Brightness isn’t the issue, it’s aiming that light. With auto-leveling and properly aimed headlights it’s far less of an issue - add on matrix headlights and it’s almost a nonissue.
I have been stuck behind and in front of Rivian headlights. Still a HUGE safety issue. Driving blind isn't ok. Granted their vehicles aren't as bad as US brands, but still a wtf issue.
Note the changes are only on the refreshed R1S which only launched in the middle of last year, the vast majority of rivians on the road have a traditional headlight
Aiming will do nothing for HD trucks, looking at you [F250](https://hips.hearstapps.com/autoweek/assets/s3fs-public/17fordf250lariat_3237_hr.jpg) and Silverado. Glare is such a bigger issue. You can align headlights properly and still glare the hell out of people.
I've retrofitted HID projectors in headlights and know a little bit about their design and function, bad headlight design is the problem, only made worse by brightness, and then finally alignment.
And then don't get me started on auto high beam, my 2021 Accord loved to blind people all the time, and it was a pain in the ass to turn that off.
I'm curious about the Accord comment. I just leave my lights on auto and I believe I just pull the stalk towards me to completely turn off the auto-high beams. I don't have to manage it afterwards since it stays like that until I physically move it back into position. Was that what you did?
The F250 in your picture actually had an issue where the DRLs wouldn’t turn off when the headlights are turned on. The DRLs are just the high beams stepped down to a lower voltage, so they are aimed directly in everyone’s eyes and blinding at night. There was a recall to fix this, but I’d guess that a huge percentage of trucks on the road have never had that recall work completed.
To add onto this, the current f150 lightning has matrix headlights (for canada - but you can enable it yourself in the US) and a proper DRL implementation, and it has no issues
God dam those are the worst. I hate when one pulls up behind me in the A5, it's like the sun is up my ass.
People are starting to notice headlights being bright because of all these suv/cuv's.
Aiming is definitely the issue. I have a 95 Nissan hardbody and it has glass bulb square halogen lights, I have zero visibility issues at night. I drove it for close to 5 years working nights. No issues.
It took Washington 30 years to approve halogen lights. It will probably be decades before they let is have matrix lights. It’s absolutely insane how bad the Federal government is in regard to headlight technology.
I really wish they’d just add a blanket clause that if a car can be legally sold in the EU, it can be sold here. Their safety and environmental regs are, for the most part, actually tougher than ours, they’re just less fossilized when it comes to new tech.
The NHSTA (american) regulations for matrix headlights actually require them to respond quicker than the current EU standards. The US is stricter in this case
The 4C is also significantly (400lbs) lighter in the EU, american version needs 100lbs of reinforcement on the carbon tub and several airbags. It has a low-volume exception in europe for some of this.
Eu regulations are for the most part tougher, but i’m not sure if a blanket law would be the best idea.
They approved matrix lights already, but because they didn’t update brightness all the ones that can do it aren’t allowed 🙃🙃🙃 I think maybe Tesla got their system approved but otherwise nobody
> It’s absolutely insane how bad the Federal government is in regard to headlight technology.
Maybe it's because the people making the spares are lobbying against change.
My Rivian has matrix lights today. US regulations still ensure we can’t have the best versions, but it’s way better than old high/low beams. It’s neat to watch the lights slice out little notches for oncoming cars.
Sadly it’s now the wild Wild West for headlights in the US. We are flooded with aftermarket Chinese headlight housings and every “overlander” has to have ultra bright yellow fogs and ditch lights to crawl the streets of suburbia.
Not just headlight. Tail light changes are painfully slow too. How long has Europe had emergency braking lights where they strobe under heavy breaking? 15 years? By the time we get them, people aren't going to recognize it because of those moronic 3rd brake light flashers that are being installed and no one is taking any steps to get them to stop.
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> Brightness isn’t the issue, it’s aiming that light
It’s peak Reddit how this asinine point shows up as the topic comment every time this topic comes up.
