- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The survey lasts until April 20. I’m glad transport Canada is looking into it.
Edit: thanks @[email protected] for pointing out that I got the date wrong.
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It’s bad and we should match European standards.
The US standards for cars are a cancer and perfectly encapsulate the American “I got mine fuck you” mindset.
European standards
As a European, headlights are way too bright. And modern dashboards too. If your car gave your eyes the chance to adapt to the darkness, we wouldn’t need bajillion lumen headlights.
Every car I’ve owned has had a little potentiometer or “roller” to dim internal and dashboard lights. I have no idea why it’s not common knowledge but I use it every time I have to travel in the dark and it allows me to see outside so much better
As someone who rents a lot of cars, it’s becoming harder and harder to locate
not good enough. Europe allows LED headlights with stupidly high outputs
The problem is the headlights are not regulated for total lumens, and all the light is highly concentrated. Second problem is brodozers illegally lifted causing the lights to be aimed at the wrong angle. OPP or local police don’t enforce the height law of 3", nor the law that says wheels cannot exceed the fender width.
Not just brodozers, I swear headlights are just never adjusted as part of PDI. My grandmothers highlander has them lighting everything from the road to the forest beside the highway to the people in front of the fucking thing to even the driver who looked at the reflective speed limit sign only to have that shit go straight back into their eyeballs.
My car’s headlights are simple halogen bulbs, not LEDs, and I have a manual adjustment dial which I keep quite low. I even adjusted it all myself so it’s good no matter where I put it. It’s just a BRZ so it wasn’t blinding anyone anyway but holy fuck, not that hard.
Biggest issue is the parabolas have a focal length, and while you can get adjustable LEDs to put focus in proper place, nobody bothers, so instead of the parabola projecting it parallel and straight forward/down its a scatter pattern
I’d also like to see enforcement of proper headlight aiming. While lights really are too bright, it’s crazy that no one aims them properly.
An educational program about proper aiming, along with a check stop style safety sweep would help mitigate a lot of the issues.
Then again, we could just do the smart thing and mandate auto-leveling headlights, but that would be too simple.
I drive a little hatchback. Aiming just means headlights on trucks point directly into my mirror. People insist on leaving zero space.
I’m unclear how aiming solves the issue of a car with ungodly bright headlights going over a speed bump and blinding me.
Self-leveling headlights account for bumps, that’s literally their purpose.
For the record, I did say that lights are too bright. I don’t disagree at all. But there are two distinct issues at play here, and both need to be addressed.
This is probably gonna sound really unfortunate, but…: wait, you can aim your headlights?!
I drive a little rusting out budget car, but even so, I will be looking into aiming my headlights.
A little wordy, perhaps a little too in depth, but a great article on proper aiming.
General rule of thumb:
Locate the headlight adjustment screw before starting, and see what tools you need to adjust it. A screwdriver is normally all that’s needed, but it depends on the vehicle.
Ensure the headlights are in low and not on bright/high.
Park on a flat level surface, with the headlights aimed at a wall approximately 25 feet away. Can pace it out, just needs to be close.
With a measuring tape, measure from the ground in front of the car to the center of the headlight assembly. Take that measurement, and subtract 2.5 inches. (Eg, 30 inches now becomes 27.5 inches.)
Head over to the wall, and measure from the ground to the center of the bright spot the headlights make on the wall.
The bright spot should be at 27.5 inches as per your measurement.
If not, open the hood and locate the headlight adjustment screw. Turn the screw, one direction will raise the light and the other will lower it. Turn the screw until the bright center of the light is at the correct height (27.5 inches in this example). Repeat for both lights.
This will get you close enough 99% of the time!
There will be a couple of adjustment screws but they can be in odd places or hard to get to. Check your service manual. Owners manual probably won’t mention it
My last couple older cars had them in the front of the engine bay, one car helpful and had them be bright orange
Education wont help the majority of culprits which are pickup drivers.
Nah, it’s everybody. There is almost always a white SUV 4ft off the back of a bumper in Canada. Tailgating and colour temperature are the biggest problems here. Probably followed by aftermarket bulbs and lifted vehicles not aiming their lights. And stock Hyundai’s for some reason.
Probably just my area. I’ve always got a pickup riding my ass, even on a country road where I’m going 20 over the speed limit. Their headlights are high enouhg to just be blinding
Yeah the country Rams are definitely a thing. Not sure why it’s almost always Rams.
German douchevagons have this problem.
I’d like to see that too, but it’s pretty much irrelevant if the lights simply aren’t blinding in the first place
In better countries, auto are inspected annually for issues like this. Canada doesn’t inspect autos once they are sold.
I did the survey. It took 5 - 10 minutes. The survey ends April 20th.
Yeah, I think OP misread the date. I hope they update the post so as to not scare people away.
Yeah, I got the date wrong. I’ve fixed the post.
There is also a petition going for the House of Commons.
It’s open till June. 8600 signatures so far.
Oops! Thanks for pointing out the date. I’ve fixed the text.
Only solution is maximum height of lights. Make these massive SUVs and trucks look stupid with the light dragging on a lower bumper.
uh, no. the only solution is instituting an appropriate maximum level of output
height only matters on flat smooth roads
I was referring to trucks and SUVs that are so tall they blind the cars in front of them even if they are pointed appropriately. Their headlights are at the eye level of other drivers in normal cars.
