
How do we stop people from blinding other drivers with aftermarket LEDs? - Tomte
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/03/how-do-we-stop-people-blinding-other-drivers-with-aftermarket-leds/
======
auiya
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.

~~~
leetcrew
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.

~~~
wffurr
>> just prohibiting high ride heights altogether (probably a non-starter)

Why not? Because some people will get very upset? Fuck 'em. They're literally
killing people.

~~~
leetcrew
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.

------
ntsplnkv2
This is a major problem for me.

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.

~~~
leggomylibro
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.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
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.

~~~
behringer
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.

~~~
leggomylibro
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.

------
soheil
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.

~~~
ollie87
As nearly always - SUVs are the problem.

Smaller, lower cars don't seem to have the same issues.

~~~
war1025
SUVs are just the worst of all worlds in my opinion. I really don't understand
the appeal of them.

~~~
magduf
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.

~~~
closeparen
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.

The base cases are more mysterious.

~~~
magduf
Exactly; it's basically an arms race.

------
cryptonector
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.

Another thing to do is PSAs. Educate the public.

~~~
jsjddbbwj
They will dismantle the blinding headlights just to pass inspection

~~~
Gibbon1
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.

------
NikolaeVarius
Actually enforce already existing laws

~~~
lotsofpulp
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.

~~~
magduf
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.

~~~
cgriswald
You also have to have the courts on board. No point in ticketing if the courts
just throw everything out.

~~~
magduf
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.

~~~
cgriswald
Good question, but that has happened here enough that the cops don’t enforce
certain things.

------
colanderman
Brightness isn't the only problem. Those four-LED Porsche bulbs screw with my
vision, making me think I'm seeing double.

Apparently Porsche is proud of this awful design??
[https://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/christophorusmagazi...](https://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/christophorusmagazine/archive/367/articleoverview/article09/)

~~~
r00fus
Are you seeing that Porsche track car on your streets? Doesn't look street-
legal.

~~~
nsxwolf
Similar headlights are used in the current 911, Panamera, etc.

------
myself248
I've been considering a motorized "chrome mudflap", guided by some OpenCV blob
tracking.

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.

~~~
athenot
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.

~~~
matheusmoreira
Awesome. How could the driver deploy such a mirror though?

------
Pawamoy
I even have this problem with bikes. Not motor bikes, just bikes. Some of them
have a front light that just blinds me. I can't determine their speed anymore,
not the direction they're moving in, nor if there is something else between
them and me. Once I even confused someone on their bike with a random street
light, and almost crashed into them, because the angle and speed at which we
were moving made it appear immobile. I often feel like a powerful light is far
more dangerous than no light at all.

------
yetihehe
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.

~~~
war1025
Unfortunately, the response here in America seems to often be, "Fuck you,
buddy. Look at my actual brights"

~~~
rootusrootus
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."

~~~
danaris
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.

------
hoorayimhelping
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.

~~~
derekrosemean
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.

[https://imgur.com/Ju1g1eo](https://imgur.com/Ju1g1eo)

------
Borborygymus
I thought it would be neat to have polarized windscreens, polarized in the
opposite sense to the lights. The majority of the direct light would get cut
out, cutting down dazzle enormously. I figured light reflected off of stuff
would scramble the polarization so you could see the reflected light OK.

I get that it's totally impractical to roll out because of the huge number of
existing vehicles that would need modification, but it's a fun thought. I
don't really know enough about polarization to know if it'd even work?

~~~
Balgair
Polarized filters that large would be very difficult to pull off, especially
on a curved windscreen. To manufacture them, they essentially make a
'concentrated' polarizer of smaller crystals and then physically pull the
substrate to size. Many other ways exist, but your 3-D movie glasses are flat
for a reason. Also, polarizers cut the incoming light by exactly half, so it
acts as a tint, illegal in most states for the front windshield.

------
newprint
Record the license plate and report them to the authorities. There are std for
luminosity for headlights.

~~~
whatevah5982
I'm not sure that's enough. Newer SUV cars have headlights which are stronger
and bluer already coming out of the assembly line.

When 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.

~~~
jbay808
As a civic driver I notice this a lot.

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.

~~~
davidgay
Auto-dimming side-view mirrors now exist (as a package with an auto-dimming
main mirror for Subaru at least).

~~~
brewdad
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.

------
rootusrootus
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.

~~~
creaghpatr
Exactly. Blind a cop, get a ticket. I think drivers would appreciate that
enforcement more than speed traps.

------
foxyv
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.

------
mschuster91
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?

~~~
soheil
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.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
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.

~~~
leggomylibro
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.

------
kempbellt
Install a light bar and flip it on when you encounter these people.

~~~
fludlight
Maybe if you blink the light bar. Maybe.

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.

~~~
kempbellt
>emotionally satisfying...lightly to cause an accident...probably
illegal...socially acceptable

All of these are not my concern.

Being able to see is.

~~~
gshdg
"Likely to cause an accident" is not your concern?

~~~
kempbellt
If someone takes away my ability to see while driving, I become a danger to
others, and those I am responsible for.

My concern is to mitigate this danger.

~~~
gshdg
How does blinding the other driver in retaliation mitigate it?

~~~
Can_Not
It looks better on the insurance claim when I'm not either party to the
accident.

~~~
fludlight
If you get into a head on collision at high speed you'll both be dead.

~~~
timbit42
Wait until the last 2 seconds.

------
driverdan
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.

~~~
jschwartzi
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.

