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Headlights, full beams and LEDs
lordromford
Posts: 7,945
I don’t know if this is a common perception, but it seems to me like in the last few years, when driving at night, I’m increasingly getting blinded by oncoming headlights. I live in Gloucestershire where there are quite a few unlit roads, so full beams are used quite frequently by many drivers, but so often now, as I dip my lights after seeing a car coming, the oncoming car doesn’t dip their lights and I end up not being able to see. It’s starting to get on my tits.
Is this an increasingly common issue? Is this just LED lights being overly bright? Or are people just not being considerate of other drivers and not dipping their lights? Or is this just me? Maybe everyone else is fine with it?
I don’t know, therefore I’ve gone where all questions can be answered: Charltonlife. 😎
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Comments
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Its a bit of both. Lights are brighter but people are generally less bright.
Helps if you've got a clean windscreen (and glasses) but car lights ARE definitely brighter than they used to be, and frequently poorly aimed.
Don't get me started on Mercedes brake lights - dazzling while the driver stays on the foot brake at traffic lights in the dark1 -
It's the new LED lights. Personally I think they should be banned. especially on suv type vehicles as they are near to the same height as drivers eyes in smaller cars. Doubt it will happen as too many cars have them now.
Plus a lot of new cars have automatic dim switches when on full beam for the lazy drivers which when going round corners are too late to turn them down before blinding the driver on the opposite side of road.11 -
Government are supposed to be starting an enquiry into them due to complaints of being too bright5
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I'm afraid if you can't see where you are going on dipped beam you should not be driving, not aimed at anyone personally, just the way I find things...🤷♂️2
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Recently got a pair of night driving glasses and they seem to work in reducing the glare.4
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We've done this before. STOP LOOKING AT BRIGHT LIGHTS YOU ARE NOT RABBITS!
There is nothing wrong with LED lights, it's just that they are white rather than yellow.
The concept of banning them is laughable, they are a great safety feature.
BTW, I have a SUV type vehicle. It has LED lights. They are full matrix and are on main beam all the time. Except they automatically turn to low beam if there are street lights and automatically blank out portions of their beam configuration if they sense on-coming traffic. The advantage of this is that the nearside kerb stays brightly lit while the on-coming lane is dimmed out.
Just don't stare at them and you will be fine.15 -
I have a theory that it's our increased exposure to screens/mobile phones that is somehow making it difficult for our eyes and brains to adjust to bright lights.3
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Eye focus/reaction slows down the older you get. When young eye will adjust super quick to bright light, when older can take several seconds. Just look down to the kerb and take 10mph or so off your speed.LED are brighter, by quite some way. Quite a few are misaligned as well , this does not help.1
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Just had my car fitted with LED lights from adi.tv. A team in Preston puts ads on them and turn the brightness level to 11. No way am I stopping… so far I’ve made a bundle!!!10
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Automatically not quickly enough? Could be one source of the problem then for everyone else.cafcfan said:We've done this before. STOP LOOKING AT BRIGHT LIGHTS YOU ARE NOT RABBITS!
There is nothing wrong with LED lights, it's just that they are white rather than yellow.
The concept of banning them is laughable, they are a great safety feature.
BTW, I have a SUV type vehicle. It has LED lights. They are full matrix and are on main beam all the time. Except they automatically turn to low beam if there are street lights and automatically blank out portions of their beam configuration if they sense on-coming traffic. The advantage of this is that the nearside kerb stays brightly lit while the on-coming lane is dimmed out.
Just don't stare at them and you will be fine.
I have driven for 40+ years and increasingly unhappy driving at night owing to being dazzled. But other than moan on here or flash-by-dipping my lights at the offending vehicle if the chance arises, and they will very likely not understand what i am signalling, nothing i can do. I hope the government inquiry mentioned above makes progress.11 -
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It's not just you, Lord Romford, it's a very real problem.
TRL research reveals causes of glare from vehicle lights | RAC Drive https://share.google/XoRSM46PhOiDFZGvD3 -
I've checked. They react in a fraction of a second and "shadow" other vehicles. (Whether in the same lane or on-coming). In that regard, they are much more efficient than old-style lights. I'm never less than impressed with how good they are.swords_alive said:
Automatically not quickly enough? Could be one source of the problem then for everyone else.cafcfan said:We've done this before. STOP LOOKING AT BRIGHT LIGHTS YOU ARE NOT RABBITS!
