Good, include the other blinding shits too.

It didn’t use to be this way.

In my experience, while Tesla is a prime offender, it isn’t only Teslas headlight that are too bright. Honda Prologues are another specific model that blinds me all the time.

While we’re at it, I’m convinced auto-headlights and the general dumbing down of drivers mean a lot of people are simply driving around with their brights on all the time. Don’t know how to fix that one though.

Back when I still used Nextdoor, I once posted a picture of the regular (green) headlight dash icon and the blue high beam icon, and spelled out what they’re used for and that people should know the difference. I got flooded with hearts or whatever the Nextdoor equivalent of upvotes is, I’m sure all from people who already knew and were also frustrated. There are definitely some people who are either ignorant or oblivious; I wonder if any of them saw my post and learned something? Can’t say the problem got any better.

I still own vehicles without the green light. That started being a thing about the time they made gauge clusters giant lcd screens that were lit up at all times of day. If you don’t have your headlights on in my car then you can’t tell how fast you’re going since the gauges aren’t lit up at all. Makes it super obvious when your lights aren’t on…cause you actually have to turn them on in that car. Which leads into my next thing.

My pet peeve is people driving around with only the daytime running lights on. They have weak headlights and absolutely no tail lights. I run into at least one car like this nearly every time I drive at night. I found one possible cause for it. Any time you take your car in for service they usually turn off the auto headlights so it’s not draining the battery in the shop but they rarely turn them back on.

Yes I 100% agree! Making everything automatic also makes people complacent and they don’t check to make sure everything is working as intended. I rather miss my light switch in my car. Daytime running lights are dumb unless they are just always-on headlights and taillights.

And people need to set their lights to auto and leave them there 99.9% of the time. Pretty much all cars have that setting available now. The number of people I see driving with just their parking lights on, or no lights, at twilight is amazing. It isn’t just so you can see it is so others can easily see you.

And people need to set their lights to auto and leave them there 99.9% of the time

No, not 99.9% of the time. Many auto headlights will not turn on if it’s raining or foggy during daytime, since the light sensor is still detecting lots of light

You can still adjust them for exceptions, for the rest of the time auto is where it should stay.

Have you met people? They don’t.

Auto headlights and auto-dimming headlights sound great on paper, but in my opinion have created a class of drivers who don’t use their headlights appropriately.

Auto headlights fixes that exact problem if it’s implemented well. My car turns the brights on and off by itself and it does a damn good job.

Well, it fixes it for you because you are a responsible adult who can drive.

For many other people, it means headlights is something they never think about, and that is part of the problem. The other part is that auto-dimming headlights don’t dim your headlights for pedestrians, and on behalf of pedestrians everywhere ‘fuck you!’ (Not you specifically, just in general)

Good point about the pedestrians, although in my car’s case it is sensitive enough that street lights keep the brights from coming on, so they basically never come on in the city where there are pedestrians. I suppose there’s the case of the tiny incorporated areas with no lights but where people might be walking.

My 2024 Santa Fe is also up there on annoyingly bright headlights list. So many people flashing their brights at me before I’m forced to unleash Ark of the Covenant by flashing my actual brights back. Even the emergency flashers are so darn bright I feel like I can’t use them at night when I’m unloading groceries because it fully illuminates the entire apartment building in front of me a block away. This can’t be a necessary amount of lumens.

I actually appreciate the flash back. I do a quick flash to cars whose headlights are blinding me probably 2-3 times each time I drive at night, and probably 95% of the time I get nothing back. So I’m left wondering if those people just have a 2024 Santa Fe (or the like, with crazy bright standards) or if their brights are on and are simply unaware.

The flash back is good because at least I know.

I’ve often thought that we could polarise the headlight glass one way, and then windscreen glass the other. The glare off the road would still hit you but the lights themselves would be much darker, but still enough for you to see they’re there. The day-runners in the corners could still be unpolarised so you’d still see the vehicle. It’d be a bit more expensive and require collaboration between the manufacturers which are probably two large reasons why it would never happen.

I’m sure solving this problem isn’t beyond the wit of humanity, but is beyond the expense threshold that the oligarchs will tolerate from their dividends.

