4 ms·

I've seen a few off-road-capable vehicles lately with something that looks like the bumper-mounted light bar shown in the pictures here. I don't know if it's th

I've seen a few off-road-capable vehicles lately with something that looks like the bumper-mounted light bar shown in the pictures here. I don't know if it's this same product, but I can say with confidence that it is blindingly bright to oncoming drivers, unlike the claims made in this article. I sit very high in my vehicle and have been painfully dazzled by these every time I encounter them. But this strikes me as a very lazy piece anyway. There's no skepticism about the claims, or the reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards. It's basically a PR piece for this product. The opening line clued me in to how bad it was going to be, though: "Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter." Sure I do! But on the other hand, I also don't want to blind the cars I'm about to pass within six feet of that are coming towards me at an effective 140mph when I'm driving on a dark back country road after dark, which I do hundreds of miles of every week. That's why we have dimmable headlights in the first place.

rootusrootus 8y ago
Those light bars are usually producing a ridiculous amount of light, though. All else being equal, the way to reduce glare to oncoming drivers is to increase the area of the emitter. It's not really HIDs that have made glare a problem in modern cars, it's everybody switching to projectors. Even halogens are terrible for glare when used in a projector.
- saltcured 8y ago
  Why do you say that? Good projectors have very little glare because they actually focus a beam in the right direction. Of course they are bright if shining straight at you but that is not glare. That's just over illumination. Here in California, the worst glare comes from people who have put high intensity bulbs into non-projector housings, people with oxidized/hazy lenses on older cars, and people who misuse fog and other auxilliary lights. The common factor is the ominidirectional emissions which are far outside the regulated light pattern.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    What matters for oncoming traffic is the intensity of the light per area emitted. A projector emits all of the light from half of a 1.8 inch (typical) lens, versus a reflector light which may emit from an area 10x that. A well adjusted reflector and a well adjusted projector will both point predominantly down, but both deliberately put some light above the line, of course. And both will occasionally be pointed directly at oncoming traffic due to elevation changes of the road. The projector is much more intense and produces far more glare when you look at it. Doubly so with HID, of course. I've seen several newer Acuras and BMWs switch from single projector to multiple, which helps, though you'd really need quite a few more to lower the glare back to a what a big reflector light produces. I kinda wonder sometimes what it would be like if we were able to emit across the entire frontal area of the car -- it might be possible to emit significantly more than current HID setups while having less glare than ever.
    - saltcured 8y ago
      I guess we are bothered by different things. I don't mind that the projector lights are bright when they are actually shining straight at me, because that is usually brief and predictable so I can avert my gaze momentarily. It's the off-axis glare that continues to bother me when the car is not pointing directly at me. In my opinion, many new cars are very comfortable with sharp cutoffs on their lights and almost no off-axis glare. They may be blinding if you're about to be run over, but from the next lane over or at normal windshield height, they are quite tame. But others are terrible and most seem to fall into the categories I mentioned above: obvious aftermarket disasters with bright bulbs mismatched to the optics, older cars with hazy lenses, and people using fog lights (or high beams) in totally inappropriate conditions, throwing light everywhere with poor cutoffs. I'm actually starting to wonder how much of the problem is an aging population trying to compensate for their failing eyesight by blinding us with high beams and fog lights.