If you only ever drive in a straight line on flat surfaces then you would have a point. Here in the real world that’s never the case so you do not have a point, shill
Proper adaptive high beams, like the matrix lighting in higher end european cars as well as the current rivian, aim around corners, auto level for hills & bumps, and cut around traffic.
Aiming isn’t just limited to a straight line - though even just properly leveling your headlamp helps quite a bit.
I recommend watching some videos on european polestar/audi/tesla etc models with adaptive headlights. It’s very impressive tech
> I drive my mercedes in the real world around mountain roads with high beams up
You are an awful person and the exact cliche of a typical Redditor
*AKSHUALLY studies show that according to the experts the data suggests*
I’ve driven against those lights. They are not magic. They do not bend light in mid air to miss the eyes of other drivers who are coming at them from anything but straight ahead and level. They will turn off for one approaching vehicle and blind another two seconds later
Just turn off your fucking highbeams. You’re not special. You don’t need special lighting. People drove just fine for a fucking century without LED spotlights. Grow up.
I’m not sure if you’re tried the same lights. Drive head on towards a refreshed rivian and that is exactly how the lights work. Some of the older models are slow to respond, but the US regulations call for much quicker response.
The biggest issue to me is that even if truck and SUV headlights are aimed or aligned properly they’re essentially straight into any compact or subcompacts eye level
I 100% disagree, it is a brightness issue. Namely Lumens/sq. in., in addition to that, color temperature.
Blue lights and a similar brightness to warm lights hurt my eyes way more.
The have gotten ADB approved for the high beam but one thing they're still missing like they have in Europe is different AFS modes/bram patterns for the low beam. Currently in the US you csn only have one beam pattern and cant change it to different patterns for different scenarios for example city driving compared to country side driving.
Just got a car with Matrixed headlights and it’s an absolute game changer…..
In Australia, where Kangaroos are a constant threat, it’s so nice to be able to see the side of the road where they sit even while dimming the area where the oncoming car is.
Brilliant
It seems like the manufactures, even with the less fancy headlights aren’t leveling them very well. They are leaving them way too high. I can be on level ground, and the top of my light beam will be at the top of a first story window. That’s like 7.5 feet tall. They should be much lower than that.
The aiming is moot when you live in a hilly area and properly aimed headlights are either aiming up into oncoming traffic or 20' into the asphalt depending which side of the hill you're on. If you're on the low side of a hill you're getting hit by everyone's low beams regardless, but LED brightness is far more dazzling than halogens. I haven't seen any headlight technology that can account for terrain in real time. Even the auto brights aren't fast enough at detecting cars over hills or around curves.
Not sure about you but I've been blinded more recently by halogens than proper projectors lol. Not sure if they aim it too high but it's like watching a burning sun staring at you.
Part of the issue are the huge trucks, especially lifted trucks. If you're driving a normal car and any newish pickup is behind you, its headlights are right at the level of your back window.
Finally, someone says it. Everyone is always talking about brightness, but that's not as much of an issue as poorly aimed lights. I've been blinded by halogens here and there, and the vast majority of blinding lights are ones that are aimed too high. Brightness is still an issue, but headlight aiming is far, far more dangerous here.
I live in EU, i find the Matrix lights to be almost as blinding as juste full headlights
LEDs also blinds the f out if you once the autoleveling system breaks
The problem with a LOT of matrix and auto dipping lights is that they’re just too damned slow in reacting. People are already blinded and flashing their lights at you before they kick in.
There are probably some brands that do it better than others, but I’ve tried quite a few and they’re all slow
> Acura low beams aren’t particularly bright, but they’re horribly aimed and blind everyone on the road. “within spec for america” my dealer said. Had them aimed properly and it’s fine now.
Same. Bought a new Acura and got flashed hi beams all the time. Adjusted them down a bit and now it basically never happens, and I can still see fine.
I don't think so. My US Mk8 GTI has an almost completely flat headlight cut-off, whereas the Euro spec headlights have the step up on the right for road signs.
