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> Since then, the number of severe crashes has climbed. It is hard to say exactly why. The article mentions some of the reasons but the one I find personally a
by pkoird 3y ago
> Since then, the number of severe crashes has climbed. It is hard to say exactly why.
The article mentions some of the reasons but the one I find personally annoying the most are white LED headlights. What in the absolute seven hells is wrong with every manufacturers these days? White light may give you extra vision but it blinds everyone else. Eventually, everyone starts using it and then no one will be able to see properly at night anymore. Truly, a tragedy of the commons. A swift intervention at the Federal level seems like a must.
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoI see quite a few searing LED headlights that don't blind me because they're angled low enough, I think the biggest problem (so to speak) is when they're on towering pickups and SUVs. I suspect there's no good way to angle the beams on those to allow their drivers to see the road without also frying the retinas of normal-sized vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians. There also seem to be quite a few iffy aftermarket LEDs, which apparently don't always allow for much fine-tuning when they replace halogens.
- selimthegrim 3y agoThere was a big NYTimes article about this a few weeks ago, and somebody in the comments complain that the bright white LED headlights were ruining the proximity sensors on their Volvo and they couldn’t install optical filters without voiding the warranty. To me this seemed weird cause I thought those things worked on IR. I’m wondering if there’s some sort of CV solution to this? I don’t see how narrow color temperature of LEDs would affect IR sensors, etc.
- yial 3y agoLeds can output 275nm-950nm. IR is between 780nm-1mm. These aren’t exact numbers. Probably something in that overlap was damaging them somehow. Or it might be something totally different and the person had misdiagnosed. What I’m uncertain of, is if the led is intended to produce a certain color (white, blue) how much it would be emitting on the IT spectrum. Example: https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/semiconductor/knowledge/e-learning/discrete/chap5/chap5-3.html https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/semiconductor/knowled...
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoLEDs are often straight swapped into housings designed for halogen bulbs. Doesn't matter if it's a tiny sports car or a huge F350 truck, replacing bulbs this way to going to throw light where it shouldn't be. For vehicles with headlights higher up from the road, they're more likely to end up shining in the eyes of other drivers, but it's still a problem of wrong bulb, wrong housing. Larger vehicles can have LEDs that have a beam pattern that casts light the appropriate area but this usually means a whole new headlight assembly instead of a bulb swap and even then, many of the aftermarket products aren't designed with property beam patterns in mind. While there are guides available on adjusting headlights, they can only help so much when there's a bad combination of LED bulb, halogen housing, and high headlight height. Merely angling the housing downwards won't solve the problem of improper equipment combinations. Wish places like AutoZone offered free or inexpensive a beam pattern analysis service like they do with checking batteries and error codes. Lots of people don't even know their bulb swap is causing problems for others.
- Grazester 3y agoThis is especially an issue with non projector housings.
- reisse 3y agoWait, are you saying aftermarket LEDs are road legal in US, no strings attached? Throughout Europe it's either straight prohibited to retrofit LEDs in place of halogen bulbs, or it requires special certification where beam patterns are checked.
- wizardforhire 3y agoFor things to be illegal the laws have to be enforced… Sadly this is not the case with headlights and most of things in the US… unless youre a minority, then you cant even walk down the street without being worried.
- tpmoney 3y agoTo the best of my knowledge there are no DOT legal LED bulb retrofits. There are some entire housing units but not swapping just the bulb. Whether or not your local law enforcement / inspection scheme checks for this or not is another matter
- queuebert 3y agoAnd most people who lift their trucks don't angle the headlights to downward compensate.
- lebean 3y agoHowever, the lift is done to compensate for something else.
- treflop 3y agoIt’s because headlamp housings are really expensive at like $500-$2,000 for mostly plastic. So someone just trying to make it easier to see at night cheaps out and spends a fraction for a LED bulb replacement for a few hundies, tops. You can buy brighter halogens but they burn out much faster. I personally suggest everyone save up for the housing and do it proper if you’re gonna do anything. At least try replacing your current halogens first because they do dim over time. Plus halogens melt snow with all that waste heat :)
- charles_f 3y ago> when they're on towering pickups and SUVs. I suspect there's no good way to angle the beams on those to allow their drivers to see the road This is one of the main reason why I hate trucks. Their "I will walk on your face" makes their high mounted lights right at the level of my normal-sized car's rear view mirrors. When approached from the rear, this is blinding enough that I can't tell the difference between a truck and someone with full beams on. Same goes when crossing them. If it's raining or foggy, those new white lights are outright dangerous. I'm wondering if they could simply mount them lower so that it's at a normal size car.