- potta_coffee 8y ago
  The problem is that everyone installs aftermarket headlights without bothering to adjust where they're pointed, so the lights are pointed directly in your face instead of down at the road.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    Yeah, the vast majority of people don't do actual retrofits, they just get some cheapo ballasts and HID bulbs and shove them in the existing projectors/reflectors. Since the HID arc is oriented and shaped completely differently from the halogen filament, it usually results in some terrible hotspots above the cutoff. And the quality of the light is frequently worse than just leaving the stock bulbs in. Even some of the dedicated retrofit enthusiasts go a little too far IMO. The pursuit of the almighty sharp cutoff line results in an on/off style of lighting. Go down a dip in the road with zero light above the cutoff and suddenly your line of sight is 20 feet.
BoorishBears 8y ago
If you read the whole article I'm very surprised you think these are the same run of the mill LED lightbars every off-roader and their mother has had for a while now.
specialp 8y ago
You are thinking about the Ebay Chinese LED light bars that people put on their "off-road" vehicles. The problem isn't with the brightness it is with how they are aimed. If you turn on stock HID headlights and point them at a wall you will notice the bright bit is a region of the wall from the ground to about a meter up. Then there is not very bright light diffusely showing higher that is used to illuminate road signs. High beam lights and aftermarket lights are not aimed like this and thus shine into your passenger compartment. Properly aimed lights never point in. An issue in the USA is that unlike Europe we have no requirement to autolevel lights even when cresting a hill. So you notice that when someone comes up over a hill you get flashed with light. That might be an issue with these.
- brlewis 8y ago
  >High beam lights and aftermarket lights are not aimed like this and thus shine into your passenger compartment. Properly aimed lights never point in. By that definition, properly aimed lights haven't been invented yet. I have headlights like that, where you see brightness end at a horizontal line. Going over the crest of a hill angles the beams in a way that goes into cars. Actually my family has two cars. I get a lot more people blinking their brights at me in the one with that kind of headlight, presumably because they think my brights are on when they aren't. The article describes automated systems to turn the laser version away from detected cars ahead, so it will just blind cyclists and pedestrians.
  - specialp 8y ago
    The cresting over a hill issue is mitigated/solved by this: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/adaptive-headlight1.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/adaptive-headlight1.htm As I said in the parent post it is already required on all new cars in Europe as of now.
rconti 8y ago
You're talking about an extremely bright flood beam with zero attempt whatsoever to avoid blinding oncoming drivers, which is the exact opposite of what's being described here. The US regulations are bloody terrible. If you want to see cool high-tech lighting, go to Europe. Do youtube searches for "Audi Matrix headlights", Mercedes Multibeam, etc.
u801e 8y ago
> reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards. I'm not sure why the US maintains a separate vehicle lighting standard versus most of the rest of the world. Their standard allows for more glare from low beams, less usable light on the road, and a less focused hotspot for high beams. For example, when driving overseas in Dubai in a rented Toyota Yaris, I didn't even need to use the prismatic rear-view mirror's night setting when driving at night because of the far better UNECE glare control standard. In the US, I drive a Honda Odyssey and sit a bit higher up compared to the Yaris and I frequently have problems with glare from traffic ahead and behind me and always have to use the night-setting on the rear-view mirror.