~~~
driverdan
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.

~~~
derekrosemean
There are plenty of good sealed beam LEDs from reputable, American companies
such as JW Speaker, Peterson, and Truck-Lite. Sample catalog below:

[https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/categories/headlights/](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).

------
mattlondon
In the UK, we have an annual vehicle inspection (called the MOT test) for
basic safety things (e.g. are tyres ok, is there too much structural rust, do
all the lights work, are the brakes ok etc). If your vehicle fails, you cannot
drive the car again until it is fixed.

I believe that it is an instant fail if you have aftermarket LED lights if the
vehicle was fitted with halogen originally. Does not stop you just switching
out the bulbs for the tests, but it is certainly will at least catch those who
are unaware.

------
leephillips
What about polarizing the light, and applying a polarization filter with an
axis 90° to that to windscreens and rear windows?

~~~
tylerjwilk00
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.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-headlights-and-
windshields-p...](https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-headlights-and-windshields-
polarized)

------
tomohawk
Headlights aren't nearly the problem that led lights are on police and
emergency vehicles.

The ambulances now have brake lights mounted near the top/rear of the vehicle
that are at least as bright as headlights whenever the brakes are applied.

Police lights are so bright, even trying to avoid looking at them at night
causes temporary blindness.

------
vvillena
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.

------
oxymoran
My wife’s factory low beams On her 2019 gmc Acadia get us flashed non stop.
It’s definitely no just aftermarket.

------
ISL
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.

~~~
magduf
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?

~~~
u801e
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.

~~~
magduf
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.

~~~
u801e
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).

~~~
magduf
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.

~~~
u801e
> 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.

~~~
magduf
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.

------
natch
First, if you are driving and wondering why people are flashing their lights
at you at dusk or at night, check to see whether you have left your own lights
turned off in the dark. Getting people to do that would be the low hanging
fruit here.

------
Neil44
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.

~~~
rootusrootus
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.

------
linuxftw
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.

~~~
cfeduke
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.

------
yters
They mostly blind me from behind as they tailgate, so I flip my rearview
mirror to eliminate glare. Oncoming traffic doesn't bother me as much.

~~~
r00fus
Tailgaters are a monstrosity. I slowly lower my speeds until they overtake me
and go annoy someone else.

~~~
mrexroad
Are you in the right most lane when slowing down?

------
millzlane
Let people tint their windows. Problem solved. My suggestions it to just drive
extremely slow so the person passes by you.

~~~
q845712
What if i'm walking or bicycling? I still don't want to be blinded.

------
every
I have an intraocular lens in each eye. Ill-aimed headlights make it somewhat
like driving into a kaleidoscope at night...

~~~
magduf
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).

------
novok
You create ticket creation points and start raking in the $$$. People will get
the hint soon enough.

------
jacobush
How do we stop cities blinding us with LED street lighting?!

------
CamperBob2
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.

~~~
CamperBob2
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.

------
korethr
This has been a frustration of mine, and increasingly frequently. I get
wanting to see better, but the problem with a lot of these aftermarket kits is
that the really don't improve visibility that much. The problems are twofold:

Fist, beam pattern, housing alignment, and lens clarity are _important_. If
you throw HIDs or LEDs into a reflector housing designed for halogens, you'll
end up casting a bunch of light upward, high enough to be useless for long-
distance road visibility at highway speeds at night. Yeah, you'll see those
reflective highway signs lighting right up all right, at a distance way too
far for you to even read what's on them. And if your headlamp lenses are dirty
or hazed over, you could have the luminous output of the sun in each housing,
and you'll still only get a slight improvement in visibility for all the
diffusion the lenses are causing. You would be amazed just how much visibility
you can get by cleaning & polishing your headlight lenses and making sure they
that are properly aligned and putting out the correct beam pattern, all while
leaving the light emitting devices themselves unchanged.

Second, the color temperature of these aftermarket kits often ranges from sub-
ideal to outright wrong when considering the purpose of nighttime visibility.
Most of the aftermarket kits I've seen on the road have had a very high color
temperature -- very very blue, or sometimes outright purplish. Someone might
think their car looks very stylish with such a headlight color, but they are
actually working against how their night vision works. By my reading, the
human eye is most responsive to light in the blue band for brightness
perception. So, by that logic, it would make sense to turn the color
temperature up, right? Well, only up to a point. Naturally, light is more
bluish during the daytime. And outside during the daytime, one's pupils end up
quite constricted, so not to overwhelm one's eyes. And so when someone drives
around with headlights at 5000k, 6000k, 7000k, with all this bright blue light
right there in the foreground in front of the car, they're actually killing
their night vision, and their peripheral vision, especially. Everything in the
path of the headlights might seem nice and bright, but anything outside of the
center of the beam is going to be a lot harder to see than if they were
running a much lower color temperature at equal brightness. And finally, in
inclement weather, like fog or snow, all that bright blue light is more liable
to get reflected back at one, blinding one. IMO, 5000k and up is too high of a
color temperature. 3000-4000k is ideal.

I personally would love to start seeing more enforcement of the existing laws
on the books regarding headlight beam patterns. Because if there isn't, then
it seems likely to me that there will be new laws passed that make it harder
to get any aftermarket retrofit kits or do any DIY retrofits, period, even if
one's retrofit were otherwise completely compliant with the existing rule as
to beam patterns et. al. I really hope that those who are being irresponsible
with aftermarket LED headlights don't end up ruining things for those of us
who are able and willing to do the research and take the time to do a
headlight upgrade correctly, such that it is safe, legal, and actually useful.

------
modzu
headlights shouldnt be a performance upgrade. are seatbelts? that said, i am
routinely temporarily blinded at night from the light of oncoming traffic and
wonder when it will result in a crash :/

