I fucking hate those things. I saw somewhere that it’s almost always an alignment issue, but I feel like with today’s technology it should be self-correcting if it’s going to otherwise blind people. We have phones that can photograph an ant’s asshole at 300 meters. they could fix this shit if they cared. They’ll only care if they lose billions in a class action lawsuit.
It’s super easy to adjust in most cars that don’t do it automatically. There is usually a slot near the lights and you use a philips or flat screw driver and turn the adjustment nut either up or down depending on need. Instructions are in the manual or you can look it up online for every vehicle I’ve owned.
There is an exact method but generally line the car up facing and super close to a wall, turn the lights on, the center of the beam should be about 2-3 inches below the height of your headlights. If you have space the beam should hit the ground 7.5m or about 25 ft from where your car is parked.
A common issue in my hick town is people lifting vehicles and never adjusting the light angle. Any time you put bigger tires on a car or lift the body you should adjust the lights.
The worst part is when the other headlights are so bright you have to make yours brighter to compensate. I have astigmatism and am literally blinded by these headlights while driving at night. I had to upgrade my own headlights to LED (still dimmer than these others) just so that I could still make out the road when they drive by. Because the way my eyes work the more my eyes adjust for darkness the more blinding a light is.
My cars are older with not LEDs and I just drive with my brights on all the time. Still dimmer than everyone else’s lights and helps my eyes
Yeah mine is 30 years old, but I got LED replacements for it online.
The technology for adaptive headlights absolutely has existed… in super high-end cars because that’s a complex optical control and microelectronics system. it requires advanced engineering, complex optical assemblies, and complicated control systems. Your Honda will never have that because most of us simply don’t want to pay. Cars are complicated enough. Do want more things that can break? Do you want your replacement headlights to cost $5,000? LED technology is so far superior to any other light source for headlights. That there are idiots all over the place with poorly maintained cars is not the LEDs fault.
I am enthused by the anti-led headlight comments in this thread
it’s nice to see people recognizing the danger for what it is and not just making false claims about how it’s only illegal headlights that are dangerous and stock LEDs are fine
I’m proud of all you people shitting on LED headlights. keep up the good work
Blinder-lovers tend to lean conservative (comes with the “Doesn’t hurt me = Not a problem”), and Lemmy is definitely not very.
You know, I’ve thought about getting one of those obnoxiously bright, completely unfocused LED lights bars.
And mounting it on the back.
You will be the one pulled over and ticketed, even if you aren’t actually using it.
I don’t know about the second part, but yeah, using it is definitely illegal on the road.
Having them installed is legal as far as I know because they’re legal for off road use.
Yeah. That’s what I meant. As long as you don’t use them to blind other drivers. Even if it is just for the lulz.
Really depends on the cop, since they can pull you over and/or ticket you for any or no reason. Whether it stands in court is another story, but you gotta take it to court for that to matter. And if they just say it was on when it wasn’t, it would be difficult to prove.
Do it. I did and it’s fucking hilarious getting revenge on these people. They get so mad lol
Just don’t make the mistake I did and do it to a cop (it was at night so I couldn’t see what kind of car it was; all I saw was tailgating headlights). Thankfully he had a sense of humor about it.
Also, don’t forget to turn them off. I was on the road at about 3:30am this morning and initially thought there was a wrong way driver. It took about 20 seconds to realize it wasn’t getting any closer and figure out what it actually was: a guy in a jeep had them installed on a roof rack.
I had mine installed in the rear window, so if I left it on it would be very obvious. Installing a rear-facing light on a light bar where you can’t see it is a really bad idea.
Yeah I’d end up eating a curb with my self-control around cops.
Hit em with the uno reverse!
My buddy had an Audi A4, probably a 2003, and one of the features was just this bright ass light that you could turn on that pointed backwards. He had another Audi after that didn’t have it, never really seen one with it, other than that. It was great for dealing with tailgaters.
Rear fog light? Ive had a few with that. Makes me feel betterhaving that on in blizzards.
Lately I’ve seen people driving around with their high beams on at dusk.
Might have to do with living next to a retirement community.
A lot of them are now automatic and older not Lazer beam lights don’t deactivate them. And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this… To be fair many many people have no business behind the wheel of literally anything but I digress.
And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this…
The number of people I’ve encountered who believe that their automatic headlights will always come on when they need one and therefore they do not need to ever manually turn them on so that other drivers can see their white car in the white fog as they drive down the centerline…
Seriously just turn on your headlights. Makes your car way easier to see regardless of the weather or lighting
Do people not verify lights are on by checking the dang illuminated symbol on their dash?! I keep mine on auto and sometimes have to override it but it’s still convenient enough to not have to dick with my lights 90% of the time.
