One tip which you probably know already but not everyone does: you can darken your rear view mirror by flipping the tab on the bottom. Unfortunately no equivalent for your side mirrors.
The darkening is sufficient for regular cars, but it's almost useless when the headlight of the SUV behind you is at the driver's level :(
I bought my car used a while ago, and it's now ~10 years old. I find the stock headlights to be perfectly adequate to drive in rural areas (and I live/drive regularly rural streets without street lights).
The difference with newer cars though is _staggering_. It's not only SUVs.
I have these on my Volvo. They are great for avoiding bright headlights from behind but they make it virtually impossible to see a bike that may be approaching in the bike lane. Anything with headlights that aren't super bright becomes dim or virtually invisible.
If you have an interior rear-view mirror, your side mirrors should be pointed at the lanes next to you, not behind you. Not only does this reduce blindspots, but also overly bright headlights reflecting. When a car passes you from behind, you should see it move from the rear to the side mirrors without moving your head.
Of course, if you drive a truck or are towing a trailer, that's a different story.
> your side mirrors should be pointed at the lanes next to you
Ironically, this gets harder and harder in some newer cars. My driver's side mirror reaches its limit precisely as my car (a 2018 Outback) side disappears from the view. It's unfortunate how much flexibility we've lost with these mirrors.
No thank you. Any society that has automated systems putting people's names on the cops "find and bother" this over petty civil infractions is not a society I want to live in.
Bright headlights are a problem that's so far below all sorts of misdemeanors with victims that routinely go un-investigated that I don't understand how someone can suggest with a straight face that they deserve that level of law enforcement resources. If you don't want to see a particular product exist then go after the sources.
Edit: I guess you probably meant "manually report" rather than "build a system that automatically reports" which is far more reasonable. For anyone who thinks we should be automating this sort of thing the above response stands though.
Data points illustrating how society handles actual criminal infractions with victims are very much relevant in the context of a suggestion that we pull out all the stops to prosecute any particular civil infraction that has no immediate victims.
The suggestion is that you report it, as a safety issue, not that you then go on to demand justice for this not-exactly-heinous non-crime. The police are not going to send in the SWAT team and divert their best men to the case - they're going to note it down in a file somewhere. Come on.
("Oh god. This guy sounds just like... oh. It is dsfyu404ed." - me, often enough to have noticed this is a thing, reading the comments here on articles about cars.)
>The police are not going to send in the SWAT team and divert their best men to the case - they're going to note it down in a file somewhere. Come on.
Right, that's exactly the response we don't even give to all sorts of crime with a victim unless the victim is very pushy about getting a police report filed. If we're not going to at least make some token effort to enforce petty theft and vandalism laws then I see no value to society of making a point of giving that level of enforcement to even lesser crimes.
Luminosity has dethroned "xenon" as the most abused word in automotive lighting parlance.
Luminosity is a term best left for astronomers and not people who deal with automotive lighting.
Luminosity has units of Joules/second and is the measure of all the electromagnetic radiation emitted by something. This is obviously more relevant to something like, the Sun, which emits significant amounts of not only IR radiation but also visible light and UV radiation.
Luminosity has 0 relevance to automotive lighting because last time I checked, the human eye is unable to perceive IR radiation. We don't drive at night with the aid of IR radiation.
Unfortunately, this simple fact has been lost on the people who attempt to sound smart when pushing their latest and greatest illegal HIDs/LEDs and projector retrofit kits.
In poland, if someone has lights set too high or too bright, many drivers will blink with high beams. It's annoying enough that people with bright lights have set them to appropriate level in short order.
Some people have taken to flashing anytime they find your lights bright, even if it happens to be the moment they are in the center of the beam pattern due to things like hills. I can understand the temptation to retaliate with "No, smartass, this is what brights actually look like."
Around here, it's often very difficult to tell if the oncoming lights have flashed in your eyes because someone's deliberately flicked their high-beams at you, or because they've just gone over a bump in the road, exacerbating this problem.
That's not been my experience. Every time I flash my highbeams at somebody with their highbeams on, they turn theirs off. Most people (yes, even most Americans!) aren't being deliberately malicious. Forgetfulness is much more common.
And I'm saying I've never experienced any sort of retribution for flashing my highbeams at people with bright lights (which I do habitually.) I'm sure it happens to some people some times, but it's clearly not very common.
The entire article could be “have police fine people”. I don’t know why governments don’t go after people that keep their high beams on or LED bars for more government revenue.
It's too difficult I guess. Police just want to sit at speed traps and give tickets for speeding, and ignore all other traffic infractions, because speeding is the easiest to enforce.
Well yeah, but why would the courts not be on board? Generally, traffic courts in this country automatically side with the cops unless you have a really, really good reason why the cop was wrong (or if the cop doesn't show up for the hearing). Traffic tickets are big money-makers for municipalities, so it's in their best interest to make it very hard for people to get out of them.
Yeah they do this to enforce noise regulations, I don't see why they can't just stop people with outrageously blinding headlights and fine them, as well.
The existing laws are insufficient. Most headlight regulations specify an angle of light emitted, not an absolute height.
> none of the high intensity portion of the light shall, at a distance of 25 feet ahead of the vehicle, project higher than five inches below the level of the center of the lamp from which it comes, or higher than 42 inches above the level on which the vehicle stands at a distance of 75 feet ahead of the vehicle.
The 75 foot regulation is the only one that gives an absolute height, and is irrelevant for a car directly behind me at a red light. Five inches below the center of the lamp at 25 feet means that a high truck will illuminate the entirety of my rear-view mirror, because those trucks are more than 5 inches taller than my car.
As I recall, this was actually enforced maybe 10 years ago, at the NHTSA / US Customs level. They worked with ebay etc to remove such listings, stop bulk shipments coming in, etc. It wasn't fully successful, so eventually they just gave up.
Obviously cops could pull over and ticket people with terrible headlights, and sometimes they do (I've actually been pulled over for "failing to dim" in Colorado. My low beams were inoperable and I was roadtripping and so had to reach somewhere to camp). But in general there doesn't seem to be an enforcement will, even against patently ridiculous colors (blue, purple, yellow, pink, etc) that are quickly distinguishable as non-DOT-conforming.
You would think pulling people over based on headlight color would be even easier than having to look at a radar gun, but apparently not. Maybe the problem is there's no alert to make cops look up from their phones.
The cops would need a calibrated tool to test headlight emissions. The manufacturer would have to be able to provide a theory of operation and other documentation, and be able to support cops who have to testify in court over the fines.
This is all possible, and actually I would love to build something like this for the police so that I can stop people from blinding me while I'm driving.
You're drastically overstating the effort to get a lot of low hanging fruit - colored headlights can be done visually, as there are no headlights that meet DOT requirements that are purple or yellow. There are very few properly certified aftermarket headlights to begin with. And many non-approved aftermarket ones will simply omit any DOT self-certification mark, another slam-dunk.
> there are no headlights that meet DOT requirements that are purple or yellow.
FMVSS 108 doesn't directly define a permissible color for headlamps. It references some SAE documents that define it, but you have to pay money in order to access them.
Headlamps can have a range of permissible color output (e.g., halogen vs HID vs LED), and, apparently, bulb manufacturers like Sylvania manufacture halogen bulbs with a blue filter that apparently complies with FMVSS 108 even though they have a bluish color.
The trouble is the existing laws require lights to be certified. Plenty of people do responsible headlight upgrades that do not increase glare, but those are also formally illegal; if they aren't certified, they're not legal even if they fulfill the functional requirements.
Just because there are asshats driving around blinding everyone I don't think it's a reasonable response to go back to a situation where people whose cars were manufactured with shitty halogen headlights have no recourse except buy a new car.
