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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

#651

Post by johnwalkr »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #257
bunderbunder wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

The rain thing is true anywhere I've driven. Even worse, when there are old white lines grinded away for some change, and new white lines added 0.5 lanes away. In certain wet conditions the old lines become equally or more "white" than the new ones.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#652

Post by alehlopeh »

MichaelBurjack wrote: post #612
ash_091 wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recommended 3 second gap is a much bigger distance than most people recognise, especially at high speed. On another note- I feel sad that you could tell your mate "the way you're driving is making me uncomfortable" and be met with basically "your discomfort isn't valid because [technology] so I won't change my behaviour".

As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health, I am entirely unsurprised by that response and get it all the time. Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one of their children. And just this morning the other parent texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool". So ……

Isn’t all air shared?

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#653

Post by pixl97 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #600
pixl97 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minivans really did suck in comparison to most SUVs. The vast majority of them were underpowered, had electrical problem, and their insides fell apart rather quickly.

I can't say I have experienced those issues between Odysseys and Siennas, but those are quality problems, nothing inherent to the concept of a minivan. I don't believe a minivan is or was underpowered for 99% of people's needs, especially to move family in a 1 hour radius.

It's funny that you point out Japanese companies as the actually worthwhile minivans. You're not pointing out the shitwagons dumped out there by Ford, Dodge and Chevy that were the bulk of the market. I remember the Astrovans being especially bad. There was a lot of stumbling around by US makers switching over to things like fuel injections and electronic controls. A lot of this left some amount of consumer dislike to particular brand names. Then when you add that SUV/Crossovers started showing up when manufacturing of cars had improved greatly these new models were more apt to be considered quality it made a big difference.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#654

Post by crazygringo »

jandrese wrote: post #602
crazygringo wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the flashing on bicycles is intentional, precisely to make sure you are aware of them, since they're so much smaller and vulnerable, and the light itself is so much smaller than the rear light on a vehicle. It's not just on rentals, it's a standard feature of bicycle rear lights that is there for safety.

Blinding and dazzling oncoming traffic in the name of safety is outright stupid. If you are riding a bike and you're lighting up the heads of oncoming riders or pedestrians you are being dangerous and obnoxious. Never shine a flashlight above someone's shoulders at night if you can help it.

What are you talking about? Did you mean to reply to a different comment?

Bicycle lights aren't blinding anybody. At least none I've ever seen. They're powered by little batteries usually.

The subject at hand was whether they flash or not. Not their brightness, which I've never heard anybody complain about.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#655

Post by lotsofpulp »

pixl97 wrote: post #653
lotsofpulp wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say I have experienced those issues between Odysseys and Siennas, but those are quality problems, nothing inherent to the concept of a minivan. I don't believe a minivan is or was underpowered for 99% of people's needs, especially to move family in a 1 hour radius.

It's funny that you point out Japanese companies as the actually worthwhile minivans. You're not pointing out the shitwagons dumped out there by Ford, Dodge and Chevy that were the bulk of the market. I remember the Astrovans being especially bad. There was a lot of stumbling around by US makers switching over to things like fuel injections and electronic controls. A lot of this left some amount of consumer dislike t…

What? I’m almost 40, and my whole life it has been common knowledge that American cars are of inferior quality compared to Japanese cars.

It makes no sense to buy a GM Suburban or Ford Expedition because you think a Stellantis Pacifica is low quality. The Japanese minivans have always been there for purchase, if you wanted a quality minivan.

People have been choosing to pay extra for bigger, taller cars because they want bigger, taller cars to signal ostentatious consumption, not any other reason. I’ve heard this direct from many, many people on why they chose an SUV or pickup truck over a minivan (though they will couch it in terms like “cool” or “sleek” or whatever).

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#656

Post by toast0 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #604
toast0 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flashing third brake light (in the US) is usually a dealer profit addon. Personally, I think these violate federal vehicle safety law. I'll add a link to a federal letter that I think agrees with me [1]... But no enforcement means dealers alter the wiring harness to add these on to all their inventory and add a line item on the bill. They'll remove it if you complain, but the wiring harness has been altered. I'm ok w…

They're not altering anything. This isn't a stereo shop in 1990. They're literally just getting paid to plug something in.