There is nothing wrong with LED lights, it's just that they are white rather than yellow.
The concept of banning them is laughable, they are a great safety feature.
BTW, I have a SUV type vehicle. It has LED lights. They are full matrix and are on main beam all the time. Except they automatically turn to low beam if there are street lights and automatically blank out portions of their beam configuration if they sense on-coming traffic. The advantage of this is that the nearside kerb stays brightly lit while the on-coming lane is dimmed out.
Just don't stare at them and you will be fine.
I have driven for 40+ years and increasingly unhappy driving at night owing to being dazzled. But other than moan on here or flash-by-dipping my lights at the offending vehicle if the chance arises, and they will very likely not understand what i am signalling, nothing i can do. I hope the government inquiry mentioned above makes progress.
To be clear we are talking the full matrix lights here - not the ones that still need driver input.
For the record, I've been driving for 56 years. Is night-time driving more onerous? Yes but I think that's more to do with small developing cataracts that tend to scatter light a bit and will need dealing with at some stage - just not yet according to the opticians. Probably, also that modern cars have the capability to make much faster progress than my Ford 307E van managed.0 -
cafcfan said:We've done this before. STOP LOOKING AT BRIGHT LIGHTS YOU ARE NOT RABBITS!
There is nothing wrong with LED lights, it's just that they are white rather than yellow.
The concept of banning them is laughable, they are a great safety feature.
BTW, I have a SUV type vehicle. It has LED lights. They are full matrix and are on main beam all the time. Except they automatically turn to low beam if there are street lights and automatically blank out portions of their beam configuration if they sense on-coming traffic. The advantage of this is that the nearside kerb stays brightly lit while the on-coming lane is dimmed out.
Just don't stare at them and you will be fine.
😂To be clear, I’m not looking at the lights, I’m trying to look at the road, but I’m unable to because the glare makes it impossible. I’m sure you/your car is not the problem, but some drivers/cars are.3 -
I sat in a queue yesterday and the brake lights of the car in front were far too bright. I was actually glad to let a car out of a side turning, so I didn't have to follow the other car.
There was a big feature on too bright LED lights on BBC Breakfast. I hope the enquiry acts quickly because far too many cars are fitted with these dazzling lights. Of course you shouldn't look directly at the lights of oncoming vehicles, but they still dazzle you.3 -
While I absolutely agree about the dazzling lights these days coming from vehicles, hopefully the government look into the brightness of the west stand advertising boards too.
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Cheers. Hadn’t seen that thread. 👍🏼MOBY DUCK said:0 -
Another issue is that at night, with lights on then brakes go on, you can barely see indicators, so you don't know where the car is going. I have raised the issue with Minister of Transport who assured me that all is fine, but I imagine that tests are done on cars with lights individually, not all at once.0
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There might be another reason to re-think headlights. A replacement xenon bulb for the earlier version of my car is £97. The LED unit is £1750.....
(Any connection between this price differential, the number of "pre-owned" LED units available on a certain on-line platform for £650 and the number of owners reporting that the front-end of their cars have been stolen is, of course, entirely coincidental.)1 -
So, just to be clear, is it you going round blinding everyone in your SUV with full beam LEDs on the whole time, relying on the car itself to turn them down a bit?cafcfan said:We've done this before. STOP LOOKING AT BRIGHT LIGHTS YOU ARE NOT RABBITS!
There is nothing wrong with LED lights, it's just that they are white rather than yellow.
The concept of banning them is laughable, they are a great safety feature.
BTW, I have a SUV type vehicle. It has LED lights. They are full matrix and are on main beam all the time. Except they automatically turn to low beam if there are street lights and automatically blank out portions of their beam configuration if they sense on-coming traffic. The advantage of this is that the nearside kerb stays brightly lit while the on-coming lane is dimmed out.
Just don't stare at them and you will be fine.8 -
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Doesn't help that not all cars have automatic dipping with their headlights... I have to manually use a scroll wheel (I've got a 2019 Tucson) to the right of my steering wheel to adjust the four height levels of the headlights, and doing it whilst driving in the dark, you can see a massive difference between the lowest setting, and the highest.
