I don't see super great at night and it seems to me like every other car has its high beams on. I don't bother flashing because they either don't know or the cars are just shitty and that how bright the low beams are. Fucking dangerous honestly. In the US, not so much as there are next to zero pedestrians, however I live in Europe, and just last night had to mash the brakes after seeing an old man with walking canes emerge from the glare of an oncoming cars lights right in front of me while doing 70kph on a country road. Shit is fucking dangerous, and I don't think pedestrians realize how invisible they are, even when a driver is paying full attention.
> just last night had to mash the brakes after seeing an old man with walking canes emerge from the glare of an oncoming cars lights right in front of me while doing 70kph on a country road.
You should always adapt your speed to the prevailing conditions. 70pkh on a country road after dark is fast at the best of times, but combined with “I don’t see great at night” is grounds to reconsider your driving habits.
If you had happened to hit that old man with cane, it would have been 100% you at fault both legally and morally, and depending on the outcomes, that’s jail time.
My biggest concern is the existing vehicles on the road with illegal bulb conversions, poorly aimed headlights or just inexplicably driving around with the high beams on.
> inexplicably driving around with the high beams on.
It's not inexplicable, it's the "fuck you, I got mine", "I'm the most important person on the road". It's the same attitude that people will be in a line of cars and they'll pull out to get two or three cars ahead, or just bully their way ahead, because it's obviously more important that they get where they're going than you do.
Yaya, its always the other car drivers, that are evil. ;)
Here, Headlights are automatic. Imho a matrix LED is at work. And it illuminates wonderfully the surroundings and helped avoiding physical contact with animals, that might have crossed the street. Sometimes, on bumby roads, i get the occasional flashing back to me, or on Autobahn some trucks are bothered by the light. If true or light is only brighter than usual, i can not judge. These things are registered, so i hope they are just brighter than usual.
Is it really the high beams? Headlights do blind me and it's no exaggeration. US roads are so poorly lit that the headlights at this point create too much contrast and I would consider them a hazard, and for some reason they keep getting brighter every year.
It’s easy to tell on common older vehicles that have separate high beams.
It’s pretty common that people do this with one low-beam out, but blinding everyone to avoid a fix-it ticket is annoying.
Headlights haven’t gotten much brighter, many LED equipped vehicles actually put out less than a really good Xenon from a decade ago, but they have a cooler color temp. Also, lower priced vehicles with LEDs don’t often have the self-adjusting leveling systems that are/were common when HIDs were only available as an expensive option or on pricey cars.
Combing Xenon-like or exceeding brightness, cooler temp (appears brighter to human eye), a lack of self-leveling with poor factory alignment and you get our current situation.
Based on my strongly negative experience with automatic high beams (2019 Honda Ridgeline), I'm very dubious that smart headlights will hit the intended target, much less continue to do so as the vehicle's hardware ages.
Though I wouldn’t extend this experience to all smart lights, I’ll agree that Honda’s auto highbeams implementation on my 2018 Civic is a disappointment. I especially hate that it toggles by flashing high beams (a feature I recently figured out how to disable), so even if you turn it off it’ll rear its head when you need to flash someone.
Low beams are dangerous? Not really the focus of the article but that's a baffling statement to me. Like, sure, of course more light is better but unless your lights aren't adjusted correctly, they're good? Great, even? I don't feel the need to blast my high beams into people's windows when driving down a lit residential street. That's weird and rude.
Does anyone know if these headlight technologies are used in Australia? If it's responsible for people no longer bothering to turn off their high beams when noticing other drivers' headlights shining over a hill or around a corner (and now blinding others) then nah keep that rubbish off the roads. Maybe having warmer temperature lights would lessen the impact of these high beams being blasted into my skull?
Old man yells at cloud, and it's me. I would just like my young, astigmatism-free eyes to not be burned so I can actually drive at night again lol.
People have been waiting for the FDA (?) to update several regulations around products used in make up for years while other parts of the world are a bit better on keeping up with that stuff. I just think that's interesting, on the topic of regulations.
> Low beams are dangerous? Not really the focus of the article but that's a baffling statement to me. Like, sure, of course more light is better but unless your lights aren't adjusted correctly, they're good? Great, even? I don't feel the need to blast my high beams into people's windows when driving down a lit residential street. That's weird and rude.