I used to have a foot button on the left side for brights/dims back in the day, left foot isn’t used for anything else, I miss that shit so much.
A lot of cars have daytime running lights that won’t show a symbol on the dashboard when they’re on.
I have automatic high beams and they almost never turn on. I don’t really think I’ve had an issue with them not turning off. EXCEPT for one time I was driving around with my normal low beams on as usual and they just decided to pop on briefly to blind the person right in front of me. I felt so bad because wtf???
I thought this, but then after flashing a few of them I realized those are actually their low beams, and they’re just stupidly bright LEDs.
Doing god’s work
Yeah, as an owner of a vehicle with these fucking things. I hate them but there’s literally nothing we can do. All vehicles sold have them now, and the manufacturers have no options for softer lights. I’ve tried for months.
Do what I did and write your MP. This needs to be legislated.
If it’s from the factory, it’s likely not as bad as the aftermarket ones. The problem with aftermarket is the light housing is designed for a bulb in a particular location. The aftermarket ones will often be in the wrong location, so even the low beams will shine higher than they should be. (Low/high beams have to do with height, not brightness.) Your lights might be bright, but I suspect that your low beams still don’t shine upward very far. If they do, name and shame the manufacturer of your car please.
Its bad enough that people constantly flash their lights at me because they think I have my brights on. At stop signs I literally need to flash my brights back to prove they aren’t. (It would be impossible, the brights will not stay on when there are any red or white lights in front of the vehicle unless you manually pullback and hold the control stick.)
I never use the brights on this thing. The headlights are already too bright
Mentioned in another thread, this is a Dodge. And Mopar makes sure no aftermarket parts exist. Dodge doesn’t provide any alternative light brightnesses.
pay to get them replaced with something that’s not dangerous
it’s your vehicle. you are responsible for it too.
There are no replacement options, see other threads.
Transparent yellow filter tape time
The factory ones are bright but not blinding. Its always the aftermarket’s that aren’t set up properly or regulated that are blinding.
nope, the factory ones are blinding too
For reference where are you located?
The factory LEDs from any north american car manufacturer are absolutely blinding.
Yes you can! You can get them adjusted at a mechanic, or get the internal reflector swapped out
One problem is the manufacturers have made headlights into assemblies that cannot be repaired or really disassembled, forcing you to replace the entire thing if anything goes wrong. Also they can be expensive.
https://daxstreet.com/cars/419253/10-cars-where-a-headlight-assembly-costs-2000-dollars/
Also sometimes the new headlight needs to be programmed by the dealership to work correctly
this is one of many reasons I won’t buy a newer car.
Wtf, on my 2005 car changing the lights costs 30 bucks. They are purposefully low price because you don’t want people around going without lights
That 2005 model headlight also has a much shorter lifespan than most LEDs (assuming proper cooling in their enclosure). Up to 1,000 hours for a traditional headlight, and up to 50,000 hours for an LED headlight.
Yep, driving around without lights is dangerous, it could get you pulled over. The people designing these setups know this and want to force you back to the dealership.
Then get aftermarket headlights! Why are you guys acting like OEM housing is the only way?
You do realize their goal is less bright lights, with these LED assemblies there is often little to no aftermarket, and when there is it is brighter. Example: 2023-2026 Acura integra
Well you gotta give it a few years for an aftermarket to develop. I’m happy that there are people on Lemmy privileged enough to afford a brand new car, but most of us are driving 12-14 year old vehicles, in which there’s almost always an aftermarket available for in that age range unless you’re driving something obscure (in which case you’d have a difficult time finding even OEM parts for!).
I’ve checked with different spots for 3 years. Maybe for some makes and models, but not for dodge.
Spray-on tint lol.
I have them as well and a lot of others around me and they’re awesome!
As long as they’re regulated properly. I’m in Germany and we love regulating stuff!
This is unfortunately just not true. I’m also from Germany and I drive a lot at night, where I get absolutely blinded by random headlights every couple of minutes. My car sits very close to the ground and the average SUV headlights are way above my trunk and hood, shining directly into my cabin. It’s gotten so bad in recent years. One day I’ll probably crash into a tree or something because yet another idiot trusts their Matrix LED high beams to recognize my car in time.
Never had that issue with my normal cars (like Golf class). What kind of Tarnmobil are you driving?
It’s a lowered 1989 Mercedes E-Class. Sitting in the car my level of sight is at about 110 cm.
Canada used to have regulations about the maximum lumens that could be output by headlights, but corporate lobbyists undermined this with a rule that exempted cars that rolled off the dealership lot with brighter lights in the late 90’s when the manufacturers started using the bright blue halogens. Then LEDs came out and they got the same bypass automatically.
