LEDs legally have to be self-adjustable at least in EU. Your mandatory inspection will usually catch it if that system doesn’t work.
The bigger problem is people throwing LEDs in halogen housings. It’s not the LED’s fault. The other big problem in the US at least I reckon, is having vehicles that are way too tall, so their headlights, while hopefully dipped properly, are above a normal driver’s eye level.
Well, your first point is great except we don’t have yearly inspections on vehicles in North America or anything. Inspections happen when cars are registered, then never again until ownership changes hands and it needs to be registered by a new owner.
Add that to the fact that inspections are done by mechanics, and they don’t generally give a shit about it, and it’s a recipe for failure. Last time I got a used car inspected, the mechanic looked at the car through the window and said “is that it?” I replied “yeah”, and he went through the list and checked all the normal stuff without glancing at the car again. So most inspections here are void from the get go.
The second point is valid and a design problem which I covered previously.
Well if you like your mechanic then keep quiet about it, because what you just described is a felony, which carries a fine and loss of inspector’s license. And vehicle inspections are dependent on the state and county in question. Most US states require vehicle inspections. Some don’t.
Well, your first point is great except we don’t have yearly inspections on vehicles in North America or anything.
I can say that, at least in Texas, we require annual inspections as a condition of yearly vehicle registration. We just don’t test for the impact of headlights on incoming traffic, because… TxDOT (and the Texas legislature/governor by extension) doesn’t consider it worth regulating.
Add that to the fact that inspections are done by mechanics, and they don’t generally give a shit about it
Mechanics test what is on the regulatory code. Add headlight brightness to the list and they’ll test for that, too. This isn’t an unsolvable problem by any stretch.
It’s not uncommon to see massive trucks with insanely bright LED lights (a certain personality type), which puts the lights just about windshield level on a sedan.
What’s extra fun is now the lights also blind drivers going the same direction as the truck, as every mirror in the sedan is filled with light.
Not really, I have factory LED headlights on my 2023 Toyota Yaris and those are manually adjusted the same way halogen headlights used to be. Mind you I don’t have the LED matrix technology.
When it comes to people throwing LEDs in halogen housing, it doesn’t have to be bad. I used to use a pair of OSRAM LEDs instead of halogens in my Citroen Berlingo 2006, but those were homologated for road use with the same lumen rating as homologated halogens. They were not cheap, but the light pattern was the same as with halogens and they blinded oncoming traffic a lot less than halogens (I tested that with my friends and colleagues).
Of course using cheap illegal LEDs in halogen housing is a bad idea, but you can’t throw illegal solutions in one bag with legal and sensible solutions.
Interesting. I couldn’t legally drive a car with high output headlights without it having both automatic adjustment and headlamp washers. It’s simply mandatory
Maybe you mean that it’s manually adjustable in addition to having auto-leveling? I think that’s the case for nearly all cars. Or maybe your car manages to stay below some sort of light output limit despite having LEDs.
What you’re talking about aren’t LED headlamps, these regulations (auto-leveling and washers) are mandatory for xenon headlights.
LEDs don’t fall in the same category as xenon headlamps.
What is interesting is that halogens have maximum allowed lumen rating which is a lot lower than what xenon headlamps can have and LEDs can have even more.
LEDs legally have to be self-adjustable at least in EU. Your mandatory inspection will usually catch it if that system doesn’t work.
The bigger problem is people throwing LEDs in halogen housings. It’s not the LED’s fault. The other big problem in the US at least I reckon, is having vehicles that are way too tall, so their headlights, while hopefully dipped properly, are above a normal driver’s eye level.
Well, your first point is great except we don’t have yearly inspections on vehicles in North America or anything. Inspections happen when cars are registered, then never again until ownership changes hands and it needs to be registered by a new owner.
Add that to the fact that inspections are done by mechanics, and they don’t generally give a shit about it, and it’s a recipe for failure. Last time I got a used car inspected, the mechanic looked at the car through the window and said “is that it?” I replied “yeah”, and he went through the list and checked all the normal stuff without glancing at the car again. So most inspections here are void from the get go.
The second point is valid and a design problem which I covered previously.
Well if you like your mechanic then keep quiet about it, because what you just described is a felony, which carries a fine and loss of inspector’s license. And vehicle inspections are dependent on the state and county in question. Most US states require vehicle inspections. Some don’t.
I can say that, at least in Texas, we require annual inspections as a condition of yearly vehicle registration. We just don’t test for the impact of headlights on incoming traffic, because… TxDOT (and the Texas legislature/governor by extension) doesn’t consider it worth regulating.
Mechanics test what is on the regulatory code. Add headlight brightness to the list and they’ll test for that, too. This isn’t an unsolvable problem by any stretch.
I live in Europe and it’s literally new stock cars that blind me.
It’s not uncommon to see massive trucks with insanely bright LED lights (a certain personality type), which puts the lights just about windshield level on a sedan.
What’s extra fun is now the lights also blind drivers going the same direction as the truck, as every mirror in the sedan is filled with light.
Not really, I have factory LED headlights on my 2023 Toyota Yaris and those are manually adjusted the same way halogen headlights used to be. Mind you I don’t have the LED matrix technology.
When it comes to people throwing LEDs in halogen housing, it doesn’t have to be bad. I used to use a pair of OSRAM LEDs instead of halogens in my Citroen Berlingo 2006, but those were homologated for road use with the same lumen rating as homologated halogens. They were not cheap, but the light pattern was the same as with halogens and they blinded oncoming traffic a lot less than halogens (I tested that with my friends and colleagues). Of course using cheap illegal LEDs in halogen housing is a bad idea, but you can’t throw illegal solutions in one bag with legal and sensible solutions.
P.S. I live in the EU
Interesting. I couldn’t legally drive a car with high output headlights without it having both automatic adjustment and headlamp washers. It’s simply mandatory
Maybe you mean that it’s manually adjustable in addition to having auto-leveling? I think that’s the case for nearly all cars. Or maybe your car manages to stay below some sort of light output limit despite having LEDs.
What you’re talking about aren’t LED headlamps, these regulations (auto-leveling and washers) are mandatory for xenon headlights. LEDs don’t fall in the same category as xenon headlamps. What is interesting is that halogens have maximum allowed lumen rating which is a lot lower than what xenon headlamps can have and LEDs can have even more.
So it’s based on the lumens and it’s hard to make HIDs that don’t exceed the limit, but easier with LEDs. I just assumed that your LEDs were bright.