Intentionally blinding problem drivers, while emotionally satisfying, is likely to cause accidents, road rage, and is probably illegal. Blinking your high beams is the socially acceptable thing to do. Going too far beyond that is the optical version of coal rolling.
Intentionally escalating a situation on the road while making it clear you are doing it out of malice rather than genuine stupidity is never the right thing to do.
Sure you can probably get away with it for awhile but you're eventually gonna do it to a cop that makes it very much not worth your while or you're gonna run across someone who's reaction causes you serious bodily harm. It's just not worth it and normalizing that kind of tit for tat behavior makes the world a worse place.
The road rage isn't that likely, because we're talking about two vehicles going opposite directions. Depending on the road (such as a median-separated highway), it can be very difficult to impossible for an angry driver to turn around and come after the person who beamed them.
Personally, when I see people beaming me on the other side of the road in a rural area, and I'm sure it isn't just overly-bright factory lights, I flip my high beams on and leave them on until they turn theirs off. I see way too many people on rural roads driving around with their brights on because they just don't care about other drivers, and prefer to leave them on. This isn't such an issue in cities.
I've really gotten to the point where I absolutely hate driving at night, especially in rural places or highways.
The vehicles that should be flipping on light bars encountering these people already have light bars installed. We need to get the police to start using them against this problem.
I have keratoconus. I'm legal to drive at night but I try to avoid it at all costs. LED lamsp create massive visual artifacts. They're much worse than conventional headlights. When they're brighter they create larger artifacts.
Surprising number of new cars specially lower priced SUVs (Kia, Hyundai) tend to have blinding headlights straight out of the factory. I see this as more of a problem with OEMs than with one-off cars on the road with aftermarket LEDs. The tech used to self-adjust the headlight brightness in new cars is probably to blame. Headlights in those cars tend to not be so good as detecting other cars on the road to adjust their brightness accordingly.
• The lights are higher color temperature than an incandescent bulb, so are perceived brighter for the same legal power output.
• The vehicle has a tall front grill because buyers want a truck-like front end to avoid being called a minivan. Once you have a grill, headlights look like eyes and it bothers people to have eyes low on a face, so the headlights end up on pretty high up from the road. The geometry of needing to be pretty much parallel to the pavement for long distance illumination and starting out high up gets the light into more oncoming drivers' eyes.
• I'm pretty sure these are aimed too high from the factory. Other driver's will sometimes flash brights at the vehicle's low beam headlights. It's great for the driver, until the oncoming car hits you.
Add to that the absolutely hideous chromatic aberrations in the optics - and this is not just low-end cars, at least the normal BMWs used to be terrible at this - and you get blinded by basically pure blue light.
People like big vehicles; people like to sit up higher; small women especially like them because it makes them feel more powerful. Finally, Americans just don't care about fuel economy, or cornering ability, or having a vehicle that doesn't roll over easily.
People like to sit up higher so that they can see over the other people who like to sit up higher, recursively.
People like to have a heavy vehicle so that they feel less at risk in a crash with other people who like to have heavy vehicles for the same reason, recursively.
Well, I recently switched from a sedan to an SUV, so let me help:
1. There are rows of SUVs parked at most residential intersections. This way I can actually see what's going on at the intersection, and if I can safely enter it.
2. Less headlight-in-eyes issues.
3. More storage capacity in the trunk. Yay! I don't live in Madrid or London; I can't just stop by the nice little corner store on my way home and get fresh produce. I have to do trips to Costco and haul back a supply. This makes a big difference.
4. More room for fitting the kid's car seat in the back. Since car seats in close proximity to a driver's seat are dangerous (if they should impact during an, uh, impact), this is safer.
5. Better stability in our regional weather.
That's why I switched. Please be so kind as not to eat the serpent's tail: I don't care that if fewer people bought SUVs 1 and 2 would be irrelevant. I care that they -do- buy SUVs and this is my safety-oriented response to that reality.
So as people try to increase their safety in vehicle it becomes a feedback loop until the roads cannot be expanded further.
Meanwhile lower drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and everyone living within a few miles of busy roads suffers from blinding headlights, more deadly impacts, and increased pollution; respectively.
I've got an old 4Runner. It was $1400. It does great in snow. It doesn't get hung up on dirt roads like our minivan does (there are dirt roads where I live). I can fit the whole family and all of our ski gear. I can tow a trailer (van can do that but the car can't). It's body on frame construction like a truck and handles tons of abuse. Granted, it's actually more like a car than modern SUVs, which are huge...the 4Runner is narrow and can fit in my tiny driveway. Anyway, there's a lot to love about SUVs, they're practical for a whole lot of things.
I used to feel this way until I rode around with my roommate a bit in his pickup. clipping a curb in my small hatchback would scrape or even deform the rims. in a big truck you don't have to care. he wouldn't even try to avoid curbs; he would just roll right over them if he felt they were inconvenient.
another (possibly more legitimate) reason is that many speed bumps seem to be calibrated for large vehicles with lots of suspension travel. the speed bumps at the grocery store I go to are incredibly jarring in my car, feels like I am bottoming out the suspension even under 5mph. in a big truck, this is not a problem.
> You're sitting significantly higher than most traffic, giving you a much better idea of what is going on around you.
This also comes with a higher center of gravity which makes it more difficult to control the vehicle during emergency situations
> -Mirrors tend to be very large by car standards, further enhancing your awareness.
Larger vehicles tend to have bigger blindspots (even with properly adjusted mirrors)
> While riding tall, they are often both relatively short and narrow, further easing your life in traffic.
But you still have a higher center of gravity and worse vehicle handling as a result. Trying to swerve around something or make an emergency lane change makes it more likely you'll lose control of the vehicle
> Oh, and winters.
This is more a factor of the type of tires used and how many wheels are driven. My all-wheel drive vehicles do very well in the winters when equipped with snow tires.
> Anecdata - my Land Cruiser is shorter and narrower than my wife's VW Passat, has more than twice the trunk space and just over half the turn radius.
How would your Land Cruiser do in the moose test versus the VW Passat?
This is the video[1] of a Toyota Hilux during that test. And this is a video[2] of a VW Passat. Note that the first video was done while the driver was going 37 mph. The second was at 45 mph.
-Do note that the question I was (poorly, as it were...) trying to address was 'what is the appeal of SUV/4x4 type vehicles?', not 'why is a 4x4 the only right choice, for anyone, under any circumstances?'
That being said - yes, the narrower track and somewhat higher CoG does make the LC handle less well than the Passat at speed, however this disadvantage is largely negated by the local conditions - I live in a (very) rural area where the posted limit is mostly 20 or 30mph.
Blind zones are definitely much smaller in the LC - side mirrors are almost three times larger and placed farther from the vehicle body; the rear window is more than 50% larger and, crucially, more than a foot closer to the rearview mirror than in the Passat, greatly improving the view.
I agree tire quality and wheels driven affect handling very much (obviously!) - part of the (local) problem being that when it snows, it really snows, and with very few people living on this island, every snowfall is effectively a DoS attack on the roads. When there are 6-8" deep ruts while waiting for a plough to eventually arrive, 15" ground clearance beats 6" ground clearance every time.
As for moose, luckily we don't have anything larger than deer, but if we did, I'd rather be in the Passat driving under the moose rather than in the LC getting it in the face, no doubt.
Again - I did not intend to leave the impression a Humvee was the only choice which made any sense -rather that 4x4s have properties which make them sensible choices to some people in some locations.
But if you look at the biggest pickups from the 80s they're not really that big. The whole compact and subcompact truck market has vanished. People only want 'em big.
Even non aftermarket headlights are blinding for other drivers now. It's probably a non issue in the cities, but on single lane roads in the rural areas, you can't see a thing.
I had been thinking it was some combination of the light bulbs getting brighter and my eyes getting worse, but I think it's mostly the former. It is simply impossible to see on the backroads in Virginia if I'm driving the kids in the minivan.