I’d very much like every truck out there to have the headlights pointed away from my eyes and be less bright thanks.

I’m very close to putting a mirror over my rearview window to shine the light back at them.

In older cars, where you could manually flip the rear view mirror to dim it, my dad would flip it back and forth trying to flash the person behind him so they’d get the hint about their high beams. Not sure it ever worked…

Presumably the mirror was angled toward his eyes so he was just flashing himself

I just do that with my brake lights now. have yet to wire up a switch to my reverse lights

those worked fine.

Trucks need to have semi levels of regulations for headlights

I see plenty of trucks with headlights well above semi trucks, and I’ve yet to be blinded by any semi headlights, even the stupid white blue colored ones due to their regulations of height and angle actually being enforced

Mirror doesn’t work, hang emergency visibility jacket over your seats. Sometimes those do when they reflect back and catch their eye, and they won’t net you a ticket

That’s probably legal, I say go for it. Get the largest retroreflector you can find. I think they make reflective tape that should do the trick.

Having had to drive Vail Pass at night, I’d say the bright headlights are the most dangerous thing I have encountered in years of driving, way ahead of drunk drivers and speeders.

yep. there’s a route I drive regularly that has hills and turns. it’s so fucking dangerous at night because of these assholes with blinding headlights.

Saw a pickup on I10 not long ago had a light bar on the roof lighting up both side of the highway. It was fucking absurd. What a total and complete dick head.

For real. Those light bars are for when you are out back in Bumfuck, Mississippi. Not the damn interstate.

In Colorado at least, you’d get a ticket for not having physical light covers installed on any lights other than your standard headlights and (possibly, I can’t remember the details) fog lights. light bars and anything else had to be covered if you were on a public road. I know of at least one case of a person actually receiving a ticket for it. that should be a law everywhere.

Colorado is one of the biggest offenders. Cattle trucks everywhere. And this state is like 87% Jeep owners. I’ve never had a Tesla blind me worse than a Jeep. Maybe it’s a frequency thing. Just because it comes with the vehicle doesn’t make it right.

Matrix headlights solve this.

no they don’t and stop with that fucking bullshit propaganda

They actually kinda do? Any oncoming car with matrix headlights doesn’t blind me and when I had them (well, projector based adaptive lights actually), I never got flashed at.

IIRC they even blocked out cyclists and pedestrians though I could be wrong.

And unlike simply having dim lights, they still illuminated the roadside enough that I could see the animals before they’d jump onto the road.

We’ve had matrix headlights in Europe for over a decade and they work extremely well

as I hear it, no, they don’t. they work very well in one environment, a smooth highway. as I hear it, they don’t work in urban areas or with non-vehicles

regardless, they’re reactive, which means they still blind drivers momentarily. not good enough.

How would super bright headlights fix the problem of super bright headlights?

By selectively dimming the area that is shining towards other cars. That’s the definition of matrix headlights, they are not any brighter than regular headlights

Don’t argue with stupid. They’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

For the uninformed go YouTube some videos on how Rivian and Audi does matrix headlights. It’s very smart. Very reasonable and the tech can evolve and get better. It’s the best outcome because I’m not giving up being able to see more clearly in super dark backroads compared to my old car.

If you assume anyone who says something you disagree with or don’t understand is stupid, you give up any chance of expanding your perspective. It’s not an intelligent strategy, certainly when compared to a perfectly civil discussion.

Sir you lost any chance of wanting me to engage in any discussion of good faith when you didn’t take less time than you did to post this response with just quickly searching about matrix headlights. The technology around them and the platform as a whole has exponential improvement upsides than analog incandescent or even led lights.

But no, pithy retorts about bright lights being bright is totally the way to kick off a civil discussion.

Cheers.

okay, so you’re just an asshole. you’d rather blind other drivers than have less but still sufficient light to see. that makes you an asshole.

I think you should have your pipes checked for lead and your house tested for asbestos.

Oh, I see. I actually hadn’t heard that term before. I googled “matrix headlights” and what I got was a brand selling aftermarket bright headlights. So I assumed that’s what we were talking about.