From the install guide [1] under "Installation Instructions, General", step 5 is:

> Cut the positive wire to the third brake light and strip the insulation from both ends of the cut.

That's altering the factory wiring harness. That's an extra junction the factory didn't authorize and when it fails, the factory warranty won't cover it, because the wiring harness modification lead to the failure. All so the dealer can make about $250 extra on a sale.

If these were built as a module you plugged in between the wiring harness plug and the light module socket, I'd have a smidge less hate for them; but there's too many plug types for that, and there might not be enough room anyway, so the dealer has to cut into the wiring harness for this ... if there's a real benefit to flashing brake lights, it should be standardized and done by the manufacturers.

[1] https://pulseprotects.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Sales-R...

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#658

Post by atombender »

pianom4n wrote: post #539
lukeschlather wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents' new Chevy Bolt automatically turns off the brights when appropriate. At first I was doing it manually but then I started trusting it, it just works, it does it at exactly the moment I would do it (actually it's better at it than me.) I'm surprised Teslas don't do it.

You must never drive on a curvy roads then. Every car I driven waits until the approaching car is fully around the corner, blinding them for a full second before dimming, instead recognizing the headlights around the corner and dimming earlier.

Newer cars with matrix LED headlights account for this, such as the Volkswagen ID series. The brights not only "blot out" the shape of the cars around you, they also rotate when turning or going around a curve, so that you never accidentally point them at oncoming traffic.

It's quite magical and weird to observe in real time. When driving past oncoming cars, you can see a halo of darkness around each car. There are videos on YouTube that show the effect pretty well.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#659

Post by MichaelBurjack »

alehlopeh wrote: post #652
MichaelBurjack wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health, I am entirely unsurprised by that response and get it all the time. Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one of their children. And just this morning the other parent texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool". So ……

Isn’t all air shared?

Not in a way meaningful to assessing infectious risk, no.

I consider outdoor air to be unshared, except in cases of large dense crowds (such as say outdoor festivals or sporting events).

I consider risky shared air to be indoor air with one or more other individuals that are not known to be taking infection-prevention precautions.

One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction.

For example, a CO₂ reading of 2300ppm (common in a small or medium room with a few others, or larger rooms with a crowd or conference room, or in a car) means 5% of your air is rebreathed (5% of your intake is output from another person's lungs).

A way to think about this is we take ~20 breaths a minute on average. So in that scenario, it would be equivalent to one breath every minute coming directly from someone else's lungs. If they happen to be contagious with an airborne contagion (such as Covid, or influenza, or RSV), there's a high likelihood that you will catch it if you're spending more than a short time in that environment.

There are nuances, such as maybe the air is being scrubbed (eg by a HEPA filter) which won't affect the CO₂ levels but will drastically lower the infectious risk of that environment.

More reading: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/what-a-carbon-dioxide-mo...

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#660

Post by crazygringo »

graemep wrote: post #646
crazygringo wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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. It would certainly be safer if that were true, but it's not. Kids play in front yards with zero street lighting all the time. And drivers speed. >> People, deer, fallen branches, large roadkill, garbage cans blown into the road by the wind, the list goe…

> Kids play in front yards with zero street lighting all the time Street lighting is consistent enough to be used to define built up areas for speed limits in the UK. > in parts of the US, deer are everywhere. which is not relevant to a discussion about car headlights in the UK > we drive defensively because of the uncommon things we encounter but its not worth making a common situation riskier to make an uncommon on…

> Street lighting is consistent enough to be used to define built up areas for speed limits in the UK.

I thought we were talking about the country, where things are not built up.

> which is not relevant to a discussion about car headlights in the UK

Nothing about your original comment suggested anything about being specific to the UK.

While the original article is about the UK, it seems very clear that the HN discussion is about car headlights everywhere. HN is a global site, and more US-centric than anything else.

> but its not worth making a common situation riskier to make an uncommon one safer.

This type of thing needs statistics to determine the exact right balance. But the picture you're trying to print of what it's like to drive in the country is just completely false, as many commenters here have pointed out. I don't know why you're continuing to insist on things we all know are not true.

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