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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

#91

Post by everdrive »

delaminator wrote: post #80
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…

> Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights. I guess you don't actually drive at night in the countryside then. You need lights to see where the road is, not where pedestrians might be - on none existent footpaths

I live in the woods in the northeast US, and also grew up in the 80s-90s in a very rural area and I've owned a number of cars when I was young, some with comically dim lights.

You really don't need the bright lights. You never have. Slow down, look for movement, and use your brights intelligently.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#92

Post by neilv »

> TRL's data suggests that LED and whiter headlamps may be linked to glare and that drivers might find their whiteness harder to cope with.

As a long-time walker in the US, anecdotally, I've noticed some especially blinding car headlights, and they seem to be among the whiter ones. "Hey, thanks for ruining my night vision and my sleep cycle." But I usually can't tell whether the cause of the problem is the the aiming, brightness, or temperature. I thought headlights were carefully regulated.

(There's something about LED lights that brings out oblivious or indifferent behavior. Maybe involving efficiency improvements, and people not reassessing requirements (e.g., when you couldn't get a too-bright light, or it would be too expensive to operate, you didn't have to think about other not-too-bright requirements). In recent years, we got municipalities installing miserable bright white street lamps, prompting complaints from walkers and people who don't have blackout curtains anywhere that shines in at night. And the last couple years, some individual residential properties in my very dense neighborhood are installing crazy-bright white LED floodlights outdoors, shining at sidewalks and adjacent property windows, brighter than even the new street lamps. I'm starting to see walkers at night going out into the street (which isn't very safe), just to avoid the blast. The first too-bright property lights to appear on a block's street are very easy to spot, because they're obviously the brightest thing there.)

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#93

Post by rawling »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #8

Where are the AR driving glasses that automatically dim oncoming headlights (and alert the driver to possible road hazards, and…)? Seems to me that all of this tech to create autonomous driving could be also used to augment human driving.

Eye tracking camera in the cabin, LCD film on the windshield, it'd be like reverse matrix lights.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#95

Post by redwall_hp »

delaminator wrote: post #80
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…

> Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights. I guess you don't actually drive at night in the countryside then. You need lights to see where the road is, not where pedestrians might be - on none existent footpaths

A lot of smaller US cities also have areas with no lighting and worn-out lines, which contrast with brightly lit areas and suddenly you're basically blind if your lights are too dim. Couple that with a wet road, which reduces visibility, and it can be hard to see where to drive.

Then we have pedestrians walking with no sidewalks or crosswalks, because city planning actively hostile to people walking.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#96

Post by DougRisk »

amelius wrote: post #32
wintermutestwin wrote: post #8

Where are the AR driving glasses that automatically dim oncoming headlights (and alert the driver to possible road hazards, and…)? Seems to me that all of this tech to create autonomous driving could be also used to augment human driving.

What if it suddenly shows a blue screen?

They call it the Blue Screen of Death for a reason.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#97

Post by xxs »

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…

>Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights.

Animals and pedestrians (along with pot holes) are the prime reason.

Re: Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

#99

Post by mapt »

bayindirh wrote: post #84
mapt wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe so, but I need more evidence in either direction to give it a definitive answer, but why companies recall cars to fix their brightness levels if they are not enforced? > It's not just about not wanting to be uncomfortably blinded by lasers shooting into your eyes at night. I mean, being uncomfortably blinded creates the risk of being dead already. I believe I made it clear that it's dangerous.

Looking further -

From a previous post on the subject https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42449068

> They measure at a certain point. Jason Cammisa points it out pretty clearly in an episode of Carmudgeon, with the money quote either here[0] or in the link direct to YouTube here[1]:

> On a recent episode of the Carmudgeon Show podcast, auto journalist Jason Cammisa described a phenomenon occurring with some LED headlights in which there are observable minor spots of dimness among an otherwise bright field of light. “With complex arrays of LEDs and of optics,” he said, “car companies realized they can engineer in a dark spot where it’s being measured, but the rest of the field is vastly over-illuminated. And I’ve had now two car companies’ engineers, when I played stupid and said, ‘What’s the dark spot?’ … And the lighting engineers are all fucking proud of themselves: ‘That’s where they measure the fucking thing!’ And I’m like, ‘You assholes, you’re the reason that every fucking new car is blinding the shit out of everyone.’”

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