I voted against the political leaders that supported moves like this for years, but most of the population doesn’t.
So, here we are.
Yeah, we are very strict regarding max light output, but depending on what we measure, it’s Candela or Lumen. And bright beams (> 2000 Lumen) need to automatically limit how far they reach to not blind people when driving over a hill for example, etc. Without all of that, it would be carnage.
Why did you buy it?
Needed a vehicle and I won’t buy older than 10 years. Every vehicle in the last 10 years has led lights. That’s it.
I held off with the 2014 as long as possible, but when its maintenance costs got to be unreasonable, it was time to replace it.
Oof
My car has them too, from the factory. Maybe there are tints that can be applied to the light thing. Maybe that’s illegal tho 🤷
I hope thats reflective tape.
it is
Kinda obvious that it is reflective tape, thus the message.
I didn’t think it was reflective tape at first. I think I thought it was just a little pixelated.
Kind of a dick move but I chuckled
How is making your vehicle highly visible a dick move? Probably safter than most others.
If their lights are properly aligned it won’t be an issue.
If they aren’t, then it’s the owner’s responsibility to fix them. They’re a danger to everybody else on the road.
I drive a compact sports coupe, there’s no world in which modern SUV headlights aren’t flooding my rearview with LED ultra white brightness. Their headlights are literally the same height as my rearview.
Does the dimmer on your rear view not work?
They work, but when an SUV/truck pulls up behind me at a light it doesn’t matter basically at all. The lights are so big and so bright the entire mirror is filled with their glare.
I live on a windy mountain road and they blind me in absolute darkness. I wish people had more sense.
Weird that so many claim to have problems wit it. I don’t really see this getting worse, on the contrary. Most newer cars with LED here work fine. It’s the older cars with high brightness bulbs that create the problems. And those are not always LED.
LED is better than older lights in every way, including AVOIDING to blind other drivers, because the LED light can be directed way more accurately.
The problem is bad headlights, not LED.PS:
This is for Denmark/EU, it may be different in other countries?the LED light can be directed way more accurately
This only works on flat roads. Where I am, this results in what looks like the driver behind you rapidly flicking their high beams on and off every time you go over a one foot hump in the road. It’s possibly worse than just having it be consistently too bright.
I agree, but bumpy roads like that are annoying disregarding what headlights are used.
We have roads that have bumps to slow traffic, and THAT is annoying IMO. Not that I can figure out a much better solution, so I guess we have to live with it, but it’s still annoying to be blinded by a car half a kilometer away because there’s a bump is super annoying.
I guess that at some point the cars will be able to prevent it automatically, Matrix light technology should definitely be able to in theory.It happens on rolling hills too, which aren’t very annoying on their own. And sure it might be possible to fix this issue in the future, but currently headlights assuming down = bright is an issue.
For whatever reason the US has not approved the adaptive headlights. We still have dumb lights, that keep getting brighter.
FREEDOM 😋
Are you by any chance describing Adaptive Driving Beam headlights? I believe they’ve been in available in the EU for quite some time, but only allowed in the US since 2022.
No the fact that LED lights can be better focused go for both Matrix and standard LED headlights.
Our own car has Matrix lights, but that’s still way way in the minority. However we do have 90+% adoption rate of EV, so we have a lot of cars with LED headlights.
I heard the same arguments about 20 or more years ago. “These new damn headlights are too bright. They blind all the oncoming traffic. These headlights should be banned by law.” Ofcourse the one making these complaints was my dad and xenon headlights were becoming quite common at that point, even on some cheaper cars. The only time i’ve had problems with “bright” headlights is when the car that i’m driving has either terrible lights (so old and tired bulbs) or the lights are not adjusted correctly and point down way too much. Funnily enough the 2 cars i head with terrible lights both had xenon bulbs. The last 2 cars that i’ve had so far both have halogen bulbs. No issue with headlights that are too bright. Then again me not having any issues doesn’t mean that complaints from others arent valid but incorrectly aimed lights with bad bulbs are already an issue in my circle so i’d imagine that these are the people that complain about LEDs the most. I also live in the EU so yearly inspectons atleast don’t let you pass if your headlights are terrible.
or the lights are not adjusted correctly
Yes, and that will remain a problem disregarding the type of light.
Funnily enough the 2 cars i head with terrible lights both had xenon bulbs.
That’s strange, do they get weak as they get old?
Funny enough I had just replaced the halogen bulbs in our old car to some crazy expensive ones with shorter lifespan, just before we got our EV.
Then when I got home, I found out that for the same price, I could have had LED bulbs. 🤥I just hope our headlights last really long, because they cost $2000 to replace a piece!
