6 ms·

Because LED headlights aren’t blinding enough?

nickcotter 8y ago
It’s ridiculous. I find driving at night really treacherous now. I essentially slow down to a crawl if another car is coming, I just can’t see. Why do we need this?
ceejayoz 8y ago
The subheadline literally includes "but won’t blind oncoming traffic"... > All of this luminosity leads to an obvious question: How are these devices, which have the approximate wattage of the klieg spotlights commonly found outside world premieres, supposed to be safely installed in the front of a car without inadvertently blinding oncoming traffic? > “Because of the point source nature of the beam, you can pinpoint the light,” said Nakamura. “You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.”
- gambiting 8y ago
  >>You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.” So, cyclists and pedestrians just have to deal with it, as always. Just like current "automatic" high-beam, which does an "ok" job at detecting other cars but fails completely at detecting other non-vehicular road users.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    On the other hand, a directed beam highlighting "hey, there's a deer/bike/walker over there getting ready to walk into the street" has potentially positive safety benefits. Perhaps it can be coded to light up the torso and legs and leave the face in darkness.
    - gambiting 8y ago
      That is already done with IR cameras and flashing the object on the dash. We can have a discussion whether that is better or worse than trying to shine light directly on the object in the real world. Look at 1:50 for demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5fl7r-E9WY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5fl7r-E9WY (it looks like this system can actually "flash" at the object in real life, it can be seen a bit further in that video)
  - falcolas 8y ago
    Or when you're parked facing a restaurant with glass windows. Or when it's snowing and all that directed laser light is being reflected right back at you (not mentioning reflectors which are already absurdly bright with LED and halogen bulbs). Or when you hit a bump in the road and the redirection of light doesn't occur fast enough. Or when the vibration of fifty-thousand miles impairs the aiming mirrors. Can you imagine the pathological case of a partially broken DLP chip? There's too many corner cases and (literally) moving pieces for this to really be practical.
    - imeron 8y ago
      You can already have this in a BMW. The new 3 series and I think the i8 has the option for laser headlights.
    - pluma 8y ago
      As someone who doesn't trust his car's automatic high-beam, 100% this. Are the lasers bright enough to be a health risk? You wouldn't attach a high power laser pointer to a moving vehicle either.
      - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
        AFAICT these things don't actually emit laser light, they use a high power laser to stimulate some sort of phosphorus-like material that then emits incoherent white light. The point is then that this secondary light source is very small (compared e.g. to LED with similar lumens), so the light can be much more easily focused by optics.
- RankingMember 8y ago
  The thing is, when this tech hits, the aftermarket will eventually offer it too, and as anyone who's been around a vehicle with an aftermarket HID setup with no cutoff/a poor pattern/a poor install, the results can be blinding.
- gwern 8y ago
  I don't really understand what he means. Just point it down at an angle? Or will it be motorized? How is it supposed to know where to point, some sort of fancy machine learning?
- cimmanom 8y ago
  That’s still no help to pedestrians.
RankingMember 8y ago
If you're in the US, the situation of being blinded by low-beam headlights (I agree, it's a real problem) should hopefully be on its way to being addressed: https://www.autonews.com/article/20181029/OEM03/181029812/nhtsa-s-proposed-rule-change-should-help-tame-headlights https://www.autonews.com/article/20181029/OEM03/181029812/nh...
- FidelCashflow 8y ago
  I'm in a rural area with literally zero street illumination. I cannot begin to describe my frustration with the blue tint, ultra bright lights, and off-road LED light bars. Install those on every other lifted truck (redneck's a plenty) and night time driving is hazardous. I don't care who installed the lights, whether it was the factory, the current or previous driver/owner. If I can't see because of your lights, they're too damn bright.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Lights should block out your night time vision no matter what, that is unavoidable. It is only a matter of how much goes. When driving in rural areas, I sometimes flip off the lights to see much more in my periphery than I could with the lights on. This is dangerous of course, as the lights are meant more to be seen than to see.
    - kbutler 8y ago
      > the lights are meant more to be seen than to see. That's definitely false for headlights, fog lights, and for the extra light bars (well, maybe those are often installed as stylistic choices rather than utility). Tail lights, running lights, turn signals are all more to be seen than to help the driver see.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        Try it, it actually works, especially when there is a full moon.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
martin_a 8y ago
I know people who have had their headlights "tuned" to have them raised higher. Purpose was to "blind"/"warn" traffic on the German Autobahn when they wanted to clear the lane for themselves and the car to look more aggressive. Works as easy as removing the battery, pushing the back of the car down, therefore lifting the headlights up. Reconnect the battery and that lifted state will be memorized as 0-level by the headlights. Now remove the weight from the back, the car will come back into it's normal position but the lights think they are too low, so they will level themselves higher and therefore blind oncoming traffic...
- raducu 8y ago
  Where I live, if you blind me with your long distance headlights, I will blind you with my long distance headlights, isn't that universal?
  - kevinherron 8y ago
    In the situation he's describing one driver is behind the other. Unless you have headlights that point backwards you won't be able to return the favor.
    - lightedman 8y ago
      I keep a 100w LED cannon pointing out my rear window for EXACTLY that reason. Come up on me with your brights on? I've got something bright for you.
    - raducu 8y ago
      Sure I can, I can turn on the high beam just as they overtake me, not always in bad faith, but maybe they just forgot theirs accidentally and need a reminder; just as I will flash and then completely turn off my headlights when I see a car running without headlights at night in the city, sometimes people just forget. I once turned off my headlights in a hill traffic jam while completely stopped as I was blinding the guy in front of me on my lowest setting and to my surprise everyone did the same in a domino-fashion. Tit for tat is pretty good.

