This is largely poor regulation. The assumption that "more bright = more safe" and the lack of enough real-world testing.

The only other product analogy that comes to mind is "thicker = better" for hiking socks. When they got too thick, they applied too much pressure to the heal and also provided additional moment distance making it far easier to roll an ankle.

Yes, and this poor attitude of "safety" meaning "safe for the driver" extends to all sorts of terrible safety regulations.

41% of vehicle deaths are people not even in a car[1]. Yet car safety regulation is heavily focused on the 59% that are, nothing to regulate the ridiculous gender-affirming hood heights or aftermarket lifts that turn a survivable collision into a deadly collision.

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... Table 1, paragraph above

> Yet all car safety regulation on the 59% that are

I don’t think you meant literally “all”, but one that comes to mind that definitely is intended for pedestrian safety is around requiring that EVs make audible noises when they’re moving at slow speeds (the fake humming as they move forward, and the beeping as they reverse).

Forget about EVs.

Most regular SUVs should be taken off the road.

Look at this example: a dozen kids aligned in a neat row in front of the SUV and the soccer mom drivers can see none of them!

https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/driveway-danger...

Fair point, I edited my comment to reflect it!

However I think your EV examples shows an important attitude about what types of vehicles can be regulated. EVs are fair game for regulation, oversize trucks and SUVs are not. That's an attitude not based on safety, but on societal priorities.

This two-class system extends even beyond safety regulations, into emissions regulations too. Trucks and oversize SUVs get a free-ride out of everybody else in society.

It doesn't help your case when you state inflammatory remarks like "gender-affirming hood heights". This isn't reddit.

The data even points to the fact that, by total vehicles vs vehicles that cause pedestrian deaths, regular passenger cars cause 19.9 pedestrian deaths per 1MM registered vehicles while trucks, as and entire category, cause 19.2 pedestrians deaths per 1MM registered vehicles.

"nothing to regulate" is also an exaggeration. Many states to regulate aftermarket lifts. 6" lifts are typically the maximum legally allowed limit for trucks like the F150. You only see them higher because there is no enforcement of the rule.

> You only see them higher because there is no enforcement of the rule.

Unenforced rules effectively don't exist. Selectively enforced rules are a focal point for discrimination and corruption. I don't think you're making the argument you think you are.

If you are so knowledgeable, then what argument am I making?

Yeah but more bright is more safe ... for me driving around with the light of a thousand suns coming out of the front of my care at night it seems pretty safe, "good luck everybody else".

Blindzone Glare Elimination Method can help address some of this

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/blindzoneglaremi...

It doesn't help at all with head on traffic, but glare via my side mirrors has been reduced greatly since I implemented this.

I was taught to adjust my mirrors so that I would have to shift my head slightly in the direction of the mirror to see the side of my car in the mirror. I didn't realize this approach wasn't the "normal" way!

I do this on long drives, but always have to put it back to normal when it's time to park. It would be neat if cars would implement some sort of automatic switch between this configuration and the straight-back mode when reversing.

Many cars do this. Typically they point the mirrors in and down when the car is set into reverse, so you can see the curb.

Same in europe, since a few years.

It should be illegal, but there you are.

There is the possibility (as said by an apologetic driver) that it sometimes may be a badly functioning automation ("Too high? Oh but it's automatic").

> Same in europe, since a few years.

Yeah, since they started to introduce super duper led headlights and 144 Hz animations on turn signals it's been more and more blinding to drive at night even across the ocean.

The US is worse - an F150s headlights are at eye level if you're sitting in a Corolla. Nothing on European roads is quite as bad.

I don't understand why headlight elevation isn't standardized.

It was. We had sealed beam headlights for a while till we didn’t. There were common rules for aiming and it worked. The lights weren’t all that bright and the styling was not stellar, however.

Actually, it's worse in the US due to our regs.

I wish they would go back to the old headlights from the 70s, they and a slight yellow tint to them and all headlights were at the same level.

Since the late 90s I think, no matter what setting is used, everyone is blinded when by people in back of you and people coming towards you.