Driving a small car at night is so difficult for me these days, especially as a person who wears glasses. Huge lifted vehicles essentially reduce my vision >50% without even using their high beams lights.
It's downright dangerous. Sometimes I have to hold my hand up to block my side view mirrors at night just to avoid being blinded. I keep thinking that people have their brights on. And at the same time, other drivers forget to turn their headlights on at night, and it takes time for my eyes to re-adjust enough to see them.
I never thought that I would want to see some regulation around maximum headlight brightness, but I really really do.
I actually shifted my mirrors outward so the light isn't reflecting on me at all times. So now to use my side mirrors I shift to see. This is obviously not ideal.
Oh, that's a good idea. I actually have a friend who tilts their mirrors really far out so they can barely see their own car, and they did say that it helps them see more once they got used to it. Thanks for the reminder.
Many people recommend against seeing the corners of your vehicle in your side mirrors at all. The argument goes: Those are for seeing your blind spots, not for seeing behind you, and moving them way out will dramatically reduce your blind spot. Use the rear view mirror for, you know, the rear view.
It's taken me a long time to get used to, but it seems to work. I had to break myself of the habit of using just the side view mirror for changing lanes, to ensure there is no fast moving traffic overtaking. The biggest problem there is if someone is close up on you, like in stop and go. But I can lean over a bit to adjust the side angle then or when backing into parking.
The only problem is that things get a bit dicey if you don't actually have a rear view mirror (e.g. it's obstructed, or you're driving a vehicle that lacks one entirely, like a cargo van or box truck). This is a pretty rare case, though, and in those cases such vehicles typically have wide-angle mirrors that make it much easier to see both directly behind and to the side.
Mine are this same way. My side mirrors do a better job at covering the gap between my peripheral and my rearview this way, instead of overlapping as much with my rearview.
You shouldn't really see your car or the car behind you in your side views. Your side views are for seeing the other lanes. You should turn your mirrors just far enough that you can't see your car at all in any of your normal sitting up position, for both mirrors.
Sure, but my rear view is usually blocked by a dirt bike when I'm driving long distances, so I have fisheye extensions on my side mirrors to see behind me.
That's actually a good practice regardless of the blinding effect. It reduces the blind areas between your side vision and what's covered by the side mirrors.
They are, but trucks/SUVs sit higher, and their headlights are higher - trucks behind me, for example, are completely blinding because their lights shine directly into my car and mirrors.
Are you sure they are HID and not aftermarkets as mentioned in this article? I find that most HIDs seem to shine LESS light up into my eyes as oncoming traffic, because it is so well isolated down onto the road, with less being sent up higher. My old Audi's that had HIDs would adjust the height of the headlights whey you started them, to account for load in the trunk and back seats, which tend to lift the headlights up more.
ISTR that there were regulations about the amount of light headlights could put out, and HIDs were more effective largely because they eliminated light going where you didn't need it, and were able to concentrate the light more out and down than up.
> Driving a small car at night is so difficult for me these days, especially as a person who wears glasses.
Self-defense Step #1: avert your eyes from the bad headlights. One of the problems is our eyes have a natural tendency to look at things which are blue at night, on account of our eyes' hyper-sensitivity to blue light.
It was sort of happy accident that early incandescent bulbs were low-blue sources of light that put out vastly more of the safe portion of the spectrum (infrared, red, orange, yellow).
Self-defense Step #2: screen out excess blue light. I wear polarized yellowish fit-over glasses at night. They help a lot. I found my current preferred pair at a clearance apparel/home goods store for $8. My backup glasses are yellow safety goggles -- these turn the bad headlights greener than the polarized goggles, but I've tended to use the polarized ones since I found them. You can spend more on "swannies" [0] or whatever, but I'm happy with my $8-$11 yellow glasses.
This was inspired by a HN comment, who told about wearing orange glasses to walk his dog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14170975 My first set of orange safety glasses cut out too much light -- great for dealing with headlights, not so great for noticing pedestrians.
The problem with those kinds of glasses is that they still reduce the amount of light. If someone doesn't have their headlights on, you are much less likely to see them with the blue-light filter glasses.
I sometimes drive a 3500 chevy van around that's as high as a pickup truck. Most of the vehicles which blind even me aren't trucks but modern cars with HID high beams on or aftermarket headlamps. And I even think its a thing to just drive around with HID high beams because fuck everyone else on the road. And most of those blinding cars seem to be owned by tuner knuckleheads and car culture wanna be's. Usually a modified BMW, VW, Merc or similar.
Of course I live in NYC and work out in Suffolk county on Long Island. So the type of vehicle blinding you varies by region and its local knuckle dragging car culture.
Retrofits, yes. But that newer 201x BMW with the roof rack, body kit and euro plate illuminating the damn treetops along the highway at night is running with high beams on. It's just shitty car culture attention whoring.
Indeed. I had completely forgotten my daily driver has auto-dimming mirrors until I jumped in a rental car a few weeks ago for a several hour drive at night. It was extremely difficult.
Dark rear tint won't help against being blinded by oncoming traffic on the other side of the street.
I'm usually driving a minivan. It's high enough that getting blinded from the rear isn't a huge issue. But I get blinded from the front -- much worse! -- all the time.
In Germany you'd go with this for 2 years tops, then mandatory technical checkup would catch this stuff, both unapproved aftermarket stuff and a lack of alignment. Is there no mandatory checkup in the US?
Also: since the listings on the marketplaces for these lamps do not match legal requirements, why are they not shut down and the sellers prosecuted?
They actually check thousands of components that a car is made out of in every single car every two years in Germany? That seems like more effort than having people to just buy a new car every 2-4 years. In the US in some states like California during the smog check every two years for older cars they check the basics and make sure the car is relatively unmodified and has the essential safety parts in place. No one, however, checks to see if your headlights are emitting slightly more light than they should.
Yeah, all over Europe (at least EU and EEA) this is the norm. Americans are usually quite surprised when they learn the level of detail these checks go to.
Even for a 20 year old car, you will be told stuff like "you need to replace the front left wheel bearing and the tie rod bushing, both rear springs, and that ABS sensor which is not working". You'll even get a fail if you show up without wiper fluid (since then they can't verify that your wipers are working correctly). They most definitely check your lights thoroughly.
Around here, just having the test done is almost $100. Then there is the (potential) garage bill or DIY work+parts to fix whatever didn't pass, and then $20 for the re-test to fix whatever was necessary. If you don't do it, you lose your plates and insurance coverage.
But usually the people who run aftermarket lights take the required 1 hour to put the stock ones back in before the test.
Hahahaha, that sounds great. I wish they did that in the US.
I once got a car checked out, and the mechanics noticed that one of the brake cylinders couldn't be bled when they replaced the fluids. When I got it back, there was almost no brake pressure and the report had a note lightly recommending that I get the cylinder replaced at my convenience.
You would be amazed at how averse people are to maintaining their cars in the States. Even the dealerships will avoid telling you about problems because they assume most people would prefer to run things into the ground rather than maintain them. It's pervasive.
The car goes onto a testing platform and is checked for braking symmetry, light geometry, noise and a quick glance at overall rustyness etc. It's a pretty streamlined process but it's quite successful at keeping dangerously undermaintained off the streets. Why would you need to check thousands of components?
In the U.S. it varies by state. Many/most states have a yearly inspection covering safety and emissions. Headlight alignment would be checked. I'm not sure about brightness. States that do not have yearly inspections leave it to police officers to ticket offenders.
I assume there are not enough law enforcement resources to enforce all the relevant laws.
In New York, where I live, inspections are done by private mechanics (with a state license). There's a posted inspection standard (https://dmv.ny.gov/brochure/new-york-state-vehicle-safetyemi...). Lights must be "of an approved type," but I'm not sure how you can reliably check this in a shop.