It’s ridiculous. I find driving at night really treacherous now. I essentially slow down to a crawl if another car is coming, I just can’t see. Why do we need this?

ceejayoz 8y ago

The subheadline literally includes "but won’t blind oncoming traffic"... > All of this luminosity leads to an obvious question: How are these devices, which have the approximate wattage of the klieg spotlights commonly found outside world premieres, supposed to be safely installed in the front of a car without inadvertently blinding oncoming traffic? > “Because of the point source nature of the beam, you can pinpoint the light,” said Nakamura. “You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.”

gambiting 8y ago
>>You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.” So, cyclists and pedestrians just have to deal with it, as always. Just like current "automatic" high-beam, which does an "ok" job at detecting other cars but fails completely at detecting other non-vehicular road users.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  On the other hand, a directed beam highlighting "hey, there's a deer/bike/walker over there getting ready to walk into the street" has potentially positive safety benefits. Perhaps it can be coded to light up the torso and legs and leave the face in darkness.
  - gambiting 8y ago
    That is already done with IR cameras and flashing the object on the dash. We can have a discussion whether that is better or worse than trying to shine light directly on the object in the real world. Look at 1:50 for demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5fl7r-E9WY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5fl7r-E9WY (it looks like this system can actually "flash" at the object in real life, it can be seen a bit further in that video)
- falcolas 8y ago
  Or when you're parked facing a restaurant with glass windows. Or when it's snowing and all that directed laser light is being reflected right back at you (not mentioning reflectors which are already absurdly bright with LED and halogen bulbs). Or when you hit a bump in the road and the redirection of light doesn't occur fast enough. Or when the vibration of fifty-thousand miles impairs the aiming mirrors. Can you imagine the pathological case of a partially broken DLP chip? There's too many corner cases and (literally) moving pieces for this to really be practical.
  - imeron 8y ago
    You can already have this in a BMW. The new 3 series and I think the i8 has the option for laser headlights.
  - pluma 8y ago
    As someone who doesn't trust his car's automatic high-beam, 100% this. Are the lasers bright enough to be a health risk? You wouldn't attach a high power laser pointer to a moving vehicle either.
    - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
      AFAICT these things don't actually emit laser light, they use a high power laser to stimulate some sort of phosphorus-like material that then emits incoherent white light. The point is then that this secondary light source is very small (compared e.g. to LED with similar lumens), so the light can be much more easily focused by optics.
RankingMember 8y ago
The thing is, when this tech hits, the aftermarket will eventually offer it too, and as anyone who's been around a vehicle with an aftermarket HID setup with no cutoff/a poor pattern/a poor install, the results can be blinding.
gwern 8y ago
I don't really understand what he means. Just point it down at an angle? Or will it be motorized? How is it supposed to know where to point, some sort of fancy machine learning?
cimmanom 8y ago
That’s still no help to pedestrians.

RankingMember 8y ago

If you're in the US, the situation of being blinded by low-beam headlights (I agree, it's a real problem) should hopefully be on its way to being addressed: https://www.autonews.com/article/20181029/OEM03/181029812/nhtsa-s-proposed-rule-change-should-help-tame-headlights https://www.autonews.com/article/20181029/OEM03/181029812/nh...

FidelCashflow 8y ago
I'm in a rural area with literally zero street illumination. I cannot begin to describe my frustration with the blue tint, ultra bright lights, and off-road LED light bars. Install those on every other lifted truck (redneck's a plenty) and night time driving is hazardous. I don't care who installed the lights, whether it was the factory, the current or previous driver/owner. If I can't see because of your lights, they're too damn bright.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Lights should block out your night time vision no matter what, that is unavoidable. It is only a matter of how much goes. When driving in rural areas, I sometimes flip off the lights to see much more in my periphery than I could with the lights on. This is dangerous of course, as the lights are meant more to be seen than to see.
  - kbutler 8y ago
    > the lights are meant more to be seen than to see. That's definitely false for headlights, fog lights, and for the extra light bars (well, maybe those are often installed as stylistic choices rather than utility). Tail lights, running lights, turn signals are all more to be seen than to help the driver see.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Try it, it actually works, especially when there is a full moon.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

martin_a 8y ago

I know people who have had their headlights "tuned" to have them raised higher. Purpose was to "blind"/"warn" traffic on the German Autobahn when they wanted to clear the lane for themselves and the car to look more aggressive. Works as easy as removing the battery, pushing the back of the car down, therefore lifting the headlights up. Reconnect the battery and that lifted state will be memorized as 0-level by the headlights. Now remove the weight from the back, the car will come back into it's normal position but the lights think they are too low, so they will level themselves higher and therefore blind oncoming traffic...

raducu 8y ago
Where I live, if you blind me with your long distance headlights, I will blind you with my long distance headlights, isn't that universal?
- kevinherron 8y ago
  In the situation he's describing one driver is behind the other. Unless you have headlights that point backwards you won't be able to return the favor.
  - lightedman 8y ago
    I keep a 100w LED cannon pointing out my rear window for EXACTLY that reason. Come up on me with your brights on? I've got something bright for you.
  - raducu 8y ago
    Sure I can, I can turn on the high beam just as they overtake me, not always in bad faith, but maybe they just forgot theirs accidentally and need a reminder; just as I will flash and then completely turn off my headlights when I see a car running without headlights at night in the city, sometimes people just forget. I once turned off my headlights in a hill traffic jam while completely stopped as I was blinding the guy in front of me on my lowest setting and to my surprise everyone did the same in a domino-fashion. Tit for tat is pretty good.