The euro beam pattern for dipped headlights does just that, flat beam on the left to not blind oncoming traffic but raising on the right to illuminate traffic signs. I *think* the SAE requirements are just a flat beam.
https://www.hella.com/techworld/assets/images/10021783a.jpg
Any light illuminates upwards otherwise you wouldn't see it when you are standing in front of the car. But it requires very little light to make road signs visible.
Over in Europe (or at least parts of it with more stringent regulations) the lights get checked at every roadworthiness inspection including their aim and wether they've been modified. Slapping temu LEDs in your car is a no no. That being said, there are legal retrofit LEDs available but in order to be legal, they have to be tested and approved for every car/headlamp they can be put in so they're not universal but limited to a list of approved applications.
Automakers don't have ADB in the US because the regulations are very difficult to be compliant with. Rivian has ADB in the US so they probably don't understand the regulations.
Yep, BMW codes out their AntiDazzle feature for cars here in the states because of the laws here. We can go back and code them back in but it can be a pain.
I actually just bought a pair of night driving glasses. It is yellow tinted and has blue light filter and polarized. Everyone driving around in bright blue headlight blind the crap out of me. I’m hoping this helps
How has this worked out for you when night driving? I'm considering getting a prescription pair but am worried about the night time driving aspect when it's mostly dark, and not being able to see as much compared to regular glasses.
It’s not necessarily how bright…xenon’s were distracting because of the color; my brain tracks them even if my eyes aren’t. LEDs are def too bright. I don’t see the safety if headlights are their own distractive hazards.
Agree with others that matrix headlights are ONE solutuon.
Theres two issues here aiming and Luminance (light output per unit area). If cars had bigger headlights or were allowed to have more they can be much brighter without being blinding.
I stopped caring, people lift their trucks, space out their wheels so rocks fly at your car, tint windows even windshields now. Old ass cars with F off led aimed who knows where, no lights at night or super slow camping in middle lanes etc. it’s whatever, I wear sunglasses pretty much always. Cops don’t enforce anything anymore so I’m not gonna loose sleep. But yeah take your pick it’s one of hundreds of problems that aren’t going away.
F-series trucks are by far the worst offenders I've ever experienced. In a car I'm absolutely blinded if one if behind me or driving the opposite direction towards me. Looks like 4 separate headlights with high beams on.
For a while there I could identify a new Toyota Corolla from almost a mile away if I was driving at night. It was/is god awful.
I think part of the issue is that for some reason they're trying to make headlights smaller and smaller so they compensate by making them brighter and brighter until the glare is too much.
I turned my matrix/lasers on. I also have much brighter lights than Model Ys and have a 90% success rate of blinding them back to make them turn it off. Doing my part.
I’d rather them behind me than in front of me while waiting to turn left at an intersection.
Add on some mild astigmatism and you got yourself some non functional retinas
My 16 Miata has auto brights and they genuinely do suck ass. I have tried to use them exactly once - they would take like 5 seconds to react to turn the brights on and off, and at a certain point it basically gave up and wouldn't turn the brights off at all anymore. After feeling like a dick while blinding cars for like 10 minutes, that feature has not been turned on in 6 years.
F the Ford trucks with the quad low beam lights. Stupid truck douches put in LEDs/hids and blind everyone because the owner of the truck is most likely slightly mentally handicapped. Shine them back and they get all pissy
I've actually started trying to force this conversation in the southeastern u.s. where the vehicle regulations are more of a suggestion unless you drive a cmv(lorry) I've attached $300 worth of extra, bolt on, non sculpted/aimed 3,000 lumen led lighting that I keep on driving at night with mixed results after trying to contact and work with senators in my state, talking to law enforcement agencies in different areas, even called the governor's office. Most of the responses I got were pandering at best and straight up we don't care at worst. So I decided to do this the brute force way since no one wants to do anything. My hope is by driving around with lighting so bright that I can see 30 ft side to side and a half mile straight ahead as well as 10 ft above my car that eventually enough people will complain that law enforcement will start the ball moving.
