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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 st

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.

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.