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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

#781

Post by elric »

Zak wrote: post #387
jlarocco wrote: post #367

As a cyclist and pedestrian, these new headlights and the cars with the "auto brights" are just terrible. When you're in another car their car's sensors might detect your headlights and dim a little bit. But as a pedestrian? You basically just get blinded - from low light right to 10000 lumens straight in your eyes. It's overpowering. Can't make them illegal fast enough, IMO.

The obvious solution is to carry a 10000 lumen[0] flashlight and use it to trigger the auto-dim[1]. [0] Most flashlights that advertise numbers like this are lying, but a few aren't [1] This does present a risk of impairing the driver's vision

I've considered mounting such a beast on my handlebars, just so I reciprocate cyclists who blind me. But I'm guessing such a thing wouldn't be entirely legal.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#782

Post by lan321 »

mtoner23 wrote: post #219
lan321 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bothers you about tints? I've never bothered to get one since it's illegal where I'm at but the new ones seem pretty cool for cave dwellers who fear the light. They tint well during the day but you can still see at night from what I've seen on friends cars.

most aftermarket tints are too dark and dont allow pedestrians to see into the car to see if they going to be hit by the driver. its illegal in most places but cops dont do anything about it.

In eastern europe they do. It's a decent revenue stream. The loop for many friends is:

Put on tint.

Get pulled over (hopefully) a while later

Police demand you remove it and usually write you a ticket for ~50 eur

Maybe you plead that the car is your dad's if it's not registered to you and get to keep the tint if they decide to do you a favor

Otherwise you remove it and go pay another X eur a week later to have new one put on

Since there's no license point deduction, it's just a money/inconvenience issue.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#783

Post by tim333 »

turbonaut wrote: post #741
abenga wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no common 2 second rule, afaik. There is a 3 second rule, which is probably why they feel too far apart to you.

“Only a fool breaks the two second rule.” It’s a UK thing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-highways-urges-d...

In the UK there often isn't really space for it. The M25 usually looks like https://i2-prod.mylondon.news/article14471160.ece/ALTERNATES...

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#784

Post by iso1631 »

alt227 wrote: post #520
iso1631 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it easier to drive my wife's modern car with all that than my 2005 car which has barely any internal lights (dim light around the speedo, dim light on the radio) You're not wrong, but it's a minor contribution at most.

Thats probably because it has ridiculously bright headlights to compensate.

Could be because the driver seat is a little higher, but the poing being that ripping out the maps screen isn't going to help

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#785

Post by graemep »

crazygringo wrote: post #660
graemep wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 discuss…

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

Where there are houses its a built up area. Even a hamlet. If its nota built up area there are virtually no kids playing in "front yards". There will be the odd isolated house, of course, not to many.

> While the original article is about the UK, it seems very clear that the HN discussion is about car headlights everywhere

Nothing in the thread I replied to says that. Most people discussing other countries say so. I am discussing the UK which should be the default and nothing above me in the thread suggests otherwise.

> I don't know why you're continuing to insist on things we all know are not true.

So "we" know better than someone who actually lives at the edge of a small town in England and drives through the countryside all regularly.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#786

Post by executesorder66 »

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 ……

> "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable"

What about that could possibly make someone uncomfortable. How does it have any effect on the other parent?

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#787

Post by squishy47 »

oldjim798 wrote: post #35

Desperately we need to reign in car "style" choices like this. Beyond headlights being too bright, lift kits should be banned and tint regulations should be enforced. Same with sound regulations. Public roads are not race tracks; they are for people.

ugh the fucking noise. My house backs onto a road that's only really busy in rush hours. It's the mopeds and trash-can exhausts that are the pain, the actual traffic isn't that noisy. yeah, exhaust sound is fun but not on your corsa; save it for the race-track. At least the drug dealers are respectful and ride electric bikes. As much as we're heading to a police state, might almost be worth it if they regulated vehicle noise.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#788

Post by egorfine »

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…

Dark knobs won't sell cars, while bright shiny screens will.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#789

Post by tpholland »

tim333 wrote: post #783
turbonaut wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Only a fool breaks the two second rule.” It’s a UK thing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-highways-urges-d...

In the UK there often isn't really space for it. The M25 usually looks like https://i2-prod.mylondon.news/article14471160.ece/ALTERNATES...

...but you're often lucky to travel even a metre or so on the M25 in two seconds when it looks like that!

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#790

Post by qmr »

pksebben wrote: post #415
0xfeba wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lately, I see a lot of drivers who turn on their brights and just leave them on and this includes cars with the older halogen and even incandescents. This is a change in behavior. This is one of my pet peeves. I've categorized it into what I believe are the main causes: 1. People just don't know as well today that the blue indicator means you're blinding people 2. People with newer cars which will automatically tur…

I have become an aggressive counter-flasher. This has yielded in some cases new knowledge - that the low beams of a lot of cars these days look like high beams (indicated when they flash back, and it's the brightness of a thousand suns). For those behind me, I've discovered that my side mirror has an angle where it reliably bounces the beams back. I've gotten more than a couple of drivers to turn their beams down wit…

I've half jokingly told my wife I'm going to make a parabolic mirror for her to aim back at such drivers.
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