right into the drivers eyes. Tesla has no quality culture at all. A bunch of wankers.

YES! Tesla account for the majority blinding headlights in my area. The rest is idiot drivers who just drive with their high beams on.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#34

Post by operatingthetan » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

tyjen wrote: post #13

The worst offenders are people buying aftermarket extra bright headlights, then incorrectly installing them at an angle that blinds oncoming traffic.

For a long time it was aftermarket HID kits. Installing those was a bit of a pain because of the separate ballasts and associated wiring. They were blinding because the projectors required a cut off and most were installed in halogen housings.

Now most people are installing aftermarket LED kits. For the most part those are less blinding. I upgraded our old Impreza with some but chose the lowest lumen numbers I could find and they are also engineered to emit light in the same locations and angles that the halogen ones did. I did some tests with the garage door and standing in front of it where a car would be and it's non-blinding for oncoming traffic.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#35

Post by tristor » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

I like having bright LED headlights, however I also made sure my headlights are correctly aimed and that my auto-leveling is working correctly. My car also auto-dims high beams and has ADB/turning lights. So, in short, I understand why people like bright lights and I'm also conscientious so my vehicle is not the problem.

I drive a normal height hatchback. I live in Texas. The /vast/ majority of vehicles on the road are trucks and SUVs, and many of them have aftermarket lift kits which further exacerbates the problem. The main problem is vehicle height and improperly aimed headlights. There's no real enforcement or regulation for headlight aiming, and worse we have no effective vehicle height restrictions. Not only do these insecure little men blind you at night, their cattle guard/reinforced bumper mounted to the frame will decapitate you if they hit you because of the bumper height difference from the 6+ inch Chinese lift kit they added to their truck to stroke their ego and allow them to "bully" drivers on the road by intentionally tailgating and driving aggressively in their oversized vehicle.

The problem is epidemic in America, and it's a problem of both regulation and culture. As long as the typical American driver is somebody who enters the road ignorant of basic driving dynamics, with a selfish attitude, inattentively barreling down the road in their massive fuck-off symbol of insecurity, we are not going to fix this.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#36

Post by hackeraccount » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

calmbonsai wrote: post #18

This is largely poor regulation. The assumption that "more bright = more safe" and the lack of enough real-world testing. The only other product analogy that comes to mind is "thicker = better" for hiking socks. When they got too thick, they applied too much pressure to the heal and also provided additional moment distance making it far easier to roll an ankle.

Yeah but more bright is more safe ... for me driving around with the light of a thousand suns coming out of the front of my care at night it seems pretty safe, "good luck everybody else".

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#37

Post by operatingthetan » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

Zak wrote: post #12

eigenhombre wrote: post #4

This is a pet peeve of mine, so when a headlight went out a few weeks ago I asked my mechanic about bulb options. He said he had no other choices for me, so now I am part of the problem too. Seems like a classic Tragedy of the Commons situation / use case for regulation....

There are already regulations forbidding the use of unapproved LED retrofits in housings designed for incandescent bulbs in most countries. The fact that your mechanic gets away with installing them, and you get away with driving your now-illegal car shows how well they are enforced. Unless your car's design is particularly evil (a real possibility), changing a headlight bulb is usually easy to do yourself, and appro…

There are LED replacement bulbs that mimic the light emitting pattern of halogen and also are not massively bright. Those are fine and cops are not going after people with that kind of thing.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#38

Post by entuno » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

teeray wrote: post #23

EU folks: are ADBs the panacea that all these articles always make them out to be? I’ve seen mixed reports.

They can be pretty shitty if you're a pedestrian or cyclist, because quite a lot of them don't "see" you, so you just get blinded by the full beams.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#39

Post by post_break » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

As someone who has retrofitted headlights with proper HID projectors, deal with RHD to LHD conversions, on some vehicles you can make your headlights look absolutely amazing, with no glare or harm to oncoming traffic. Some of these OEM headlight designs are atrocious. 2015ish F250's are some of the worst headlights when it comes to this.

What really pisses me off? LED bulbs only available in 6000k or higher. I had to import some Osram H4 bulbs from the netherlands because they are a warmer factory 3000K temperature. We really need regulation on glare, because right now it's the wild west.

Re: Car headlights don't have to be this blinding

#40

Post by jader201 » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #31

calmbonsai wrote: post #18

This is largely poor regulation. The assumption that "more bright = more safe" and the lack of enough real-world testing. The only other product analogy that comes to mind is "thicker = better" for hiking socks. When they got too thick, they applied too much pressure to the heal and also provided additional moment distance making it far easier to roll an ankle.

Yes, and this poor attitude of "safety" meaning "safe for the driver" extends to all sorts of terrible safety regulations. 41% of vehicle deaths are people not even in a car[1]. Yet car safety regulation is heavily focused on the 59% that are, nothing to regulate the ridiculous gender-affirming hood heights or aftermarket lifts that turn a survivable collision into a deadly collision. [1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot…

> Yet all car safety regulation on the 59% that are

I don’t think you meant literally “all”, but one that comes to mind that definitely is intended for pedestrian safety is around requiring that EVs make audible noises when they’re moving at slow speeds (the fake humming as they move forward, and the beeping as they reverse).