- shiroiuma 3y ago>I'm wondering if they could simply mount them lower so that it's at a normal size car. They certainly could, but they're not going to because that's not the look that truck buyers want. They want to look and be intimidating.
- starttoaster 3y agoProbably makes things worse but I've taken to shining my high beams back at those blinding white LED headlights. I need something to act as a photonic barrier just so I don't drive myself off the road some nights; there aren't too many street lights in my area so my eyes will be conditioned for relative darkness and then all of the sudden somebody comes barreling around a curve with their 6000 lumen tactical blinder headlights. My headlights are just old halogens so I barely stand a chance. I doubt my high beams even pierce through their LED headlights, to be honest. Those things need a dimmer switch.
- anon373839 3y agoPassing other cars with headlights has always been uncomfortable if you look at them. Trucks especially, if you’re in a car. The trick is to briefly direct your gaze toward the right edge of your lane rather than the center, while you pass. You won’t be blinded that way.
- bandyaboot 3y ago> I need something to act as a photonic barrier just so I don't drive myself off the road some nights > I doubt my high beams even pierce through their LED headlights, to be honest. I don’t think this is how light works.
- starttoaster 3y agoPretty sure it is, but maybe you can tell me how I'm wrong. It's by these very principles that people into tactical guns would choose a tactical flashlight for their weapon. The higher the lumens, and more focused the beam, the less likely an assailant's tactical light will shine through yours. It's maybe not using some physics verbiage correctly, but it is basically how light works in practice. I'm confident that I'm at least correct enough to get actual concepts across in a layman's dialect, so perhaps you can correct anything I said that was accidentally misleading.
- charles_f 3y agoThis is an experiment simple enough that you can do at your place to observe that this is wrong.
- ironmagma 3y agoIt's baffling even the police don't care enough to enforce this.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoThey need equipment that makes objective measurements. Noise tickets and tint tickets are rarely issued anymore due to the social context of those most likely to attract such tickets. Police must use noise meters deployed at a standard distance from the source to issue tickets. That a vehicle's exhaust or radio is annoying isn't enough in the current environment. Same for tint, where a piece of equipment is required to determine a vehicle's light passthrough on its tinted windows. All of this equipment exists and most police have access to it but few want to bother with the hassle and the current social context even with objective measures. Headlights are just another one of these issues where being proactive creates too many troubles. They let the insurance companies fight it out in court over if an accident was caused by improper equipment.
- ironmagma 3y agoThe last part of your argument makes no sense. Even from a cynical view, it makes no sense for the police to condone something that inhibits their own operations by blinding them with light.
- jkestner 3y agoYou can’t measure brightness objectively? You are right, though, about “social context”. If glaring headlights becomes a black-coded thing, the problem will get solved.
- tmnvix 3y agoI mentioned this in another thread, but why can't we regulate headlight height? Why do SUVs and pickups trucks have to have headlights that are higher than buses and real trucks?
- MVissers 3y agoYou could- That’s the case in Europe. But ‘Murica = Freedom so no interest to regulate.
- LanceH 3y agoHeadlights are regulated between 24 and 54 inches in Texas.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago54 inches is taller than the peak of the roof on a lot of small cars, to say nothing of the trunk lid.
- financypants 3y agoYeah, the brightness needs to be regulated. We’re all going to go night blind at this rate.
- queuebert 3y agoIs it legal to mount parabolic mirrors on the front of your car?
- wilg 3y agoThe good news is that its now legal for the US to have LED Matrix headlights. The new Model 3 has this (among others). You get the brightness of the headlights but it blocks only the area where oncoming cars can see it. Also, for what you said to make sense you have to do better than speculating that brighter headlights allowing people to see further is outweighed by them causing glare for oncoming drivers. It's entirely possible this is a good safety tradeoff.
- CaptainMarvel 3y agoWhat about oncoming cyclists? Pedestrians?
- wilg 3y agoLazy response. No reason that can't happen too. I don't know which systems support that. Research it and report back!
- twobitshifter 3y agopedestrians and bikes need to be seen so they need to have light shine on them
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agothat was my first thought too. It's a whole different ballgame having a pedestrian blinded vs having a driver blinded. I'm not saying it's good for a pedestrian, but we have to consider the inherent risk of that vs t hem not being seen at all because the light gives no opportunity to reflect off of them.