They're definitely dangerous when you're on an unlit county road with deer-inhabited woods on either side.
I live in regional Australia. About half the roads I drive on are unlit, many are unmarked and have no bike lines/shoulder, and I'm surrounded by bush. We have roos instead of deer. Of course you'd be nuts to not use your high beams for that. Did I need to state that explicitly? My comment questioning low beams being dangerous was in opposition to the article's advocating for 'always on' high beams which is just not necessary and is extremely irritating in my admittedly unscientific opinion.
And on the flipside, low beams (and incandescents) are way safer than high beams (and modern LEDs) on the expressway, where the purpose of lights is to be seen as much or moreso than to see.
As a german trust me, the regulations are a good thing. When I drive at night, there are so many cars in oncoming traffic that dazzle you with their led headlights
These kinds of regulations need to have an extra clause saying:
> Any other design of headlight not meeting the above requirements is allowed, so long as the car manufacturer's vehicles, over the previous year, have been involved in fewer incidents than the national average.
Basically, all safety related rules shouldn't apply to you if you can demonstrate your products are safer than the rest of the industry. Same for brakes, airbags, seatbelts, etc.
That will push safety innovation far harder than rigid rules would.
Alberta is heavily populated with pickups, many decades old (no rust or emissions checks). Their headlights are high up and poorly aimed. The SUVs are newer and better aimed.
Another factor is that plastic headlight housings cloud up and over vigorous polishing will change the optics.
Readit News
You should always adapt your speed to the prevailing conditions. 70pkh on a country road after dark is fast at the best of times, but combined with “I don’t see great at night” is grounds to reconsider your driving habits.
If you had happened to hit that old man with cane, it would have been 100% you at fault both legally and morally, and depending on the outcomes, that’s jail time.
It's not inexplicable, it's the "fuck you, I got mine", "I'm the most important person on the road". It's the same attitude that people will be in a line of cars and they'll pull out to get two or three cars ahead, or just bully their way ahead, because it's obviously more important that they get where they're going than you do.
Here, Headlights are automatic. Imho a matrix LED is at work. And it illuminates wonderfully the surroundings and helped avoiding physical contact with animals, that might have crossed the street. Sometimes, on bumby roads, i get the occasional flashing back to me, or on Autobahn some trucks are bothered by the light. If true or light is only brighter than usual, i can not judge. These things are registered, so i hope they are just brighter than usual.
I suspect that they also drive around with their high beams on too.
Deleted Comment
It’s easy to tell on common older vehicles that have separate high beams.
It’s pretty common that people do this with one low-beam out, but blinding everyone to avoid a fix-it ticket is annoying.
Headlights haven’t gotten much brighter, many LED equipped vehicles actually put out less than a really good Xenon from a decade ago, but they have a cooler color temp. Also, lower priced vehicles with LEDs don’t often have the self-adjusting leveling systems that are/were common when HIDs were only available as an expensive option or on pricey cars.
Combing Xenon-like or exceeding brightness, cooler temp (appears brighter to human eye), a lack of self-leveling with poor factory alignment and you get our current situation.
Does anyone know if these headlight technologies are used in Australia? If it's responsible for people no longer bothering to turn off their high beams when noticing other drivers' headlights shining over a hill or around a corner (and now blinding others) then nah keep that rubbish off the roads. Maybe having warmer temperature lights would lessen the impact of these high beams being blasted into my skull?
Old man yells at cloud, and it's me. I would just like my young, astigmatism-free eyes to not be burned so I can actually drive at night again lol.
People have been waiting for the FDA (?) to update several regulations around products used in make up for years while other parts of the world are a bit better on keeping up with that stuff. I just think that's interesting, on the topic of regulations.
They're definitely dangerous when you're on an unlit county road with deer-inhabited woods on either side.
Especially when you stick your head over an hill top.
I think they should be banned, as a traffic danger.
Come again?
> Any other design of headlight not meeting the above requirements is allowed, so long as the car manufacturer's vehicles, over the previous year, have been involved in fewer incidents than the national average.
Basically, all safety related rules shouldn't apply to you if you can demonstrate your products are safer than the rest of the industry. Same for brakes, airbags, seatbelts, etc.
That will push safety innovation far harder than rigid rules would.
Another factor is that plastic headlight housings cloud up and over vigorous polishing will change the optics.