We did not have this problem 20ish years ago, aligned headlights can be bright and not aimed at your eyes. I’d be nice to have this also but could we just get some enforcement on the alignment.

alignment isn’t enough because of how goddamn bright they are now. they need to be limited in output.

Please don’t mandate computerized light dimming

A bill introduced into Congress earlier this year—the LIGHT (Limiting Intense Glare for Highway and Two-lane) Safety Act—directs the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to study and establish an overarching maximum allowable brightness for low-beam headlights in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Right now, there are rules around the intensity of headlights at different parts of the beam, but no limits on the overall brightness.

Oh, a good bill.

I was so ready to post a “bright headlights solution is coming” // “look inside” // “it’s just fucking adaptive headlights again” meme until that paragraph

this actually offers some hope

I respect the effort someone put into making that acronym. That must be a fun job.

Oh god yes! I like to jog in my neighborhood at night and whenever one of these vehicles with super bright lights drives by I literally have to stop in my tracks because I can’t see a damn thing in front of me. It’s even worse when I’m driving!

The bright headlight thing has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. So, I’m glad to hear that government is apparently trying to fix it. That being said, why would anyone assume that a company like Tesla would comply with this regulation? That company has a long history of violating and flouting laws without consequence. I just have no confidence that US society does “laws” anymore when it comes to corporations.

I found it weird there are about 20,000 vehicles of concern for models that sold millions. I wonder what happened, how are those relative few different?

That being said, they are really bright but now that we finally have the adaptive beams enabled, it seems to make a huge difference

Manufacturers supercede parts in the middle of a model’s lifecycle all the time, sometimes doesn’t even coincide with a facelift

Could be that they replaced the parts with a newer design already

And I imagine that’s it. At some point Tesla installed the hardware for adaptive headlights. So maybe a transition around that? Where the lights were brighter but adaptive could not be supported

.

That’s a lot of work/cost to just find out whether something needs to be done.

Almost makes you want each part to report an id ……. Until you think about vendor locks and surveillance

I will already tell you that’s happening. Own a Ford and the amount of QR codes that are on all parts of that vehicle is truly astonishing. I know Ford published a huge pdf of things to check for to cut down on warranty fraud. It’s absolutely checking certain parts against the build data to see if they’ve been swapped since the vehicle was built.

It’s not all nefarious. Keeping tabs on all the parts in each vehicle can help them scope recalls to certain batches as above or redesign parts that keep failing before their lifetime expectancy(usually because it’s inside warranty and costs them money).

I hate Tesla cars as much as the next guy, but this goes for every brand out there.

Literally everything about cars has enshittified, including headlights. Those were a problem solved back in the 1930s and we quickly understood that you need lights that give enough to see, but don’t blind the other side.

Then came the 2000 era engineers who forgot everything we learned in the 1900s and refused to relearn them and everything has been going to shit ever since

I blame the Internet tbh. Vast amounts of information at your finger tips with no real curve to learn any of it, skipping official books and documents on the subject and the learnings of the past.

Quick answers no friction and no learning

Yea because cars back in the 30 drove at 120kph on the regular at night. Have you heard of driving gaster than what your head lights allow you to see and stop in time?

Sounds like the solution is slower night driving, not brighter lights. Blinding the oncoming driver gets stupider the faster you’re going.

Yes good idea max night time speed limits 80km/h

Oh please, I drive at night with headlights just off the ground fast and fine. Its just a shitty american design feature to put them up high. Most places don’t and drive fast at night, its a car not a lighthouse.

The problem us the laws are outdated to a max level of lumens, but not lumens/area. These stupid LED lights are too concentrated. They also cost a fortune to replace. High/low doesn’t matter if they are aimed correctly, but assholes who lift their trucks never align their lights because they are assholes.

I have seen trucks fresh off the dealers floor have lights way to bright and aligned in a way to blind. This has become a design feature, one to blind others as a way to sell more fake plastic trucks.

You’d think they’d have lights that can self adjust their direction based on the vehicle’s angle and if it is turning. I’d love to have headlights that show me where I’m turning for things like pedestrians crossing in unlit areas. They had these on the 1948 Tucker.

My Subaru has those and it doesn’t do what you expect. In that case, it’s literally another set of lights synchronized with the steering wheel. There are no moving parts.