Also, some mechanics are more stringent than others. Some are outright shady. New York sets a flat $37 fee for inspections, paid to the mechanic. The fee is low, so there's an awful incentive here to look for high-margin items that "need" to be repaired to pass the inspection. Brakes and windshield wipers are some of those items. A set of aftermarket light fixtures -- if they can even be identified -- not so much. (This is anecdotal, but I've experienced this type of inspection on more than one occasion.)
Other states, like New Jersey, do inspections solely at state-owned inspection facilities.
Regarding sales, it's not illegal to manufacture off-spec fixtures. It's illegal to have them on your car on a public road.
Even halogens are blinding now, because projectors. There is no easy answer for OE headlights, but it's pretty easy for aftermarket mods -- they're illegal. Enforce.
A big problem is trucks and SUVs in general are being elevated with higher and higher ride heights, without pointing headlights down at an angle to compensate for the increased ride height. If you're driving a normal car, and not one of these bloated moon rovers or nuisance-sized farm vehicles, you're getting their headlights pointed straight at your face.
I was under the impression that we had DOT bumper regulations that the bottom of the bumper couldn't exceed 24 inches. I was brought to this attention when a school bus decided to backup and went over my entire hood causing no damage. It's bumper was roughly at eye level for me!
In brazil the government requires tall vehicles to have two bumpers, the normal OEM one, and an extra one intended to stop smaller vehicles crashing into the back of the tall one.
This was because eye-level bumpers tend to decapitate people during pile-ups... since they are, after all, eye level...
It does but it only gets enforced for new vehicles. See the rear bumper mods that were required for the Mercedes G-Wagen 4x4 Squared. Note that federal regs prevented the activation of the LED aux lights for these as well.
The problem is that most of the inappropriately-tall consumer vehicles get that way after the fact. I.e., people modify them. If this is only getting enforced at the manufacturer level, instead of the vehicle-inspection level, it's not going to accomplish much in that category.
Note that this does not address the fact that high bumpers are death for pedestrians. This addresses the issue of collisions with cars, but tall vehicles in general are really bad for pedestrians.
"People are stupid" is not a valid argument to move towards a solution. "Developing and establishing Standards, training appropriate authorities and giving them the right tools/equipment to measure/identify violators, legislate appropriate fines" is. Hand anyone who does this a $1000 fine, and see how fast the whole country falls in line.
There is the adage about freedom ending at the point my fist meets your face. In this case, I guess it's more about where my face meets your windshield.
The problem is that we have way more tall profile vehicles out there than we do cargo being carried. It's not really a necessity, lots of people are just buying these things because they like the aesthetic moreso than having any practical need for them.
Plus I'm not even sure the general statement is really that true. The El Camino was a regular car profile. If you're just buying a pick up to haul furniture around rather than, say, bales of hay you don't need it to be that tall.
I was referring to commercial trucks, in line with the above commenters mention of Brazillian truck underride guards, which also are required in the US. Commercial trucks all around the world have a high profile.
The only thing in the US that is different is that passenger vehicles don't have as strict of pedestrian standards as the EU.
I'm just saying: a semi and a lorry have the same pedestrian-unfriendly profile.
I'm not really sure how to fix this outside of just prohibiting high ride heights altogether (probably a non-starter). it's an inherent geometric problem.
suppose on a normal height vehicle, the lowbeams are aimed so the center of the beam hits position x on the pavement ahead of the vehicle. after lifting it, you readjust them so they're still centered at x. at any position between x and the emitting vehicle, the center of the beam is still higher than it was before. if you overcompensate so the center hits the ground before x, you are illuminating less of the ground ahead which is less safe in its own way.
don't get me wrong, I am very sympathetic to this issue. I drive a pretty low car and I get blinded any time there's a pickup behind me at night.
okay, that's a pretty obvious solution that I missed. I guess it might not be acceptable for a "work" or "offroad" vehicle to have delicate components placed so low, but it would certainly be okay for most of what these vehicles actually get used for.
While it's more expensive, headlights can also reorient themselves dynamically. You tend to see it on mid-tier vehicles and up, but it's a really great feature. So there is a technical solution to this problem, although I'd rather have a simpler approach that's also cheaper that works for most people (as much as I love my headlights, I realize it's one more thing that can break).
yeah I read an article on ars a while ago about this. very cool. I sort of worry how those systems will age though. perhaps in 2035, audis from 2020 will be performing light shows wherever they go.
An offroad vehicle can have lights mounted anywhere they like, but when on-road, it should have the mounted where they won't blind other drivers, even if it means putting them on a movable mount.
I agree it's generally unreasonable for people to lift their pickup trucks. it decreases the stability of the vehicle, and raising the chassis itself doesn't necessarily increase the clearance that much.
that said, this is one of those situations where most people are slightly annoyed, and a small group really wants to lift their truck. people doing specific kinds of work or living in rural and/or snowy areas may even have a legitimate reason for doing it. politically, it's hard to change things in this kind of situation.
Assuming they want to bother with the paperwork. Maybe that happens in small towns. In NYC as a pedestrian I literally personally see dozens of vehicle infractions daily, and even used to report them. They never get ticketed, and I gave up after the hundredth complaint was closed without a cop even bothering to look to see if the violation was happening.
> A big problem is trucks and SUVs in general are being elevated with higher and higher ride heights
Honestly, this problem has been getting better in recent years due to two factors:
1. Newer vehicles, particularly SUVS, are increasingly not of a body-on-frame design that is trivial to lift. It is rare to see aftermarket-lifted unibody SUVs on the road in the US.
2. Automakers have started cooperating in increasing the crash compatibility of their vehicles. For example: the Enhancing Vehicle-to-Vehicle Crash Compatibility Agreement of 2003.
I hope you vitriolically react with "you're a f@#$^!n dick, man" or some other kind of pressure to get him to get the message: "endangering others is bad and you're losing respect/status by doing so."
My truck driver friends improved fairly quickly after I sat shotgun a couple times
What a weird reaction. How could you correct something like that? Better parenting?
I'm thinking of flashing my high beams whenever I pass drivers with lights too bright. Maybe they're just not aware. I flash my highs at drivers with their headlights off at night because it's dangerous. No reason to not do the same when it's dangerous on the other end of the spectrum.
If the LED bulb is properly rotated and installed in a projector housing then there is no extra glare and you get a good beam. It’s when you get super bright bulbs put into reflector type headlights you get a problem.
Even projectors are designed for the particular light source, it's no guarantee at all that a halogen projector will correctly emit LED light without blinding.
Huh? I'll have to ask my mother about this one (she also has IOLs), but I thought those replaced your lenses entirely; why would they cause an effect like that? That sounds like a complaint about radial keratotomy (PRK).
We force the DOT to update its archaic, counterproductive lighting standards, so that people aren't tempted to buy aftermarket snake oil to replace their crappy factory headlights.
If you disagree with this extremely obvious longstanding complaint with US regulatory practice, about which much has been written for years but little done, let's hear your thinking.
Our headlights are both objectively and subjectively terrible compared to, say, European standards, and the manufacturers are helpless to improve their products. I'd go so far as to say the US DOT has significant blood on its hands.
In the US state that I grew up in, we had annual vehicle inspections. Among the test-points was verifying headlight alignment and function. Adding a photodiode to the test apparatus to ensure that lights are not too bright is certainly an option.
I live in Virginia, and we have annual vehicle inspections. Yes, headlights are among the test-points. It doesn't help; tons of vehicles have poorly-aimed headlights. Doing vehicle testing for $16 doesn't actually help anything when the testing places don't bother to test anything except that the lights all turn on. What incentive do independent garages have to do the tests thoroughly, instead of doing a quick half-assed test to get it done and maybe make some money if there's a burned-out signal marker bulb?