It’s not the brightness, it’s the diffusion of the light. There basically isn’t any, anymore, it’s just sharp, crystal clear lighting being shot directly into your eyeballs.
Agreed. Your eyes are more sensitive to light at the blue end of the spectrum, so white LED headlights have a much greater dazzling effect than warm halogen lights. A machine would detect the same amount of lumens, though, so the white LED headlights are no brighter than halogens as far as regulators are concerned.
The aim on cheap new LEDs is just horrible.
I have a Lexus with glass lens HID projectors, but there's a position sensor that causes the housings to gimbal downwards with actuators when going up a hill so as not to blind other drivers. They also have a sharp cutoff.
Car manufacturers have cheaped out with LED headlights. Cheap plastic lenses, fixed focus, no tech to lower them out of other drivers' eyes - that costs money!
Sharp cutoffs often fail to illuminate signs properly and others have too narrow of a light pattern, which is an issue for ditches and other roadside items on rural roadways.
Having driven with sharp cutoffs for the last 8 years or so... no? I've had no problem with any of this and I lived in rural fuckall New England up until a couple years ago.
Depends I guess. I retrofitted projectors in my car and the illumination is very wide with the straight cutoff. I could easily illuminate the other lane lol. Pretty funny on empty dark highways when I overtake a car. But my cutoff isn't that high so I never got issues which I have tested by driving a car in front of mine while it's being driven by a friend. The cutoff is around the trunk/slightly above the trunk of a sedan
I agree with this, however even well adjusted headlights can be momentarily blinding when you drive on a bumpy road or if you come across a vehicle cresting a hill, as your eyes are below the cutoff line.
My 2018 Mazda 6 I think has done it right. Leds shift in turns and high beam turns off driver side high beam with oncoming traffic. While our 2020 cx5 has auto high beam for on coming traffic, the light pattern isn't as wide and doesn't have the turning tech.
I've driven without headlights before and I think we don't understand our night time adapted eyes. I can see better farther without headlights. As soon as oncoming traffic, you lose night adapted eyesight.
My Audi has some laser technology.
They’re on high beams 24/7 and when a car drives by me, the lights like go around the car.
I cannot describe it, I’ll post a video lol
I want to see these experts drive **a car** with no tinted windows on a road with some new tundras, tesla whY's, and of course some LED'd bro-dozers at night.
And test their eyes for being functionally blind in the dark.
From your flair I know you know how bad it is. When I'm stopped in traffic I literally have to fold my side mirrors in to prevent being blinded by pickups and SUVs. One day I'll get a ticket over it I bet.
I’m in EU and all new cars are blinding! I recently drove a X3 (so not a low car) (not my car) at night off the highway and couldn’t see my side of the road 90% of the time. If someone was on the road without reflective gear, I would hit them 100%. I could only see maybe 1 meter of white line on the outside of my lane. I praise the gods when an old car with regular yellow lights appears. I decided then to not drive at night anymore if it can be avoided. It’s tiring and dangerous. If you can, try to leave early morning, the roads are empty and relaxing.
I really only have an issue with these cheap, big, reflector housings for leds that more manufacturers seem to be using nowadays. When xenon’s were the premium headlights, it came from a projector, so glare was much less an issue.
There is also the issue of some people lifted trucks with modified headlights aimed to illuminate the ISS.
> There is also the issue of some people’s lifted trucks with modified headlights aimed to illuminate the ISS.
From stock, most (definitely at least Ford) trucks are set to the highest legal setting. When you lift your truck, it's now pointing super high. There is absolutely no incentive for the driver to aim headlights down and not blind the person in front of them, so nobody does.
To say nothing of 90% of the problem: cheap Amazon LEDs retrofitted to halogen reflector housings.
See for me, the stock trucks are worse usually... the lifted trucks lights go over me, stock they're like right at my eye level.
Jeep Wranglers are the bane of my existence though. Those fucking ancient headlights are like flood lights, and the angy Jeep grille that cuts off the very top of the housing doesn't help much.