I’ve had people come up to me to point out that “only my right foglight is on” thinking I have a burned out bulb. Nope, turning right lights the right side.

I seem to remember from a documentary on the Tucker that the moving parts caused reliability issues

My friends 2016 had what you’re describing but my 2021 Subaru has the turning ones that actually swivel. It does a fun little going cross-eyed dance when you turn it on to make sure it’s working or something.

Cool!

My ford ranger has lights that can tell where an oncoming car is, and it dims that specific area. It’s really cool.

cool, but not effective enough at addressing the problem and useless when pointed at anything other than a vehicle

That’s a legit complaint, this doesn’t help cyclists or pedestrians. Though selectively dimming lights is definitely cool as fuck and a good idea.

I think with further development this could in fact be a good solution.

Another strategy could be, rather than trying to identify various non-road objects, and avoid blinding those, to instead try to positively identify the road, and only illuminate that. If it’s actively trying to not shine on anything it isn’t certain is road, that could work. It’s at least an avenue worth exploring.

Also, if you’re already putting lidar in vehicles for collision avoidance, the headlights are one more area where that capability could be utilized.

It detects those too. As long as they have a tail Light or headlight

Yeah but those lights blind the hell out of me when rangers are following me. The lights are a good 2-3 feet higher than they used to be which means they are about level with my mirrors.

Nobody in the USA has it enabled unless they have gone into the trucks system themselves and manually enabled it using forscan. I can almost guarantee every truck you have seen did not have it like it is on mine. It’s on by default in Australia only. It works really really good, I’m not entirely sure why it’s not on by default in the USA.

That changed this year. Tesla enabled adaptive headlights this spring and I read that Rivian did more recently. Audi is in process but can’t do it with an over the air software update

I’m impressed with it. My old Ranger I was always getting flashed by people even on low beam. Now it lives in high beam and I never get flashed.

Needless tech to break.

A thought occured to me the other day: there is absolutely no reason that headlights have to be on the upper part of the front grille. Mount them as close to the ground as possible. (Like busses and some cargo trucks) At least it will address a situation where pickup truck / SUV headlights are at eye level for drivers of anything smaller.

I think they have to be kind of close to the drivers eye level for other vehicles reflektors to work.

I drive a giant motor home with headlights about five feet lower than my eye level.

Other cars’ reflectors work fine.

Sometimes it’s hard to read reflective signs above way over the highway, but retroreflective stuff at road level is definitely working

Those headlights are just improperly adjusted. Normal headlights point down, especislly on the driver side. Brights are often bright because they point forward.

Now, if you replace your headlight, for example, or decide to lift your truck, and don’t adjust your headlights…well now you’ve just got your brights on all day long.

If those “improperly adjusted” or pointing forward headlights weren’t the same height as my eyes, they would not be a problem. Which is my exact point.

They could be pointing up too if improperly adjusted

Far more important that the annual safety and emissions inspection checks the angle. Definitely does where I live.

Most states don’t even have an annual check

I see this excuse all the time, and yet I’m willing to bet that most people have never changed their lights. These are factory standard vehicles with way too bright headlights

Yeah in my country it needs to be correctly adjusted and there’s yearly inspections to have your car be road worthy. They somehow make it trough.

This puts the burden on owners having their headlights properly adjusted. People who can’t even be bothered to watch the road or change their oil aren’t going to care about their headlights.

At least in my state, the annual inspection is supposed to check headlight alignment. However I’ve never heard of anyone getting a fail on that so I doubt they do

This is completely wrong. Higher mounting means they can be pointed more down, which gives a bigger buffer to them blinding people when the back of vehicle squats. Bus and truck headlights arent an issue because their suspension doesn’t squat under normal loads.

Vehicle manufacturers in the US have to meet the new headlight requirements. Which require headlights to be bright as fuck and basically parallel to the ground. Then rear suspension is left soft to improve ride quality in all suvs. Put some weight in it and the front of the vehicle points up. Pickups are usually bad because the suspension is modified or it’s overloaded.

A quarter of drivers i swear leave their highbeams on. I have stopped caring and just installed blind people highbeams. 10x brighter than a high output halogen usually gets them to turn off their highbeams.