I see many vehicles on the road where the bulb in one headlamp is not properly seated, which leads to a lot of glare from that particular headlamp. One would think that state inspection would catch that problem, but they ignore it.
State inspections are generally useless. They'll probably catch simple things like a burned-out bulb (because then they can charge you a huge markup to replace it), but not-so-obvious stuff like that will probably be missed. Here in VA, the private garages doing these inspections are only able to charge $16; obviously, that's not much incentive to spend a lot of time thoroughly checking a car out.
I'm in the same state. One year, I had to spend $600 for a new ABS module because the parking brake light kept flashing on and off and that was an automatic inspection failure (despite the fact that the parking brake had no issues).
Another year, I took my car in for a brake fluid change and state inspection. They failed the inspection because the rear brake rotors were below the minimum thickness. I replaced the rotors and pads and took it back in. They passed it and put the sticker on.
On the way home, I get the low brake fluid warning light and find that one of the front calipers was leaking brake fluid. So I had to replace the caliper as well.
Essentially, they'll fail inspection even if it's not a real safety issue (blinking parking brake indicator light), but miss actual safety issues (leaking caliper during a brake fluid change service).
Sounds typical: they fail inspection for easy-to-see things (e.g., lights missing or warning lights showing), and miss not-so-easy-to-see things (a small amount of leaking fluid).
One things I've heard people say, and which I would agree with, is that one of the reasons to keep your engine bay clean isn't for it to look pretty, but so that problems (esp. leaking fluid or oil) are more obvious. On older cars with dirty engine bays or undersides, it's a lot harder to see some problems because of all the grime. I have no idea if that was an issue with your car, but I can see it being a problem with a lot of inspected cars.
> one of the reasons to keep your engine bay clean isn't for it to look pretty, but so that problems (esp. leaking fluid or oil) are more obvious
That's a very good point. But, in my case, I would counter it with the fact that the car had a brake fluid change performed and that they inspected the braking system as part of the inspection process (hence how they determined the rear rotors would not pass inspection).
An essential part of a brake system inspection is to check if there are any leaks by examining the brake fluid reservoir, master cylinder, brake lines, and calipers. I would understand if they missed a power steering fluid leak or a coolant leak since they weren't directly dealing with those systems as part of the service I paid them for, but they should have definitely spotted that leak before giving me the keys.
Wait, they did brake work at the same time as the inspection and missed a brake fluid leak? That's sheer incompetence.
This kind of thing is why I never like letting other people do car work for me, and try to do everything myself. You just can't trust mechanics in this country to be honest and competent.
1: The very first thing the inspecting mechanic does is remove your tag. If they find a fault, they get first dibs on selling you the repair. (yes, you can get a temporary pass) The VA inspection fee, at least through the early 2000s, was minimal. I always assumed that shops did the inspection as a loss-leader, with the profit on the needed repairs.
2: I suspect that if they are found to be passing cars that should not, there is government/administrative hell to pay.
(Also, after leaving Virginia, it blew my mind that other states didn't inspect. It is nice to know that every car on the road has at least one brake with enough brake-pad left to come to a halt.)
I bought a new Subaru Impreza in 2018, and I was really irritated at how bad the factory headlights were in the late teens. There wasn't even an option to upgrade the headlights to projectors, the only headlight upgrade available was an LED headlight package that came on a premium trim line.
I replaced the weak halogens with LEDs that have an adequate cutoff pattern. I made sure to test it so it wasn't blinding oncoming traffic, but I doubt most drivers are even aware of the concept of headlight cutoff patterns, much less are aware they're adjustable.
The reason people buy bright LEDs is because the headlights that come in their car suck. If you want people to stop blinding other drivers, make projector headlights mandatory, and start incentivizing automakers to provide LEDs as an upgrade.
It's very common, and very fallacious to think that projectors are automatically upgrades over reflectors.
It's also very common, and very fallacious to think that a cutoff is the be-all, end-all of a good beam pattern and headlamp performance.
The reason people buy "bright" LEDs is they fail to realize that improving headlamp performance doesn't mean throwing random aftermarket parts at the headlamp.
The art of car diagnostics has been lost upon the younger generation. Cars come equipped with long-life halogen bulbs; a mere glance at the bulb you pull out a new car will clue you into that fact, because the bulb will have "LL" (long life) or "L+" (life plus) or "L" (life) printed on it. Long life bulbs trade off luminance and brightness for life. The logical upgrade would be getting a bulb that performs the opposite tradeoff--not throwing questionable aftermarket parts at the car and then, without any knowledge or testing equipment, self-certifying that the car still meets federal safety standards.
I drive a 91 Ford F350 with factory headlights sometimes and at night the difference in headlights is amazing. Mine are this orange glow that light up the road nicely when it's dark. But when driving with other cars it's very hard to see. I can see why people want brighter lights to compete with the bright glare coming from other cars.
A retractable mirror in your back window (inside the vehicle) would also do the trick. Deploy it to both shield you and send the light back to the vehicle behind you.
The design trend of modern SUVS is to look like lifted sedans from the front. This is wrong. The headlamps should never be so high that they can shine through the rear window of another car. This goes for all vehicles: cars, buses, trucks, semis...
Of course, forbidding tall-mounted headlights would make SUVs a bit more undesirable.
To post the other side, my truck's stock headlights were dangerously dark. At night I could see about 20ft in front of me and couldn't distinguish the difference between wet pavement and a puddle, even with my high beams on.
There are a limited selection of aftermarket lights available. I bought LED replacements and aimed them as well as I could. They're about 3ft above the ground (stock height) so there's not much I can do about them shining into other cars. It's the height that makes them bad. If they had positioned them lower it would be much better.
If you want to resolve the safety issue your lights are apparently now causing, you can have the entire headlamp assembly retrofit for LED bulbs, instead of just replacing the bulb. The reflector is designed for a particular type of bulb -- replacing just the bulb means there is often no way to aim the light in a safe and effective direction.
What kind of headlights do you have? If they're sealed-beam headlights, simply replacing them and aiming them will resolve the problem. if they're composite headlamps you almost certainly need to replace the lens and potentially the reflector if they don't give you any light at night.
These are sealed-beam. The problem is that they're so high off the ground that they are about eye level with most drivers, meaning they'll shine in their eyes more than other lights.
I hope you chose something from one of the aforementioned companies. The aftermarket clones are just that...poor-quality clones.
Anyway, being able to see wet pavement and puddles is almost irrelevant. Wet road surfaces are good specular surfaces, which means that light from your headlights is bounced away from the car. Dry road surfaces, on the other hand, scatter light in every direction, and as a result, dry roads appear to be better lit than wet roads. However, simple physics dictates that the amount of light hitting a road surface doesn't change just because someone poured a few gallons of water onto the road. The amount of light hitting the road surface is a property intrinsic to the headlamp.
And really, there's way too much emphasis placed on how bright a wet road appears to a driver. Last time I checked, most obstacles (deer, pedestrians, disabled vehicles) were above the road even when the road is wet. The amount of light that is reflected off something above a wet road wouldn't change much whether the road is soaking wet or bone dry. And it's the light that is reflected off an obstacle that's important in perceiving those obstacles (well, that, and the contrast of the obstacle).
You would also have to consider the polarization effects on illuminating the areas you want to illuminate. Certain wet things at night might become invisible/hard black.
Why aren't headlights and windshields polarized? [1] According to this it may be a chicken or the egg regulations problem as well as some trade-offs that may not be viable.
Use yearly vehicle inspections to check on this. If your car has blinding headlights, it cannot pass inspection.
Meanwhile, there are people who think driving with high beams on is safer (I had an Uber, or was it Lyft?, driver who thought so, and I left him a bad review because of it and his unwillingness to turn them off for me). Inspections won't help in that case -- only law enforcement (fines) can. But I'm not sure how much effort police put into that sort of traffic violation, or if it even is a traffic violation (if not, it should be). I'm guessing it's just so much easier to give tickets for failure to stop, or for speeding, than for any of the rest of the annoying and dangerous habits drivers have.
