Thanks, now I'm blind!

102 comments

Lifted trucks with idiot owners have entered the chat.
- I had a dickweed in a lifted truck pass me last night. That fucker had like 12 lights on the front. They lit up the area like daylight. Why cant the NTSB make a change for what is legal so we can get these dicks off the road.
  
  The NTSB is not a legislative government body, they are an investigative government body, they can only make recommendations for other government bodies to act on
  
  Those are illegal for road use where I live, but it doesn't stop people.
- Went to Houston recently for a thing and the number of lifted trucks I saw was astonishing. Most of them didn't even have the wheels to fit the lifted trucks either so they just looked super awkward. The dumbest one I saw was a lifted SUV where only the front wheels were lifted.
  
  The ones with regular wheels might be the better ones. Some fraction of them have a different set of off-road tires they swap to rather than drive on 40" all the time.

Me: Surely they left their brights on accidentally flashes my brights to alert them
Them: turns on actual brights blinding me for the next 30 seconds
- I did this one time on a dark rural road, and not only did they blast my retinas with the equivalent of ten thousand supernova when they turned on their brights, but they also turned on their flashing blue-and-red lights on top of their car for a second.
  oops
  
  Dude, police flashers are criminally bright now. I had a cop blow past me a couple weeks ago with his flashers on, and he lit up the road for a 1/4 mile in all directions.

Idiots that don't change the headlight aim after installing LED lights.
- Fun fact! The NHTSA requires any aftermarket replacement LED bulb be approved by them, and have noted in this letter that not a single aftermarket replacement bulb has received such approval.
  As of writing this comment, LED retrofit headlights are illegal. It's just that this rule hasn't been enforced in a very long time (if ever)
  
  Can confirm. I had after market xenon's in my old car. I took great pains to make sure I had the correct housings and everything was aimed. To my surprise, they never checked
  Edit: I used factory parts from the xenon option that came from the OEM. You can stop rage down voting. Not every xenon upgrade is eBay blue.
  
  To be fair they do seem to have approved LEDs on big trucks which are the eye fuckingest type of headlight arrangement
- Loads of newer vehicles have auto adjusting headlights. There needs to be s lumen cap, anything over should be illegal.
- The vast majority of what blinds me on my drives are completely factory headlights. There are still those with aftermarket bulbs, but I get blinded by stock Dodge Rams and Toyota Highlanders all the time.
- It isn't just the aim. The ice cold color temperature hurts.

I live in the SF Bay Area and about 20% of cars are driven with their high beams on all the time. The drivers just click that stalk and leave it there no matter what. It’s an epidemic.
- They think the blue indicator means their headlights are on.
  
  Technically not wrong.
- I thought this was just a Portland thing... "surely everyone can't be that stupid"
  My latest pair of glasses have a yellow tint for this very reason
  
  I see this more in cities. I feel like people who drive in constantly lit streets, don't understand when to use highbeams, because they never have to.
  
  Are the glasses actually effective? Seems like the effect is controversial and perhaps detrimental.
  https://www.healthline.com/health/night-driving-glasses#do-they-work
- Seeing this all the time in Chicago too. It's really frustrating. Coupled with the same vehicle height and regular light brightness inflation that's been occurring it's really bad.
- Same in Miami. It’s infuriating
  
  It’s gotta be some kind of meme, where friends tell friends to do the thing, and they pass it on, because it’s gotten worse and worse over time.
- How do you know they’re not really bright stock/aftermarket lights?
  Far fewer than 1/5 vehicles in SF/SJ have their high beams on IMO.
  
  I mean, 1 in 5 is a lot, just to be perfectly clear, so anything even approaching that is a pretty bad. When I was growing up, the number of cars inappropriately using high beams in city traffic was basically zero, so this is a massive regression.
  You can tell that a car is using high beams because their light fixture appears fully and evenly lit from eye level. Low-beam headlights look “half full” from an opposing driver’s view. You can also tell because many lower-end cars have a separate housing just for the high beam that only light up when the high beam is on.
- Seems to be happening all over past few years. I have my psychological theories as to why, but I'll save those for later.

The issue is vehicle height has gotten obscene. A lifted truck with halogens still blinds me in my sedan
- The headlights for most new SUVs and trucks are at the same level as the rear-view mirror in my normal-sized car. The hood is higher than my roof. It's ridiculous
- They're supposed to adjust their lights and point them down, but I guess most people don't.
  