Suspect many with the same sort of manual setting, either just leave it on the highest option, or just aren't aware of it as a feature... To be honest even I stumbled across it, when playing around with the features one day.
Don't get me started on Full Beams either, especially when people don't have the sense to turn them off when a car is coming in the opposite direction - Got blinded by plenty of idiots in the Lake District last month, who I suspect are the type who arent experienced driving A-Roads with poor road markings in places... Driving a bit slower is always an option in those cases, not that those idiots realise!!0 -
Also the Sun. That definitely needs to be included in the enquiry. I stared at it the other day and it's far too bright. Something needs to be done.O-Randy-Hunt said:While I absolutely agree about the dazzling lights these days coming from vehicles, hopefully the government look into the brightness of the west stand advertising boards too.
But it's not just here it's a problem.
I was on holiday in Spain last week and they have the same problem, so it's not even anything to do with Brexit.11 -
Just a thought FA, isn’t that “little wheel” as you described it an adjustment to do with the load of the vehicle and the number of people in it at the time…🤔ForeverAddickted said:Doesn't help that not all cars have automatic dipping with their headlights... I have to manually use a scroll wheel (I've got a 2019 Tucson) to the right of my steering wheel to adjust the four height levels of the headlights, and doing it whilst driving in the dark, you can see a massive difference between the lowest setting, and the highest.
Suspect many with the same sort of manual setting, either just leave it on the highest option, or just aren't aware of it as a feature... To be honest even I stumbled across it, when playing around with the features one day.
Don't get me started on Full Beams either, especially when people don't have the sense to turn them off when a car is coming in the opposite direction - Got blinded by plenty of idiots in the Lake District last month, who I suspect are the type who arent experienced driving A-Roads with poor road markings in places... Driving a bit slower is always an option in those cases, not that those idiots realise!!6 -
Yes it is, but with all the hi-tech in new cars, surely it wouldn't be beyond the manufacturer to make that adjustment automatic too?eastterrace6168 said:
Just a thought FA, isn’t that “little wheel” as you described it an adjustment to do with the load of the vehicle and the number of people in it at the time…🤔ForeverAddickted said:Doesn't help that not all cars have automatic dipping with their headlights... I have to manually use a scroll wheel (I've got a 2019 Tucson) to the right of my steering wheel to adjust the four height levels of the headlights, and doing it whilst driving in the dark, you can see a massive difference between the lowest setting, and the highest.
Suspect many with the same sort of manual setting, either just leave it on the highest option, or just aren't aware of it as a feature... To be honest even I stumbled across it, when playing around with the features one day.
Don't get me started on Full Beams either, especially when people don't have the sense to turn them off when a car is coming in the opposite direction - Got blinded by plenty of idiots in the Lake District last month, who I suspect are the type who arent experienced driving A-Roads with poor road markings in places... Driving a bit slower is always an option in those cases, not that those idiots realise!!
(It might be that some do already, of course?)2 -
Probably due to those headlights.lordromford said:
Cheers. Hadn’t seen that thread. 👍🏼MOBY DUCK said:4 -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn971jlpvvro
A recent article above.
An additional irritant for me is drivers who have their fog lights on permanently.4 -
Also those who don't use lights at all in fog, there were many of those around yesterday.captainbob said:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn971jlpvvro
A recent article above.
An additional irritant for me is drivers who have their fog lights on permanently.0 -
Fog lights
Full Beam
My Partridge Bingo card is off to a great start5 -
Last year a professor on LBC whose expertise on eyes stated that it takes about 2.5 seconds for anyone over 60 for their eyes to "reset" after vehicles with their lights too bright. Younger people its less than half a second.
As one of the older generation i suffer some of the same consequences as posters have already stated. I try not to drive at night particularly at rush hour times as the constant stream of lights now makes it difficult to see clearly, hence i slow down which annoys others who think they own the road.2 -
bring back the good old oil lamp.O-Randy-Hunt said:While I absolutely agree about the dazzling lights these days coming from vehicles, hopefully the government look into the brightness of the west stand advertising boards too.2