I think about what a friend said the Germans would do. He said in Germany if the cops think your tires are too worn, they'd pull you over, verify it with a gauge and then tow your car away. And give you a phat ticket.
230 comments
[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 237 ms ] threadWhen I have a SUV behind my regular utilitarian, I'm fully blinded. The higher headlights reflect directly both into the rear and side mirrors.
The strength is also overshadowing my own headlights (I see the shadow of my car in front of me).
When a new car is going in the opposite direction, I'm never fully sure if the driver just forgot the high-headlights or not.
One tip which you probably know already but not everyone does: you can darken your rear view mirror by flipping the tab on the bottom. Unfortunately no equivalent for your side mirrors.
I bought my car used a while ago, and it's now ~10 years old. I find the stock headlights to be perfectly adequate to drive in rural areas (and I live/drive regularly rural streets without street lights).
The difference with newer cars though is _staggering_. It's not only SUVs.
Of course, if you drive a truck or are towing a trailer, that's a different story.
Ironically, this gets harder and harder in some newer cars. My driver's side mirror reaches its limit precisely as my car (a 2018 Outback) side disappears from the view. It's unfortunate how much flexibility we've lost with these mirrors.
Bright headlights are a problem that's so far below all sorts of misdemeanors with victims that routinely go un-investigated that I don't understand how someone can suggest with a straight face that they deserve that level of law enforcement resources. If you don't want to see a particular product exist then go after the sources.
Edit: I guess you probably meant "manually report" rather than "build a system that automatically reports" which is far more reasonable. For anyone who thinks we should be automating this sort of thing the above response stands though.
("Oh god. This guy sounds just like... oh. It is dsfyu404ed." - me, often enough to have noticed this is a thing, reading the comments here on articles about cars.)
Right, that's exactly the response we don't even give to all sorts of crime with a victim unless the victim is very pushy about getting a police report filed. If we're not going to at least make some token effort to enforce petty theft and vandalism laws then I see no value to society of making a point of giving that level of enforcement to even lesser crimes.
I cannot imagine how anyone with minimal understanding how the world workd could suggest that is a "petty" concern.
But in the US, you'd be wasting your time, if not making a joke out of yourself.
Luminosity is a term best left for astronomers and not people who deal with automotive lighting.
Luminosity has units of Joules/second and is the measure of all the electromagnetic radiation emitted by something. This is obviously more relevant to something like, the Sun, which emits significant amounts of not only IR radiation but also visible light and UV radiation.
Luminosity has 0 relevance to automotive lighting because last time I checked, the human eye is unable to perceive IR radiation. We don't drive at night with the aid of IR radiation.
Unfortunately, this simple fact has been lost on the people who attempt to sound smart when pushing their latest and greatest illegal HIDs/LEDs and projector retrofit kits.
> none of the high intensity portion of the light shall, at a distance of 25 feet ahead of the vehicle, project higher than five inches below the level of the center of the lamp from which it comes, or higher than 42 inches above the level on which the vehicle stands at a distance of 75 feet ahead of the vehicle.
The 75 foot regulation is the only one that gives an absolute height, and is irrelevant for a car directly behind me at a red light. Five inches below the center of the lamp at 25 feet means that a high truck will illuminate the entirety of my rear-view mirror, because those trucks are more than 5 inches taller than my car.
[1] https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/816.050
Obviously cops could pull over and ticket people with terrible headlights, and sometimes they do (I've actually been pulled over for "failing to dim" in Colorado. My low beams were inoperable and I was roadtripping and so had to reach somewhere to camp). But in general there doesn't seem to be an enforcement will, even against patently ridiculous colors (blue, purple, yellow, pink, etc) that are quickly distinguishable as non-DOT-conforming.
You would think pulling people over based on headlight color would be even easier than having to look at a radar gun, but apparently not. Maybe the problem is there's no alert to make cops look up from their phones.
This is all possible, and actually I would love to build something like this for the police so that I can stop people from blinding me while I'm driving.
FMVSS 108 doesn't directly define a permissible color for headlamps. It references some SAE documents that define it, but you have to pay money in order to access them.
Headlamps can have a range of permissible color output (e.g., halogen vs HID vs LED), and, apparently, bulb manufacturers like Sylvania manufacture halogen bulbs with a blue filter that apparently complies with FMVSS 108 even though they have a bluish color.
Just because there are asshats driving around blinding everyone I don't think it's a reasonable response to go back to a situation where people whose cars were manufactured with shitty halogen headlights have no recourse except buy a new car.
Intentionally blinding problem drivers, while emotionally satisfying, is likely to cause accidents, road rage, and is probably illegal. Blinking your high beams is the socially acceptable thing to do. Going too far beyond that is the optical version of coal rolling.
Intentionally escalating a situation on the road while making it clear you are doing it out of malice rather than genuine stupidity is never the right thing to do.
Sure you can probably get away with it for awhile but you're eventually gonna do it to a cop that makes it very much not worth your while or you're gonna run across someone who's reaction causes you serious bodily harm. It's just not worth it and normalizing that kind of tit for tat behavior makes the world a worse place.
Personally, when I see people beaming me on the other side of the road in a rural area, and I'm sure it isn't just overly-bright factory lights, I flip my high beams on and leave them on until they turn theirs off. I see way too many people on rural roads driving around with their brights on because they just don't care about other drivers, and prefer to leave them on. This isn't such an issue in cities.
I've really gotten to the point where I absolutely hate driving at night, especially in rural places or highways.
All of these are not my concern.
Being able to see is.
My concern is to mitigate this danger.
Unofficially it's to supernova those select few who don't know how blinding their lights are.
I have keratoconus. I'm legal to drive at night but I try to avoid it at all costs. LED lamsp create massive visual artifacts. They're much worse than conventional headlights. When they're brighter they create larger artifacts.
• The lights are higher color temperature than an incandescent bulb, so are perceived brighter for the same legal power output.
• The vehicle has a tall front grill because buyers want a truck-like front end to avoid being called a minivan. Once you have a grill, headlights look like eyes and it bothers people to have eyes low on a face, so the headlights end up on pretty high up from the road. The geometry of needing to be pretty much parallel to the pavement for long distance illumination and starting out high up gets the light into more oncoming drivers' eyes.
• I'm pretty sure these are aimed too high from the factory. Other driver's will sometimes flash brights at the vehicle's low beam headlights. It's great for the driver, until the oncoming car hits you.
Smaller, lower cars don't seem to have the same issues.
People like to have a heavy vehicle so that they feel less at risk in a crash with other people who like to have heavy vehicles for the same reason, recursively.
The base cases are more mysterious.
[citation needed]
1. There are rows of SUVs parked at most residential intersections. This way I can actually see what's going on at the intersection, and if I can safely enter it.
2. Less headlight-in-eyes issues.
3. More storage capacity in the trunk. Yay! I don't live in Madrid or London; I can't just stop by the nice little corner store on my way home and get fresh produce. I have to do trips to Costco and haul back a supply. This makes a big difference.
4. More room for fitting the kid's car seat in the back. Since car seats in close proximity to a driver's seat are dangerous (if they should impact during an, uh, impact), this is safer.
5. Better stability in our regional weather.
That's why I switched. Please be so kind as not to eat the serpent's tail: I don't care that if fewer people bought SUVs 1 and 2 would be irrelevant. I care that they -do- buy SUVs and this is my safety-oriented response to that reality.
So as people try to increase their safety in vehicle it becomes a feedback loop until the roads cannot be expanded further.