I do not drive with my highbeams, but people often think I do because my car is stupid. :(… People will flash me and I’ll flick the high beams on quickly to show them that, indeed, I’m not trying to be an asshole, my car is just poorly designed.

There are cars now that automatically dim sections of your highbeams when there’s oncoming traffic as to not blind them, yet we can’t adjust standard headlights when the nose of the car tilts up? Stupid.

This is gonna piss some people off, but the worst one is Toyota by a mile. I rent a lot of cars and they are the only one that I can see inside of other vehicles. They either dont adjust them or are purposely pointing them up for some sort of sales reason.

The auto dimming stuff isnt allowed the US yet. Other issue is most cars default to auto highbeams, which suck dick at turning off when needed.

Yes adaptive headlights are excellent. It’s finally coming to the US. I believe Tesla and Rivian have them and Audi is in the process.

It is definitely entertaining driving around with them on, watching the dark spot follow oncoming traffic

I’ve also seen referential self-leveling headlights but never paid attention to what those are

I used to have a snall truck with seperate high and low beam bulbs. I installed normal halogens for the low beams, and I did something similar. It was fun. And it helped me spot deer along dark highways.

Given that many things, including reflectors, reflect light directly back, yes it is beneficial to have the headlights close to the drivers sightline

I don’t know why the manufacturers have such a hard-on for super bright headlights. It isn’t like anyone is basing their buying decision on it. I guess when you are an executive who never drives themselves you don’t get blinded by them. I hope the NHTSA finally sets limits on headlight brightness and the gov bans aftermarket lights that exceed limits also. Now if we could just get enforcement to crack down on the a-holes who blast backward facing lights to harass other drivers also.

I’m probably in a significant minority, but if I was buying a new car (lol why would I do that), I would specifically avoid anything which has blinding headlights.

It’s an arms race. People are blinded by the glare of oncoming headlights in their old cars, so search for a way to safely drive their next car.

I was tempted for my older car because it was getting really difficult to drive at night with how dim those headlights were, relative to oncoming glare. I see replacement LED bulbs “for off-road use only” advertised as much brighter. Turns out replacing the bulbs (with new correct ones) and cleaning the windshield made some difference. Enough

yeah often cleaning and polishing the headlight lenses does wonders for regular wattage lighting.

It’s a checkbox to put on the brochure for idiots who can’t make a decision. Also big bonus for the ad-exec when they don’t make any changes to the vehicle but still need something “new.” Idiotic arms-race for sure. Same thing with how cars are so big now, no one wants to be the “small guy” at the car measuring contest. Because humans are stupid and easily manipulated.

I hope they ban loud exhausts and aftermarket noise exhausts next.

I have an EV that predates the external white noise requirement, it’s weirdly quiet if the AC is off.

I love how quiet it is. But I wish it didn’t startle cyclists.

Edit: someone at work gave me a deck of cards and a clothespin and said it was a “loud exhaust” for my car. 😆

China has mandated electric scooters now. They ride on the sidewalks frequently though so when I was there I’d have the crap scared out of me when a scooter would silently blow a few inches past me.

Its not mandated here in Oklahoma of course, but a lot of people are starting to commute on scooters and e-bikes. I don’t know if this is because of gas being too expensive or cars being too expensive.

wild that there are two people who downvoted this, as if they have the right to pollute our neighborhoods with their exhaust and noise. what a bunch of entitled pricks

The thing that always blows my mind is that there are laws against loud exhausts. Which is fine, i don’t want a loud as car, it’s silly. But what is point of these laws when they don’t count if you spend enough money? No, your honda is not allowed to be that loud, now make room for the v10 asshole who is twice as loud.

it should all be evaluated by db and fined accordingly.

Lemmy has shadow downvoters. Some cunt downvotes everything.

someone downvoted you to prove you right. ugh.

Brightness is obviously an issue … Id be happy with them pointed at the fucking road, there is nothing at other drivers eye level you need to see

LED head lights have to go until car manufacturers learn how to use them properly. It’s perfectly possible to have non glare LEDs but the cheap mofos won’t want to spend money to retool everything.