- CaptainMarvel 3y agoI’ve researched it and I’m reporting back. The answer is that the technology is advertised as not dazzling oncoming drivers only. Further, the little explanation of the technology I could find stated it worked by detecting headlights and taillights of cars. The remaining area will be lit with modern high-intensity beam. Thus, I conclude that the pedestrians and cyclists will be blinded.
- Scubabear68 3y agoWe live in a very rural area, and the most annoying thing is huge pickup trucks with giant light arrays over the cab or on the grill, especially the ones that just look like a wall of light. The blinding effect is tremendous, and it is doubly dangerous in our area because the deer population have exploded. I don’t know if these are legal or the cops just don’t care, either way people use them with impunity. I think the use case is supposed to be hunting and camping, but these assholes seem to no blinding everyone around them!
- lobsterthief 3y agoSounds like you need to install an even brighter one and turn yours on to remind them what it’s like
- dboreham 3y agoPhoton pressure sufficient to curtail their forward progress..
- undersuit 3y agoFuck it, show em what a Kubelblitz black hole can do to their chrome bumper.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- meyum33 3y agoI’ve always thought that we should have a reverse matrix LED headlight: it directs flashing high beam only to incoming cars with flood lights or high beam, while leaving those driving properly unaffected.
- rcyeh 3y agoWe can do this passively with corner cubes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_reflector https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_reflector
- HumblyTossed 3y agoWhat I hate most are the misaligned retro fits. But honestly I completely agree with you.
- SoftTalker 3y agoThe retrofits (probably completely unapproved chinese-made garbage purchased on Amazon) are awful, but the stock LED lighting on newer cars is too bright as well. Even if it's normally directed down, if you're approaching a car as it crests a hill you'll get a dazzling blinding flash. Older halogen headlights don't do this.
- kube-system 3y agoSome places also require that bright headlights are auto-leveling to mitigate this. But many headlights in the US are fixed, and don't move.
- loceng 3y agoMore car crashes, more broken lights - more sales for white head lights! Profit!
- lumost 3y agoIn the early-2010s I was driving a budget car from 1995 (a ford escort). When white LEDs became the norm, I’d often be in the situation of trying to drive into the shadow cast by my car from the headlights of the other car. I’m still shocked that regulations haven’t put lower limits on headlight brightness.
- mcculley 3y ago> Since then, the number of severe crashes has climbed. It is hard to say exactly why. I (unfortunately) have been doing a lot of driving on highways at night during the last four years. There is a noticeable trend in people watching video while driving. It is really obvious at night. This has expected outcomes.
- kurthr 3y agoExactly, even a Tesla doesn't drive worse than a driver on social media.
- juanani 3y ago[dead]
- Yhippa 3y agoI was sitting at a stoplight and looked over at the car next door and saw there was some video playing on the dashboard in front of the instrument cluster. I thought it was one of those completely digital dashboards that was doing some kind of animation, but the dude just propped his cell phone in front of it and was watching some kind of content. At least he was stopped. I've seen people watching Netflix on their phones on a mount or something while driving. Unbelievable.
- wheaties 3y agoThis is a regulatory issue. There are far better lighting used in EU and from the same auto manufacturers. They have pushed for these in the US but the regulations are slow.
- LanceH 3y agoRight now, emergency vehicles seem to be in some competition to get the most and brightest lights on them. It's near impossible to see while driving past them. And yes, you should be driving past them slowly, but with everyone slowing down at once, that presents its own problem of trying to avoid slow downs and merges while being blinded by the emergency vehicles. Or being blinded by them in a parking lot. Lately, I've noticed a few turning from flashing into solid light, which is somewhat better.
- drc500free 3y agoI worked in the industry recently, with most leading carriers on how they generate LTVs for potential customers from expected frequency, severity, and lifetime. During COVID shutdowns, there was a massive drop in frequency (obviously, hardly anyone was driving) but a significant uptick in severity. This was attributed to higher speeds with emptier roads. After re-opening, frequency is significantly higher per driver than before. So is severity. Everyone I talked to in the industry was convinced this was due to loss of skill during shutdown as well as people driving much more aggressively. This is on top of the serious increase in parts due to supply chain issues. I find it strange that this isn't discussed in the article when it's a pretty widely-held belief in the industry.
- wegfawefgawefg 3y agoI dont know. I only drive once every three months or so. and every once in a while Ill go on a huge roadtrip across the country. I have never noticed any loss in driving skill.
- lostlogin 3y agoAssuming you are talking about a loss in your own skills, isn’t this exactly what the OP is describing? If people perceived a change in their own abilities, the problem would likely not exist.