Meanwhile lower drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and everyone living within a few miles of busy roads suffers from blinding headlights, more deadly impacts, and increased pollution; respectively.
Glad we're all in this together!
another (possibly more legitimate) reason is that many speed bumps seem to be calibrated for large vehicles with lots of suspension travel. the speed bumps at the grocery store I go to are incredibly jarring in my car, feels like I am bottoming out the suspension even under 5mph. in a big truck, this is not a problem.
-You're sitting significantly higher than most traffic, giving you a much better idea of what is going on around you.
-Mirrors tend to be very large by car standards, further enhancing your awareness.
-Large wheel arches tend to allow a smaller turn radius, making them surprisingly simple to drive.
-While riding tall, they are often both relatively short and narrow, further easing your life in traffic.
-Oh, and winters.
Anecdata - my Land Cruiser is shorter and narrower than my wife's VW Passat, has more than twice the trunk space and just over half the turn radius.
The penalty paid is the fuel consumption; when Toyota found out how thirsty the engine was, they shrugged and designed a larger fuel tank.
This also comes with a higher center of gravity which makes it more difficult to control the vehicle during emergency situations
> -Mirrors tend to be very large by car standards, further enhancing your awareness.
Larger vehicles tend to have bigger blindspots (even with properly adjusted mirrors)
> While riding tall, they are often both relatively short and narrow, further easing your life in traffic.
But you still have a higher center of gravity and worse vehicle handling as a result. Trying to swerve around something or make an emergency lane change makes it more likely you'll lose control of the vehicle
> Oh, and winters.
This is more a factor of the type of tires used and how many wheels are driven. My all-wheel drive vehicles do very well in the winters when equipped with snow tires.
> Anecdata - my Land Cruiser is shorter and narrower than my wife's VW Passat, has more than twice the trunk space and just over half the turn radius.
How would your Land Cruiser do in the moose test versus the VW Passat?
This is the video[1] of a Toyota Hilux during that test. And this is a video[2] of a VW Passat. Note that the first video was done while the driver was going 37 mph. The second was at 45 mph.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoHbn8-ROiQ
[2] https://www.motor1.com/news/388271/euro-spec-vw-passat-moose...
That being said - yes, the narrower track and somewhat higher CoG does make the LC handle less well than the Passat at speed, however this disadvantage is largely negated by the local conditions - I live in a (very) rural area where the posted limit is mostly 20 or 30mph.
Blind zones are definitely much smaller in the LC - side mirrors are almost three times larger and placed farther from the vehicle body; the rear window is more than 50% larger and, crucially, more than a foot closer to the rearview mirror than in the Passat, greatly improving the view.
I agree tire quality and wheels driven affect handling very much (obviously!) - part of the (local) problem being that when it snows, it really snows, and with very few people living on this island, every snowfall is effectively a DoS attack on the roads. When there are 6-8" deep ruts while waiting for a plough to eventually arrive, 15" ground clearance beats 6" ground clearance every time.
As for moose, luckily we don't have anything larger than deer, but if we did, I'd rather be in the Passat driving under the moose rather than in the LC getting it in the face, no doubt.
Again - I did not intend to leave the impression a Humvee was the only choice which made any sense -rather that 4x4s have properties which make them sensible choices to some people in some locations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j-qy1s1RIM
But if you look at the biggest pickups from the 80s they're not really that big. The whole compact and subcompact truck market has vanished. People only want 'em big.
Driving a small car at night is so difficult for me these days, especially as a person who wears glasses. Huge lifted vehicles essentially reduce my vision >50% without even using their high beams lights.
I never thought that I would want to see some regulation around maximum headlight brightness, but I really really do.
It's taken me a long time to get used to, but it seems to work. I had to break myself of the habit of using just the side view mirror for changing lanes, to ensure there is no fast moving traffic overtaking. The biggest problem there is if someone is close up on you, like in stop and go. But I can lean over a bit to adjust the side angle then or when backing into parking.
https://www.cartalk.com/content/avoiding-blind-spot-5
[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/blindzonegla...
Edit: a blog post about this: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToAdjustYourSiderearviewMi...
ISTR that there were regulations about the amount of light headlights could put out, and HIDs were more effective largely because they eliminated light going where you didn't need it, and were able to concentrate the light more out and down than up.
Self-defense Step #1: avert your eyes from the bad headlights. One of the problems is our eyes have a natural tendency to look at things which are blue at night, on account of our eyes' hyper-sensitivity to blue light.
It was sort of happy accident that early incandescent bulbs were low-blue sources of light that put out vastly more of the safe portion of the spectrum (infrared, red, orange, yellow).
Self-defense Step #2: screen out excess blue light. I wear polarized yellowish fit-over glasses at night. They help a lot. I found my current preferred pair at a clearance apparel/home goods store for $8. My backup glasses are yellow safety goggles -- these turn the bad headlights greener than the polarized goggles, but I've tended to use the polarized ones since I found them. You can spend more on "swannies" [0] or whatever, but I'm happy with my $8-$11 yellow glasses.
This was inspired by a HN comment, who told about wearing orange glasses to walk his dog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14170975 My first set of orange safety glasses cut out too much light -- great for dealing with headlights, not so great for noticing pedestrians.
[0] https://www.swanwicksleep.com/
Of course I live in NYC and work out in Suffolk county on Long Island. So the type of vehicle blinding you varies by region and its local knuckle dragging car culture.
I'm usually driving a minivan. It's high enough that getting blinded from the rear isn't a huge issue. But I get blinded from the front -- much worse! -- all the time.
Also: since the listings on the marketplaces for these lamps do not match legal requirements, why are they not shut down and the sellers prosecuted?
Varies by state.
Even for a 20 year old car, you will be told stuff like "you need to replace the front left wheel bearing and the tie rod bushing, both rear springs, and that ABS sensor which is not working". You'll even get a fail if you show up without wiper fluid (since then they can't verify that your wipers are working correctly). They most definitely check your lights thoroughly.
Around here, just having the test done is almost $100. Then there is the (potential) garage bill or DIY work+parts to fix whatever didn't pass, and then $20 for the re-test to fix whatever was necessary. If you don't do it, you lose your plates and insurance coverage.
But usually the people who run aftermarket lights take the required 1 hour to put the stock ones back in before the test.
I once got a car checked out, and the mechanics noticed that one of the brake cylinders couldn't be bled when they replaced the fluids. When I got it back, there was almost no brake pressure and the report had a note lightly recommending that I get the cylinder replaced at my convenience.
You would be amazed at how averse people are to maintaining their cars in the States. Even the dealerships will avoid telling you about problems because they assume most people would prefer to run things into the ground rather than maintain them. It's pervasive.
I assume there are not enough law enforcement resources to enforce all the relevant laws.
In New York, where I live, inspections are done by private mechanics (with a state license). There's a posted inspection standard (https://dmv.ny.gov/brochure/new-york-state-vehicle-safetyemi...). Lights must be "of an approved type," but I'm not sure how you can reliably check this in a shop.
Also, some mechanics are more stringent than others. Some are outright shady. New York sets a flat $37 fee for inspections, paid to the mechanic. The fee is low, so there's an awful incentive here to look for high-margin items that "need" to be repaired to pass the inspection. Brakes and windshield wipers are some of those items. A set of aftermarket light fixtures -- if they can even be identified -- not so much. (This is anecdotal, but I've experienced this type of inspection on more than one occasion.)
Other states, like New Jersey, do inspections solely at state-owned inspection facilities.
Regarding sales, it's not illegal to manufacture off-spec fixtures. It's illegal to have them on your car on a public road.
This was because eye-level bumpers tend to decapitate people during pile-ups... since they are, after all, eye level...
https://youtu.be/kgcAA4HUxuE?t=229 https://youtu.be/kgcAA4HUxuE?t=388
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/iihs-recognizes-semitrailer...