Change the night laws so headlights are not 4 feet in the air also hood height max shouldn’t have to be 6 ft tall to be seen over the hood of a suburban or f150 etc
I purposefully and deliberately aim my bike's high beams to enter your rearview mirror. I use them only on the highway. If you're getting blinded, its because you're doing under 75 in the leftmost lane and that's just not acceptable.
1. We need to fix how lights are tested/approved by NTHSA (https://youtu.be/MkwjMV2of\_8?t=697) When they say US brightness is lower blah blah....its because our testing sucks and manufacturers are cheating!
2. We need enforceable laws around light standards that can be enforced on the roads. In europe you can get pulled over driving with high beams/no lights or misaligned lights, field tested and fined.
3. We need standards around headlight height as well as brightness. Trucks and SUVs are getting bigger and bigger and their headlights are moving higher and higher. The current standard is that the beam has to be at a certain height a certain feet away from target, but it does not take into accound the angle the light is traveling. So yeah the SUV can pass todays regulation and also bling the shit out every car its following on the road along with bliding the entire road any time it hits a pebble. We need to set max height limits for headlights.
4. Completely agree with color....You can get the same visibility from a warm white than you can with a bright white
5. Yes we need more overhead lighting on roads, but no its not a solution that will fix the issue.
Reality is that today there is shitty regulation in place, manufacturers are finding loopholes around it, and every manufacturer is in a direct FUCK EVERY OTHER DRVIER competition to make the tallest, heaviest and brightest vehicle they can because its important that you feel safe in their vehicle even at the detriment of everyone else on the road.
This headline is not helpful. The issue is not that headlights are *too bright*. The issue is the angle of the light projection, the beam spread, the height of the lights, and the unreasonable restrictions on active beam forming technologies.
The problem is the pompous NHTSA regulations that were installed in 2022 as a partial “solution” ended up creating new problems, because they decided to create new restrictions and requirements that are unreasonably expensive for car companies to comply with. AND they still have not addressed the other issues of beam height, angle, beam spread, etc. that are extremely outdated in the U.S.
For example, a high ground-clearance truck can have headlights that are angled for when that truck was stock. But the owner went and lifted the truck by an extra 8”, raising up the lights and causing glare for other drivers.
Also cheaply designed halogen reflectors splash light everywhere with very poorly formed beam dispersion patters, causing glare in all kinds of scenarios regardless of how high the lights are. “Economy luxury” cars are notorious for this. eg. Acura, Hyundai, etc.
What we need is **better regulation**, not dimmer lights.
Hear me out - I dislike the need to do checks to renew my registrations, but I would not be made if they require headlights and brake lights to be check for functionality and levels when I’m required to smog my car.
It's a more complex issue than people make it out to be. In large part because we're limited by how long and drawn out the process to change laws is in the U.S. companies are legally limited in the fixes they can implement right now and will be so for the foreseeable future. Also when the legal fixes come they're likely to be terrible and stupid and not actually fix anything (and also likely have a bunch of random stuff tacked onto the bill to break other things)
I understand the desire for brighter headlights that illuminate the road further ahead, I drove a car with terrible headlights (even with clear lenses, new bulbs, and properly adjusted) I can't see far enough ahead to drive a meaningful speed at night. It also makes the brightness of other people's lights more blinding because mine are so bad.
i do a lot of driving at night and one thing i noticed is the yellow headlights are easier on the eyes. why, idk, but the pure white leds they use now really give me a headache.
Headlight aim is the problem. We don't get those massive trucks here in Europe, but we have a fuck ton of vans. And every single one is aimed too high.
A ton of other shit needs to change because we even consider changing light output limits. The aftermarket is unregulated, inspections are pathetically lax, and enforcement is non-existent.
It's bad enough that nobody spends the five minutes it takes to adjust headlights but we also have to deal with aftermarket junk. Red LEDs installed in headlights, assholes driving around with light bars lit and LED units installed in halogen housings so bright they're uncomfortable even in broad daylight.
Seriously, it's ridiculous how little is enforced compared to the rest of the world.
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