- darkerside 3y agoThis, and perhaps parent's driving skill has just been poor for a very long time now. No drop, just sitting at the bottom.
- Melting_Harps 3y ago> This, and perhaps parent's driving skill has just been poor for a very long time now. No drop, just sitting at the bottom. I'm not trying to be mean, but the adage in poker of spotting the fool at the table here applies. And as a person who rides bicycles, motorcycles as well as drives cars, and has driven in the EU with much stricter driving requirements I'd say there has been a massive drop in aptitude over all. So much so that I just want to live a life that allows me to be car-free now. EVs are nice, but having everything I want within walking distance is much more preferable.
- ipython 3y agoIMO at night the white LED lights aren't the problem; the people who insist on driving everywhere with their high beams on all the time are. Maybe it's just me but it seems that more people than ever are driving with their brights on - and those people are by and large driving vehicles with halogen lights.
- BobbyTables2 3y agoI’ve also noticed this consistently in recent years. Literally cannot drive 10 minutes without encountering a vehicle with high beams on (can tell by the location, not brightness alone). I’m talking about busy urban areas, not the boonies. This happens far more often than cars with no headlights (which used to be more common). At first I thought this was some sort of signal for drugs/etc. Of course that makes little sense… However, in reality it’s probably worse than that…
- sokoloff 3y agoI’ve noticed a fair number of these cases where you can tell one of their low beams is burned out. “I can’t see with my half a low beam, and rather than fixing it, I’ll just turn on my high beams. There, I fixed it.”
- globular-toast 3y agoWelcome to the generation of drivers that have never switched their headlights on or off ever. They'll drive in inclement weather with no lights because it's still bright enough to not trigger the dusk sensor. They'll sit on the side of their road with headlights shining fully for no reason. They basically don't know the lights are there. Why would they? Never used the road outside of a car. Never known any different.
- doctorwho42 3y agoI think some of those people just don't have their headlights adjusted properly. I have noticed that in the last 5 years more and more people just don't know that your headlights are supposed to be pointed downward and not straight ahead. This becomes more obvious when you look at bikes, the amount of bikes I have seen with their blinding LEDs pointed straight ahead 'because they want to be seen by cars" is insane. They don't understand that you don't need to be directly in the beam to see a light source. What I thought was common knowledge seems to have been disappeared
- lokar 3y agoI really doubt that is the issue. As always, the main factors are speed, weight (of the vehicle) and intoxication.
- tcmart14 3y agoI hate driving around at night because of that. Feels like everyone in town has them and I am just constantly driving blind because of them.
- AmVess 3y agoCar accidents are going up in part because some police departments simply do not have the budget to do traffic enforcement. I lived in a big city, and the police didn't have the manpower to fight crime and traffic enforcement. As a result, fatal car crashes were very common. LED lights aren't a problem if they are adjusted properly.
- sokoloff 3y agoOEM LED lights aren’t a problem. Retrofit LED headlamp bulbs are a problem regardless of adjustment, IME.
- RankingMember 3y agoAgreed, and also: vehicle size itself. As vehicles get bigger, people feel less safe sharing the road with them in their sub-compacts, so now they buy crossovers, which themselves grow with every generation. It becomes an arms race in which the environment and anyone not trying to get around not in a big metal box is the inevitable loser.
- polski-g 3y agoThe reason is that cops dramatically reduced the amount of traffic enforcement they engaged in ( https://twitter.com/hknightsf/status/1537100042623848448?t=7S8ep3lvPyWVTiMUoUD2VA&s=19 https://twitter.com/hknightsf/status/1537100042623848448?t=7... ). Turns out they don't want to risk a murder charge for $65k/year; I don't blame them, I wouldn't do it for $1m. Less traffic cops = more traffic crime. Both of the dramatic increases of car accidents from the past decade coincided with BLM events: Ferguson and Floyd. See figure 1 - https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813337 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
- sgammon 3y agoCorrelation is not causation… ? In what manner does BLM protests affect traffic on a mass scale
- polski-g 3y agoThe protests are a red herring. It's the cops not wanting to be charged with murder so they just make less traffic stops.
- sgammon 3y agoI don’t think they were afraid of being charged with murder in the first place. Qualified immunity for police is quite strongly backed.
- slimrec77 3y agoYea I don't know about BLM protests but cops have vanished from enforcing traffic laws where I am. I would say someone blows a red light at least 50% of the time at a red light. There might just not be enough cops now though demographically. That would be my guess. The same way there aren't enough nurses.