If you think this is bad, try walking alongside a small road after dark. Some of the oncoming lights are blinding even from a few blocks away.

Was discussing at home (USA) this same idea that vehicle lights are brighter and drivers are less inclined to be bothered to dip. I rented a car in the UK several years ago which auto-dimmed the beam and was fascinated by the technology which would allow it to differentiate light sources and identify oncoming vehicles.

This feature must be old. My Subaru Forester 2018 has it. What non-US cars have are those new zone dimmable lamps.

Regardless I keep my auto dim off and just down. I don’t usually need the headlamps in high beam mode.

What would be useful is a taller median between both sides on a highway since often the blinding is because of a difference in the direction facing due to the grade of the highway. Facing people who are looking up a hill is awful.

It is true, that many drivers drive with the high beam on. My cabin is frequently illuminated by their lamps. My lamps never illuminate the cabin of a car I follow by comparison. This strange asymmetry does annoy me and I am certain I’m in the right but it’s usually resolvable by allowing them to pass.

If you are using low-beams and driving more than about 45 mph, you can hit something (or someone) before you had time to see it (or them). Granted, that doesn't matter if you're following someone else, since they'll hit it first. Which is why you need high-beams on when there isn't someone else around to light up the distant part of the road for you--and which depends on how often you drive remote roads.

If my comment was interpreted as some advocacy for the removal of high-beams, please allow me to correct the record: I think they're a good feature to have.

> resolvable by allowing them to pass

How do they ever find out that they're wrong if you don't turn your highbeams on after they pass?

This has been available in the US for a long time. I had it on the car I bought in 2016, and on another I bought in 2023. It's just not mandatory, so it usually comes as a part of some safety / driver assistance package. And even if you have it, you need to enable it.

A looooooong time! :)

https://www.underhoodservice.com/gms-autronic-eye-1952/

I think most if not all US cars do this now. My current one doesn't even have a way to keep the brights on permanently. Now to wait 8 or so years for all the old ones to cycle out :(.

Double that. I think the average lifespan of a car in the US is ~16 years.

This is so much worse now that crossovers are the default car in the US. I seem to be the last person in America driving a car that isn't a tank and have never understood why everyone loves those massive machines so much.

I also complain about this but it’s obviously not ever going to change.

I always have blue blockers (yellow and also dark orange lenses) in my car and wearing them totally prevents pain and fatigue for my eyes.

I heard in Germany when a vehicle is being inspected (yearly?) the headlights' angles are checked to not be beaming into oncoming traffic. Feels like useful regulation to include in every country.

I have blue eyes, it hurts to drive at night.

I have brown eyes, still hurts to drive at night. Canadian situation is just as bad as our neighbours down south. Now I long for the days of being blinded by yellow headlamps again.

And to make it worse, there are so many large vans and pickup trucks (empty too) speeding, that also have very bright and eye level cornea melting LED lights.

The worst offenders are people buying aftermarket extra bright headlights, then incorrectly installing them at an angle that blinds oncoming traffic.

For a long time it was aftermarket HID kits. Installing those was a bit of a pain because of the separate ballasts and associated wiring. They were blinding because the projectors required a cut off and most were installed in halogen housings.

Now most people are installing aftermarket LED kits. For the most part those are less blinding. I upgraded our old Impreza with some but chose the lowest lumen numbers I could find and they are also engineered to emit light in the same locations and angles that the halogen ones did. I did some tests with the garage door and standing in front of it where a car would be and it's non-blinding for oncoming traffic.

EU folks: are ADBs the panacea that all these articles always make them out to be? I’ve seen mixed reports.

They can be pretty shitty if you're a pedestrian or cyclist, because quite a lot of them don't "see" you, so you just get blinded by the full beams.

As someone who has retrofitted headlights with proper HID projectors, deal with RHD to LHD conversions, on some vehicles you can make your headlights look absolutely amazing, with no glare or harm to oncoming traffic. Some of these OEM headlight designs are atrocious. 2015ish F250's are some of the worst headlights when it comes to this.