Output level is another matter that also needs attention
I mean by definition they are not pointed appropriately if they’re blinding other people in regular conditions
but I get what you’re saying
The law actually specifies a maximum wattage, which back before all the new technology like LEDs and Xenons actually did limit the brightness… But the laws haven’t been keeping up with technology for quite a while…
There is actually no law in Ontario, nor a federal law for headlight brightness, but even if there was, police would not enforce it.
Neither of these are, in fact, the only solution.
We could, for example, have heights that identify other cars in the road and selectively dim the area around those cars.
We could have headlights that keep light below a certain level accounting for both the attitude of the car and the oncoming terrain.
Really how it is achieved doesn’t matter, the regulation should just say that, within some cone in front of the vehicle, light levels must be limited to below x for the window areas around any other vehicles.
congrats on forgetting that non-drivers coexist with these vehicles
Congratulations on forgetting the justification people are using to restrict light brightness, which is that is blind other drivers dangerously.
I would consider motorbikes and bicycles to fall under that category, but I expected that people understood that I wasn’t going into the minutiae of a hypothetical regulation that I’m not responsible for writing. There are, of course, lots of edge cases that I didn’t include.If you’re making a case for pedestrians, or people indoors, I think that’s gonna need to some more serious justification.
I never understood why bigger cars can have their bulbs at a higher level.
Because fuck the world.
The lights are supposed to be aimed lower, but then dipshits lift the trucks for no good reason and don’t re-aim the lights.
Probably because most of them aren’t even under the same rules as cars: https://www.jalopnik.com/2111008/how-non-passenger-work-vehicle-became-family-car/
Trucks are also exempt from safety standards of cars, and ironically people buy those tanks because they think they are safer.
I actually think it’s mostly an aim issue, the height of these vehicles is also an issue but I think the headlight one could be solved by aim
I have seen supernovas less bright than some car headlights.
I drive a B2300 (old Ranger sized pickup) and headlight glare is fucking unbearable. Most modern SUVs and pickups have their lights above the bed of my truck and shine directly into my rear window, usually bright enough to drown out my dash lights. I can’t imagine that the experience is much better for car drivers who get those lights at eye level.
I have taken to dropping down to 1 under the speed limit when I get truck/suv tailgating me with insane lights because they are drivers most likely to get impatient and pass if you aren’t going at least 10 over.
Oh yeah, I drive a little Civic and those mfs are directly at eye level. In fact, sometimes when they tailgate my so close after slowing down the lights are actually comfortably over my car for a brief moment before you rip around me and the side mirror gives me a good retina jab.
A problem I find is that cars are increasingly visible with their brighter and brighter headlights, but that means pedestrians are much harder to see after you’ve been blinded.
The fact that another car is present but I would never say that it makes them more visible. I can’t see the road, can’t see the car producing all the light, can’t see pedestrians like you say, can’t see fuckin’ anything. Never have I had a set of oncoming headlights that drowns out literally all other things in my vision and thought “wow, things are safer now.”
Filled it out. I live in Vancouver which is rainy for a large part of the year. Driving in the dark in the rain with modern headlights glaring in my face makes it impossible to drive. That’s not a hyperbole either; I’ve literally had to pull over and let cars pass because I could no longer see the road or road markings.
Same! Its bad anytime but so much worse in the rain and we only get two seasons now, rain or fire.
I don’t drive at night anymore if at all possible!
The yellow headlights are so much better for people with astigmatism btw.
I drive my 21-year-old halogens in their filthy yellowed plastic lenses with pride.
Better for everyone. Some people mistake noticing the colour as hard to see but our pupils stay dilated with warm colours. Hence why red light is common with outdoorsy folks. All these new cool temp lights should have never been allowed. The older warm colours were fine even on big transport trucks.
started driving last year and oh my fucking god i cannot believe people regularly drive at night. i literally cant see anything when a truck or suv is approaching. its TERRIFYING.
It’s so heartwarming seeing a country where the government tries to fix everyday problems.
Right? Here in the us, it seems the best solution is to just stop driving at night (as though people have the option, with the sad state of affairs that is our mass transit system)… Because if I’m certain of anything, it’s that this blinding-light situation isn’t going to be fixed in my lifetime. Hell, I’ve seen these lights on during the day and still got temporarily blinded by them. 🫠
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But I need to see three provinces over for SAFETY, for the CHILDREN.
edit: also fucking bike lights, there is a local idiot who somehow has found a piece of quasar and has strapped it to his handlebars and even on a cloudless summer noon that fucking thing is ON and manages to pierce my retina. I think it’s a mental illness at this point. Both from companies that make these technological anal cancers, and the anencephalic weirdos who buy them.
Now do one about about red animated turn indicators and one about strobing lights on bikes. Fuck all that shit.
Nothing wrong about them being animated, the red is really frustrating we should have amber.
I disagree, depending on the animation. There was this BMW SUV (I’m not really sure which model) driving around here and their turn signal looked nearly indistinguishable from a sunlight reflection. It faded both IN and out, with a slow transition across, and I personally barely could tell it was on unless I was staring directly at it. It doesn’t catch your eye like a turn signal should.
I think animated signals are fine, but there should be some rules to it, like requiring it to flash on, but allowing fade outs or transitions.
I think I’ve seen what you’re talking about. Wouldn’t hurt to have some regulation on the animation. I really like the animation on the current Mazda3 and I think Audi’s been doing a good job with them for a while.
I don’t believe you, everyone knows BMWs don’t have turn signals.