- 8organicbits 3y agoI think this can be addressed by using speed cameras instead of chase cars to enforce speed limits. Tint and lights can be covered by periodic vehicle inspection. These are fairly common elsewhere, but the US chooses cops that give chase.
- optymizer 3y agoTruly ridiculous. When one of these cars is behind me, I get a shadow _in front_ of my car, that's how bright their lights are (my headlights are clean).
- Geisterde 3y agoIts truly a tragedy that your eyes must be plagued by such a thing, a tragedy of the commons at that, its such an issue that I have never heard anyone complain about it before you. Of course, this isnt a problem in countries that dont have such asinine rules around headlights, where an actual modern headlight can identify cars/pedestrians and selectively not cast light directly at them. You are probably right though, forget about how these noble regulations have kept us in the automotive stone age, we have a big stick so lets use it! Its not like the government is going to get out there and fix the roads anyways, all they seem interested in is stealing money.
- everdrive 3y agoSome people have suggested fighting back against this with SOLAS tape. Does anyone know the legality of a measure like this?
- michaelcampbell 3y agoThe more light tends to the blue end of the spectrum, the more it scatters in atmosphere. There's a reason the old timey fog lights were yellow/orange. And yes, I feel the same as you do.
- xnx 3y agoAdd overly bright lights to the list of unenforced laws in the US along with speeding, excess noise (e.g. modified exhaust), and pollution (e.g. "rolling coal").
- datavirtue 3y agoThey are also signal driven and cause migraines/seizures.
- bick_nyers 3y agoHonestly it can be so bad I fantisize about putting a mirror in my rear windshield.
- ta1243 3y agoThis is a global thing, and it's started to receive more attention in the UK [0] One thing I find blinding is those "auto-dip/intelligent" full beams which people don't dip. They simply don't work as well, but people don't bother dipping. I accidentality forgot to dip the lights in my 2005 yellowish micra the other day past going past some traffic. In times past I'd be flashed, but I wasn't. So I carried on. Not a single flash over 12 miles. To me that suggests that normal car lights is about the same level as full beam lights from 20 years ago. [0] https://news.sky.com/story/headlight-glare-is-getting-worse-drivers-say-as-motoring-groups-call-for-government-action-13045326 https://news.sky.com/story/headlight-glare-is-getting-worse-... [1] https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/driving/2024-01/modern-car-headlights-slammed-for-dazzling-drivers/ https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/driving/2024-01/modern-car...
- mx_03 3y ago>Eventually, everyone starts using it and then no one will be able to see properly at night anymore That will be the only solution, truly. We should all install these annoying headlights so they get banned
- 3asdf123 3y agoI and people started noticing this like 7 years ago, glad that people start complaining it now. It's a combination of more aggressive lighting, bright LED, and taller vehicles. Looking directly in my mirror now feels like a hazard rather than helpful.
- JohnFen 3y ago> the one I find personally annoying the most are white LED headlights Those are the worst. Actually, I take that back. There was a trend a number of years ago of people putting in these super-bright headlamps that were usually tinted purple/blue. Those were the worst -- cars using them were basically telling oncoming traffic "I hate you and hope you die". But, at least in my state, they were made illegal. But those superbright LED headlamps come pretty close.
- ztetranz 3y agoEven with normal lights, many Americans don't seem to know or care about dipping headlights when appropriate. At least that's my observation as a kiwi been here for about 23 years. I get that some (many?) modern cars are supposed to do it automatically so maybe that's mine or my car's age talking but even 20 years ago I seldom saw anyone actively dip their lights when approaching on a mostly empty road.
- Sylamore 3y agoYeah, it's a problem but it's made worse by the fact that on a lot of cars there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between high or low beam in terms of brightness to oncoming traffic. I've seen cars dip their lights, but if you blinked you would have missed the difference. I used to be proactive about dipping my lights when I knew there was oncoming traffic but I learned that if I did that, the oncoming driver almost never dipped their high beams so now I make sure that they have a clear view of my lights before I dip them and it has significantly increased the reciprocation because I guess it signals to them that I did indeed dip my lights. OTOH, I get flashed by other drivers often when I don't have my high beams on and I don't have after market lights. Ironically, it seems to happen less when I drive the car with the brightest lights (Land Rover LR3 HSE) because it seems to shape the beam best to keep the light out of the opposing lane. It happens the most when I drive my 2005 Mustang which by far IMO has the poorest road illumination of any vehicle I have access to drive.