rootusrootus 8y ago

Those light bars are usually producing a ridiculous amount of light, though. All else being equal, the way to reduce glare to oncoming drivers is to increase the area of the emitter. It's not really HIDs that have made glare a problem in modern cars, it's everybody switching to projectors. Even halogens are terrible for glare when used in a projector.

saltcured 8y ago
Why do you say that? Good projectors have very little glare because they actually focus a beam in the right direction. Of course they are bright if shining straight at you but that is not glare. That's just over illumination. Here in California, the worst glare comes from people who have put high intensity bulbs into non-projector housings, people with oxidized/hazy lenses on older cars, and people who misuse fog and other auxilliary lights. The common factor is the ominidirectional emissions which are far outside the regulated light pattern.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  What matters for oncoming traffic is the intensity of the light per area emitted. A projector emits all of the light from half of a 1.8 inch (typical) lens, versus a reflector light which may emit from an area 10x that. A well adjusted reflector and a well adjusted projector will both point predominantly down, but both deliberately put some light above the line, of course. And both will occasionally be pointed directly at oncoming traffic due to elevation changes of the road. The projector is much more intense and produces far more glare when you look at it. Doubly so with HID, of course. I've seen several newer Acuras and BMWs switch from single projector to multiple, which helps, though you'd really need quite a few more to lower the glare back to a what a big reflector light produces. I kinda wonder sometimes what it would be like if we were able to emit across the entire frontal area of the car -- it might be possible to emit significantly more than current HID setups while having less glare than ever.
  - saltcured 8y ago
    I guess we are bothered by different things. I don't mind that the projector lights are bright when they are actually shining straight at me, because that is usually brief and predictable so I can avert my gaze momentarily. It's the off-axis glare that continues to bother me when the car is not pointing directly at me. In my opinion, many new cars are very comfortable with sharp cutoffs on their lights and almost no off-axis glare. They may be blinding if you're about to be run over, but from the next lane over or at normal windshield height, they are quite tame. But others are terrible and most seem to fall into the categories I mentioned above: obvious aftermarket disasters with bright bulbs mismatched to the optics, older cars with hazy lenses, and people using fog lights (or high beams) in totally inappropriate conditions, throwing light everywhere with poor cutoffs. I'm actually starting to wonder how much of the problem is an aging population trying to compensate for their failing eyesight by blinding us with high beams and fog lights.
potta_coffee 8y ago
The problem is that everyone installs aftermarket headlights without bothering to adjust where they're pointed, so the lights are pointed directly in your face instead of down at the road.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Yeah, the vast majority of people don't do actual retrofits, they just get some cheapo ballasts and HID bulbs and shove them in the existing projectors/reflectors. Since the HID arc is oriented and shaped completely differently from the halogen filament, it usually results in some terrible hotspots above the cutoff. And the quality of the light is frequently worse than just leaving the stock bulbs in. Even some of the dedicated retrofit enthusiasts go a little too far IMO. The pursuit of the almighty sharp cutoff line results in an on/off style of lighting. Go down a dip in the road with zero light above the cutoff and suddenly your line of sight is 20 feet.

BoorishBears 8y ago

If you read the whole article I'm very surprised you think these are the same run of the mill LED lightbars every off-roader and their mother has had for a while now.

specialp 8y ago

You are thinking about the Ebay Chinese LED light bars that people put on their "off-road" vehicles. The problem isn't with the brightness it is with how they are aimed. If you turn on stock HID headlights and point them at a wall you will notice the bright bit is a region of the wall from the ground to about a meter up. Then there is not very bright light diffusely showing higher that is used to illuminate road signs. High beam lights and aftermarket lights are not aimed like this and thus shine into your passenger compartment. Properly aimed lights never point in. An issue in the USA is that unlike Europe we have no requirement to autolevel lights even when cresting a hill. So you notice that when someone comes up over a hill you get flashed with light. That might be an issue with these.

brlewis 8y ago
>High beam lights and aftermarket lights are not aimed like this and thus shine into your passenger compartment. Properly aimed lights never point in. By that definition, properly aimed lights haven't been invented yet. I have headlights like that, where you see brightness end at a horizontal line. Going over the crest of a hill angles the beams in a way that goes into cars. Actually my family has two cars. I get a lot more people blinking their brights at me in the one with that kind of headlight, presumably because they think my brights are on when they aren't. The article describes automated systems to turn the laser version away from detected cars ahead, so it will just blind cyclists and pedestrians.
- specialp 8y ago
  The cresting over a hill issue is mitigated/solved by this: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/adaptive-headlight1.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/adaptive-headlight1.htm As I said in the parent post it is already required on all new cars in Europe as of now.

rconti 8y ago

You're talking about an extremely bright flood beam with zero attempt whatsoever to avoid blinding oncoming drivers, which is the exact opposite of what's being described here. The US regulations are bloody terrible. If you want to see cool high-tech lighting, go to Europe. Do youtube searches for "Audi Matrix headlights", Mercedes Multibeam, etc.

u801e 8y ago

> reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards. I'm not sure why the US maintains a separate vehicle lighting standard versus most of the rest of the world. Their standard allows for more glare from low beams, less usable light on the road, and a less focused hotspot for high beams. For example, when driving overseas in Dubai in a rented Toyota Yaris, I didn't even need to use the prismatic rear-view mirror's night setting when driving at night because of the far better UNECE glare control standard. In the US, I drive a Honda Odyssey and sit a bit higher up compared to the Yaris and I frequently have problems with glare from traffic ahead and behind me and always have to use the night-setting on the rear-view mirror.