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I feel the same way in America, I think there should be stricter regulations on how bright a car's headlights are allowed to be for it to be street legal. Would
by Taek 11mo ago
I feel the same way in America, I think there should be stricter regulations on how bright a car's headlights are allowed to be for it to be street legal. Wouldn't mind having a cap on blue-light levels in addition.
- jghn 11mo agoThere are regulations. The problem is they're easy to game. [1][2] [1] https://www.theringer.com/2024/12/03/tech/headlight-brightness-cars-accidents https://www.theringer.com/2024/12/03/tech/headlight-brightne... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443406
- nikanj 11mo agoUsually in USA regulations apply to cars, but everyone drives a light truck that's exempt from regulations ranging from emission to pedestrian safety
- rootusrootus 11mo agoThis is false. Light trucks are definitely regulated. Emissions regs do soften a bit for 3/4 ton and up trucks (think F250 and up), but the ubiquitous F150 as well as other half-tons, as well as mid-size trucks, are all very much regulated.
- jonasdegendt 11mo agoIt's much worse in America, in my experience. Much more deviation in cars/sedans/trucks on the road, with different road heights each, and MUCH more custom stuff on top. I'm in Belgium and headlights don't generally bother me too much, but a month in California recently had me going "no wonder everyone has tints here."
- englishrookie 11mo agoI'm in the Netherlands and I DO find it bad. Probably also has to do with my age (early fifties) - your eyes adjust with more difficulty the older you get, it seems.
- johnwalkr 11mo agoI live close to you and I agree it's bad. But trust me, it's way worse in North America (where I also drive annually or so).
- phito 11mo agoI do find it bad in Belgium, mostly on big cars like SUVs. Another reason for me to dislike them. Unfortunately they are getting more and more common.
- JonKF 11mo agoIn the UK it's exacerbated by our narrow roads, constant drizzle, disrepair of our streets and highways and by the fact that it gets dark by 4PM.
- Lalabadie 11mo agoThe rising height of headlights in North America is compounding the issue as well. At this point a good proportion of vehicles have headlights even or higher than the roof on a sedan.
- JohnFen 11mo agoAt least in my state, there is a law that restricts the location of headlights to between 22 and 54 inches from the ground. 54 inches is quite tall, though, I think that a lot of cars have roofs that are shorter than 4.5 feet. I'd love to see a much lower upper limit. I don't think there's a limit to how bright they can be. The law limits the lights to "70 watts", which I believe is intended to limit brightness but misses the mark. I bet the law was passed back when headlights were incandescent.
- hnuser123456 11mo agoLEDs are around 10x more efficient than incandescent bulbs. A 100W incandescent equivalent LED bulb typically consumes 10-12W. A 70W LED would put out as much light as 700W of incandescent.
- kayodelycaon 11mo agoGiven idea just how much more light this is: The designed lighting for a room in my house is 2 x 60-watt incandescent bulbs. The equivalent wattage in 3 x 40-watt led bulbs is equal to 2 or 3 fluorescent light fixtures in an office building.
- kevin_thibedeau 11mo agoTraditional automotive headlamps are halogens and much more efficient than conventional incandescents. It was only in the last decade that LEDs beat halogens on lumens per watt.
- kubanczyk 11mo agoI'd go as far as to say that the height is the issue, and it's becoming global (although, yes, US is the leader). It's ridiculous that an average SUV has headlights higher than an average semi (my own experience) given the latter's breaking distance is much greater.
- alistairSH 11mo agoThere are a two things contributing to "headlights too bright" in the US... First, SUVs are really tall... If you're in a sedan (or worse, a Miata) and get close enough to an oncoming SUV, even well-aimed, legal lights are going to feel bright because they're pointed down at you. Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed correctly.
- toast0 11mo agoI've seen lifted Miatas...
- pyr0hu 11mo ago> Second, there's a decent sized market for cheap, unapproved HID/LED kits for older cars. They're often not aimed correctly. This, so much this. I'm having no issue with new cars and their LEDs. The aftermarket kits that are installed on 1994 Swifts and Passat B5s are not at all configured properly. They just throw it on the car and "yay i can see more" and sometimes I even think that they are using their high beams. But no, it's just their incorrectly set up lights.
- MSFT_Edging 11mo ago> I'm having no issue with new cars and their LEDs funny, its the opposite for me. brand new SUVs are by far the worst offenders,
- knome 11mo agoIt would be fantastic if it were possible to dictate a headlight height for standard lights. just because your SUV is twelve feet off the ground doesn't mean the lights need to be positioned there.
- fusslo 11mo agoMy 2024 outback has no 'high beams'. My low beams are the same brightness as high beams. The only difference is the field of view. I switch on the high beams on and height of the beam increases, but intensity stays the same. I feel awful about essentially high-beaming everyone unless the road is flat.
- bayindirh 11mo agoThe maximum brightness is already regulated in US and Europe. US allows a lower brightness level. Some car manufacturer (Ford?) recalled their cars to fix their cars' headlight settings to match US regulations in the last 6-8 months IIRC. Also, light temperature has limits. I believe >4000K lights are already road illegal in UK and EU. They are also recently outlawed in my country, but there are many cars with after market 5000K+ bulbs installed. They also don't conform to the geometry of the bulbs these headlights designed to accommodate. They are painful to look at. What needs to be done is a) Stricter regulation in retrofitting older headlights with newer bulbs b) Regulating the amount of light hitting the oncoming driver somehow. c) Stricter CRI and light temperature regulations for the LED headlights. I don't want to be blinded from light coming from behind and front constantly at night, too.
- mapt 11mo agoDo 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.
- bayindirh 11mo agoI 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.
- mapt 11mo agoLooking further - From a previous post on the subject https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42449068 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.’”
- OGWhales 11mo agoWe also need to be far more strict about enforcing properly alignment, so many are pointed too high especially on larger vehicles and pretty much always on anything that's been lifted
- chrisBob 11mo agoThe US has clear regulations on headlights that limit the number of Watts. That worked when everyone had halogen bulbs, but doesn't fit with LEDs.