  OEM and correctly angled lights will still blind you from pretty far away due to the angle of attack on the beam.
  Think of the lights like a triangle, inside that triangle you will be blind, and to get the same length of visibility with a taller vehicle, you will grow the triangle.
  Where as my sedan is low to the ground. I could improperly aim my lights and have them firing out at 90° and still most people's eyes wouldn't be low enough to be in the triangle.
- I'm in an element, so I'm pretty high up and I get blinded. When I drive my wife's Mazda 3 it's fucking horrible
  
  Dude, I drive tractor-trailer and still get blinded frequently, with my eyeballs like eight or nine fucking feet off the ground. It’s ridiculous. New Subarus are the worst offenders right now, their low beams are literally aimed up on like a 15 degree angle
  
  Even an element has the driver's eyes below the hood of a lot of these new SUVs. I agree, shit sucks. There needs to be regulations around vehicle heights and weights. I don't get why I need a special license to drive a work van that weighs less than these things

A "trick" I learned was to look down and to the right side of the road at the lines so you can still see where you are going but don't have to go blind.
Another "trick" I learned is that headlights don't work after you smash them with a sledgehammer.
Whichever trick you want, they should both work.
- Both were rendered obsolete with led headlights. And cars behind blinding the driver way too much.
  Good thing though is they see my finger preeetty clear without opening the window.
  It got very dangerous to drive at certain roads. I know plenty of people how stopped driving after sundown. Even if it is good for the environment; When they need to take at trip at such times, they shall not be in danger. Also LEDs are light pollution. And it madr some people feel superior ehich harmed driving culture. Humans are ignorant fucks.
- I think there's something wrong with lights being sold for cars that are so bright the strategy is "look as far away from the car driving at you as possible".
  Like I have them on my car. I get flashed for having my brights on constantly, then I hit them with the literal light of the sun and I think "wow this power is ridiculous".
  
  Mine has "auto brights" that I swear were designed by an evil bastard. They flashed people often enough that I've taken to turning them off and just go with my normie lights unless it's country driving now.
  
  They make 4500k led headlights now, saw them a while back bought a set, totally great to get the life and clarity of leds while my conscience rests easy.

Also: trucks with the LEDs being higher than real cars, behind you.
- I've driven sedans/compact cars my entire life. I'm seriously getting a suv or crossover just because of all the damn lifted LEDs blinding me.
  I really wish there was regulations on the lumens output on these freaking newer headlights. Used to be halogens on luxury cars but not its literally every car has bright ass LEDs.
  
  Another problem is the precision they can make them now. They used to have to make them lower since they can't be sure it's within spec.

THEY see so YOU don't have to!
- We die in the dark so they can live in the light

I wish my windshield can turn into a oneway mirror. Let's see how YOU like it!
- Just install lasers, you can blind them, with SCIENCE!
- Just turn on your brights?
  
  I want them to be blinded by their own fancy lights.
  
  Then they'll flash theirs and completely blind you.

So many people in my area have absurd headlight brightness, lots of trucks with extra lights on top too. It's ridiculous. Fuckers could blind the sun.

Almost every Tesla I pass at night has the headlights set to "sunburn." I dunno if it's the nature of the hardware, some kind of over-zealous automatic adjustment, or if Tesla drivers are just like that.
- The Tesla cruise control feature turns the 'auto' high beams on every time you activate it and the feature is really poorly implemented. The camera it uses to detect other cars will loses sight of you when you get close and it'll flip the highbeams on in your face.
  
  Such a smart car that it automates being an asshole.
  
  "First, do no harm."
  -- No tech company ever
- Teslas have a thing that automatically turns off the high beams when it sees another car driving towards it. Does it work all the time? Idk.
  
  It does have that feature, but it's worse than just leaving the high beams on. It uses the cameras to try to detect cars. It detects cars way later than my old Mazda used to and then right as the car gets close to passing you, the camera loses sight of it and flips the high beams back on. Looks like you are trying to intentionally blind people.
  
  That sounds like a great idea and I've experienced it zero times out of many :(

When did Limmy & Jon Hamm have a kid?

I have to wear blue-blocking glasses when I drive at night for this very reason

I had super brights on my last car. Many people giving me the flash at night. I spent 5 minutes to screw the angle adjuster down a couple inches. No more flash backs and I could see just fine.
- This is one of the main problems with them. People install the new headlights themselves, or get it done at a cheap place where the mechanic doesn't care, and nobody actually adjusts the angle of the lights like they are supposed to do.
  Almost all new headlights come with instructions on how to calibrate and align them by using a wall in front of your vehicle. These instructions aren't always easy to find if you aren't aware of them, to be fair.
  
  True.
  However, some lights will still be at the "appropriate" height for state car inspection stickers. (U.S. obviously, eg: MA).
  I dropped mine about 3 inches below the inspection height. I still passed at least twice.

That was me today, coming home from my eye exam.

Protip: if you clean grime off the inside of your windshield, it will reduce the amount of light refraction coming into you and the result will you will see much more clearly.

well atleast you don't fall asleep on the wheel

Until the idiots learn to adjust the angle of their lights to be legal, hit up the enthusiast flashlight community for some vigilant justice!

I understand your concern, BUT
My LEDs will automatically cut out the part of the high beam that your car is in, while still illuminating to your sides. You'll actually have better visibility to look out for animals coming from the side of the road. You're welcome!
Now those people who put LEDs in their halogen housings, or worse, lift a truck without re-aiming the headlights? Sometimes I think road rage is valid.

102 comments