On my first car the mechanism that is supposed to adjust the headlight level was broken so the lights “fell” into their lowest position so only the front of my car was lit up. On my second car i took the time to fix everything and adjusted the headlights to a correct position but the bulbs themselves were old and probably had weaker or less brightness than new halogen bulbs. As far as LED bulbs, i only use LEDs in my high beams. I don’t want to be that guy who blinds everyone with their cheap LEDs but with high beams you’re supposed to switch them off anyway. Doesn’t really make much of a difference to me if you use LED high beams or if you add a LED Bar (so extra lights) to your car. LED high beams just don’t add an ugly extra lights to your car while also being a bit weaker, so if you forget or drive on a windy road then you don’t blind others as much.
Poorly installed aftermarket headlights. Being LED has little to do with it.
incorrect. stock LED headlights are blinding
This is a real Mercedes-Benz as they ran in magazines, showing you can check how far along a cow’s pregnancy is with their stock headlights.
Definitely looks like some Ai image they used.
False.
I hate that this is always the excuse. People are not replacing their headlights with the frequency that would be required for how insanely common blindingly bright headlights are these days.
Not just aftermarket. Teslas are notorious for having overly bright, misaimed headlights.
Teslas notoriously have almost no quality control, so that makes sense.
People keep telling me that acktually Tesla headlights have hi-tech sensors that avoid blinding people. And I’m like “I’m people, and they blind me all the time!”
You’re not a person by Elon’s standards. It uses AI facial recognition to see if you’re a billionaire and if you’re not, it re-aims to blind you more.
“Yeah but that’s just an anecdote bro”
In many countries there are biannual safety checks, we have that here, and I haven’t noticed that.
But it is also known that Tesla recommendations for safety are very lacking. So 30-40% if Tesla cars fail the safety check here, and have to go to the shop and get fixed before being able to drive on the road legally.
No. 10 years ago you might’ve had a point but nowadays every new car on the road has blinding LED headlights
There is no US regulation on headlight brightness, so it’s a little of that and also new cars maxing out what they can put on the car. Add to that the height of trucks and SUVs.
LED lights are far brighter though, and the worst color wavelength for vision.
There are regulations but the regulations haven’t been updated since the halogen bulb era. Tests designed for headlights with a single light source can be gamed by led headlight manufacturers to get approval for lamps that are way brighter than the law ever intended. Additionally, the regulations we have aren’t enforced after the design is approved. Manufacturers have to get approval of new designs but no one ever gets a ticket for blindingly bright lights. Lifting your truck or adding extra high wheels requires adjusting the angle of the headlights, but no one ever does that.
Edit: this article talks about it a bit more https://www.cbtnews.com/modern-headlights-too-bright-and-dangerous/
Yeah, I think a good amount of the issue with them could be resolved simply by using warmer color LEDs - it seems so obvious that I don’t get why they don’t.
Need regulations, but it’s hilarious to think that the Trump Admin will force the NHTSA to do this.
I despise the color of LEDs. Give me a headache and actually Make it harder to see.
They don’t teach people how to aim headlights anymore and people refuse to read the manual for the 4000 pound death machine they just purchased. So they even come from the dealership misaimed now and nobody does anything about it. We don’t even have annual inspections in my state anymore since 2002.
As with great many things, half the problem is education.
LED replacement bulbs are a common problem. The beam dip is designed around a single element. However, LEDs can’t produce the intense light of an incandescent or halogen type bulb. To compensate, they use an array of LEDs. This creates a large emission surface. Some of the surface is a significant distance from where the element used to be. This completely messes up the beam shaping, throwing light where it shouldn’t be.
Combine poor beam forming with higher vehicles, and higher outputs, and LEDs get a very bad rep.
A properly designed LED headlight has far less issues. Unfortunately there are a lot of stock units which also have poor designs.
No way, stock leds are everywhere and they’re bullshit.
That actually used to be the case, but then people got used to it, and now people think regular headlights are too dim because they don’t illuminate way up into the sky like a second sun, and so new cars are coming out with brighter headlights (with higher angles, presumably). But there’s no technical reason LEDs have to have their terrible reputation in headlights, so the spirit of your post is correct.
The other is idiots lifting their 4×4s and not readjusting the angles. They probably wonder why they don’t see as well now too.
I love this idea lol
Is this duck tape? Regardless of the message, that’s dedication.
presumably reflectice tape. if you want to go the extra mile for a bit like this there’s a special nautical version that reflects much higher % and directly back at source
Boneappletea.
Edit: I guess it is a brand of duct tape.
It’s a brand now. But the name predates duct tape by 50-odd years. It came from the “cotton duck cloth” used in the design.
TIL “canvas” is derived from “cannabis”.
When I was much younger I thought the name came from the fact that it was waterproof. It repels liquid like water off a duck’s back.
TIL
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