What really pisses me off? LED bulbs only available in 6000k or higher. I had to import some Osram H4 bulbs from the netherlands because they are a warmer factory 3000K temperature. We really need regulation on glare, because right now it's the wild west.

I've heard of people around my parts sneaking around at night with black masks, taking baseball bats to specific headlights on trucks late at night. Apocryphal or no, stories like that are being cheered by regular people.

The federal government took upon itself responsibility for things like this, because it's impractical at best for cities or states to regulate these. It's too bad that politics and bloat has made governance of this particular issue more or less impossible. Self regulation is obviously a joke, the standard suite of choices mean the default options for consumers are obnoxious as hell.

It'll have to become a big enough issue to warrant attention and action by the President, either this one or whoever comes next, or nothing will ever be done.

Maybe a convention of states that runs all current politicians, judges, and bureaucrats out of their jobs (in a sane, phased way) and establishes term limits and bans on careerism and bloat. Citizens can bypass the feds and kick their asses to the curb - imagine a total reset, in which we put forth competent, responsible people.

This problem will never be fixed. Gonna have to wear adaptive sunglasses at night for driving.

Tesla is a big part of this. They ship their headlights misaligned from the factory, so they point right into the drivers eyes. Tesla has no quality culture at all. A bunch of wankers.

I think the gigantic prevalence of huge or lifted trucks is a bigger influence, especially given the tendency to mod them out (poorly) with aftermarket lights.

Truck headlights are already on a level with sedan drivers' eyes. There are far more F-150s on the road than there are Teslas.

Not only is this NOT the case, but all Tesla vehicles since something like 2021 have included matrix lights. They have adaptive beams to automatically darken sections of the headlight beam to avoid blinding other drivers.

I'm sure they don't. The law requires a 10 degree downward angle for directed headlights out of the factory. It would never pass NHTSA testing without it. High beams are a different matter: They are designed to scatter in a wide arc, but people shouldn't be using them when there's opposing traffic.

YES! Tesla account for the majority blinding headlights in my area. The rest is idiot drivers who just drive with their high beams on.

While all automakers are incentivized to make driving in the competition's vehicles as hellish as possible, Tesla is doubly so. The worse it gets to drive, the more likely people are to want self-driving.

No they don't.

I like having bright LED headlights, however I also made sure my headlights are correctly aimed and that my auto-leveling is working correctly. My car also auto-dims high beams and has ADB/turning lights. So, in short, I understand why people like bright lights and I'm also conscientious so my vehicle is not the problem.

I drive a normal height hatchback. I live in Texas. The /vast/ majority of vehicles on the road are trucks and SUVs, and many of them have aftermarket lift kits which further exacerbates the problem. The main problem is vehicle height and improperly aimed headlights. There's no real enforcement or regulation for headlight aiming, and worse we have no effective vehicle height restrictions. Not only do these insecure little men blind you at night, their cattle guard/reinforced bumper mounted to the frame will decapitate you if they hit you because of the bumper height difference from the 6+ inch Chinese lift kit they added to their truck to stroke their ego and allow them to "bully" drivers on the road by intentionally tailgating and driving aggressively in their oversized vehicle.

The problem is epidemic in America, and it's a problem of both regulation and culture. As long as the typical American driver is somebody who enters the road ignorant of basic driving dynamics, with a selfish attitude, inattentively barreling down the road in their massive fuck-off symbol of insecurity, we are not going to fix this.

This is a pet peeve of mine, so when a headlight went out a few weeks ago I asked my mechanic about bulb options. He said he had no other choices for me, so now I am part of the problem too.

Seems like a classic Tragedy of the Commons situation / use case for regulation....

There are already regulations forbidding the use of unapproved LED retrofits in housings designed for incandescent bulbs in most countries. The fact that your mechanic gets away with installing them, and you get away with driving your now-illegal car shows how well they are enforced.

Unless your car's design is particularly evil (a real possibility), changing a headlight bulb is usually easy to do yourself, and approved, incandescent headlight bulbs are easy to source most places.

There are LED replacement bulbs that mimic the light emitting pattern of halogen and also are not massively bright. Those are fine and cops are not going after people with that kind of thing.