The typical counter-argument to that involves some sort of abuse of the notion of freedom.
(Not endorsing, of course, just mentioning it.)
Plus I'm not even sure the general statement is really that true. The El Camino was a regular car profile. If you're just buying a pick up to haul furniture around rather than, say, bales of hay you don't need it to be that tall.
The only thing in the US that is different is that passenger vehicles don't have as strict of pedestrian standards as the EU.
I'm just saying: a semi and a lorry have the same pedestrian-unfriendly profile.
But a tall profile does not mean that headlights need to be mounted higher above the road surface. This is a simple problem in geometry.
But not for a vehicle that carries one person
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/28155/how-jayne-mansfiel...
suppose on a normal height vehicle, the lowbeams are aimed so the center of the beam hits position x on the pavement ahead of the vehicle. after lifting it, you readjust them so they're still centered at x. at any position between x and the emitting vehicle, the center of the beam is still higher than it was before. if you overcompensate so the center hits the ground before x, you are illuminating less of the ground ahead which is less safe in its own way.
don't get me wrong, I am very sympathetic to this issue. I drive a pretty low car and I get blinded any time there's a pickup behind me at night.
[1] http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html
Why not? Because some people will get very upset? Fuck 'em. They're literally killing people.
that said, this is one of those situations where most people are slightly annoyed, and a small group really wants to lift their truck. people doing specific kinds of work or living in rural and/or snowy areas may even have a legitimate reason for doing it. politically, it's hard to change things in this kind of situation.
Honestly, this problem has been getting better in recent years due to two factors:
1. Newer vehicles, particularly SUVS, are increasingly not of a body-on-frame design that is trivial to lift. It is rare to see aftermarket-lifted unibody SUVs on the road in the US.
2. Automakers have started cooperating in increasing the crash compatibility of their vehicles. For example: the Enhancing Vehicle-to-Vehicle Crash Compatibility Agreement of 2003.
My truck driver friends improved fairly quickly after I sat shotgun a couple times
I'm thinking of flashing my high beams whenever I pass drivers with lights too bright. Maybe they're just not aware. I flash my highs at drivers with their headlights off at night because it's dangerous. No reason to not do the same when it's dangerous on the other end of the spectrum.
Apparently Porsche is proud of this awful design?? https://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/christophorusmagazi...
Our headlights are both objectively and subjectively terrible compared to, say, European standards, and the manufacturers are helpless to improve their products. I'd go so far as to say the US DOT has significant blood on its hands.
Another year, I took my car in for a brake fluid change and state inspection. They failed the inspection because the rear brake rotors were below the minimum thickness. I replaced the rotors and pads and took it back in. They passed it and put the sticker on.
On the way home, I get the low brake fluid warning light and find that one of the front calipers was leaking brake fluid. So I had to replace the caliper as well.
Essentially, they'll fail inspection even if it's not a real safety issue (blinking parking brake indicator light), but miss actual safety issues (leaking caliper during a brake fluid change service).
One things I've heard people say, and which I would agree with, is that one of the reasons to keep your engine bay clean isn't for it to look pretty, but so that problems (esp. leaking fluid or oil) are more obvious. On older cars with dirty engine bays or undersides, it's a lot harder to see some problems because of all the grime. I have no idea if that was an issue with your car, but I can see it being a problem with a lot of inspected cars.
That's a very good point. But, in my case, I would counter it with the fact that the car had a brake fluid change performed and that they inspected the braking system as part of the inspection process (hence how they determined the rear rotors would not pass inspection).
An essential part of a brake system inspection is to check if there are any leaks by examining the brake fluid reservoir, master cylinder, brake lines, and calipers. I would understand if they missed a power steering fluid leak or a coolant leak since they weren't directly dealing with those systems as part of the service I paid them for, but they should have definitely spotted that leak before giving me the keys.
This kind of thing is why I never like letting other people do car work for me, and try to do everything myself. You just can't trust mechanics in this country to be honest and competent.
1: The very first thing the inspecting mechanic does is remove your tag. If they find a fault, they get first dibs on selling you the repair. (yes, you can get a temporary pass) The VA inspection fee, at least through the early 2000s, was minimal. I always assumed that shops did the inspection as a loss-leader, with the profit on the needed repairs.
2: I suspect that if they are found to be passing cars that should not, there is government/administrative hell to pay.
(Also, after leaving Virginia, it blew my mind that other states didn't inspect. It is nice to know that every car on the road has at least one brake with enough brake-pad left to come to a halt.)
I replaced the weak halogens with LEDs that have an adequate cutoff pattern. I made sure to test it so it wasn't blinding oncoming traffic, but I doubt most drivers are even aware of the concept of headlight cutoff patterns, much less are aware they're adjustable.
The reason people buy bright LEDs is because the headlights that come in their car suck. If you want people to stop blinding other drivers, make projector headlights mandatory, and start incentivizing automakers to provide LEDs as an upgrade.
It's also very common, and very fallacious to think that a cutoff is the be-all, end-all of a good beam pattern and headlamp performance.
The reason people buy "bright" LEDs is they fail to realize that improving headlamp performance doesn't mean throwing random aftermarket parts at the headlamp.
The art of car diagnostics has been lost upon the younger generation. Cars come equipped with long-life halogen bulbs; a mere glance at the bulb you pull out a new car will clue you into that fact, because the bulb will have "LL" (long life) or "L+" (life plus) or "L" (life) printed on it. Long life bulbs trade off luminance and brightness for life. The logical upgrade would be getting a bulb that performs the opposite tradeoff--not throwing questionable aftermarket parts at the car and then, without any knowledge or testing equipment, self-certifying that the car still meets federal safety standards.
https://imgur.com/Ju1g1eo
Purely passive, but if they're close enough for it to reflect their glare back at them, it'll do so with devastating accuracy.
Yosemite Sam "BACK OFF" decoration optional.
I don't think this is the solution.
Of course, forbidding tall-mounted headlights would make SUVs a bit more undesirable.
There are a limited selection of aftermarket lights available. I bought LED replacements and aimed them as well as I could. They're about 3ft above the ground (stock height) so there's not much I can do about them shining into other cars. It's the height that makes them bad. If they had positioned them lower it would be much better.
Presumably you know this already but think it's ok because it's unlikely that you will end up in an accident as a result.
https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/categories/headlights/
I hope you chose something from one of the aforementioned companies. The aftermarket clones are just that...poor-quality clones.
Anyway, being able to see wet pavement and puddles is almost irrelevant. Wet road surfaces are good specular surfaces, which means that light from your headlights is bounced away from the car. Dry road surfaces, on the other hand, scatter light in every direction, and as a result, dry roads appear to be better lit than wet roads. However, simple physics dictates that the amount of light hitting a road surface doesn't change just because someone poured a few gallons of water onto the road. The amount of light hitting the road surface is a property intrinsic to the headlamp.
And really, there's way too much emphasis placed on how bright a wet road appears to a driver. Last time I checked, most obstacles (deer, pedestrians, disabled vehicles) were above the road even when the road is wet. The amount of light that is reflected off something above a wet road wouldn't change much whether the road is soaking wet or bone dry. And it's the light that is reflected off an obstacle that's important in perceiving those obstacles (well, that, and the contrast of the obstacle).
[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-headlights-and-windshields-p...
Meanwhile, there are people who think driving with high beams on is safer (I had an Uber, or was it Lyft?, driver who thought so, and I left him a bad review because of it and his unwillingness to turn them off for me). Inspections won't help in that case -- only law enforcement (fines) can. But I'm not sure how much effort police put into that sort of traffic violation, or if it even is a traffic violation (if not, it should be). I'm guessing it's just so much easier to give tickets for failure to stop, or for speeding, than for any of the rest of the annoying and dangerous habits drivers have.
Another thing to do is PSAs. Educate the public.