You mean you can ignore the right side unless you are in England?
No, I mean that the right side mirror is set so that light wonât bounce off it and directly into my eyes. My eyes are positioned so that light reflecting off the left side mirror goes into them, unless I lean a little to the right. I donât have to do that very long. The tall truck will pass me quickly since he must be going over 80.
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I noticed on a night-drive the other evening these newer headlights are not only whiter and brighter, they shine more to the left and right than the older ones. Anybody else notice that too? They donât shine upward any more than the older headlights from what I can tell however. Its just very bright light that gets cut off abruptly above a certain angle, but extends very bright azimuthally, right and left. Thatâs maybe why when a tall vehicle with newer headlights drives up behind a sedan, the main glare problem from the sedan driverâs point of view comes from the side rear view mirrors.
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Okay, strike that last post. I just did some research, and none of the impartial experts recommends wearing blue-blocking glasses at night. The only people who recommend wearing tinted lenses at night are the people who sell yellow-tinted sunglasses.
I spent 3 decades completing my own risk assessments and reviewing risk assessments of others. Even though I only use my âblue blockersâ on 2 lane highways and rural roads I evaluated diminished night vision by walking in a dark residential neighborhood then very carefully driving in the same neighborhood. I found no appreciable degradation of my night vision or effectiveness of my headlights. The few porch lights and one oncoming vehicle of course had a yellow tint. Findings of a military risk assessment used for individual missions are low, medium, or high (there is no zero). OSHA risk assessments are of course much more complicated. My risk determination for using blue blockers while driving at night is low while not using them on 2 lane highways and rural roads while being blinded by oncoming excessively bright headlights and unable to see the road at 55mph is high. I had my bi-annual eye exam in November and have no cataracts (yet).
I have a new theory on the flashing headlights thing, what do you think?
Iâve complained here of large pickup trucks with the newer headlights flashing their brights at me from behind. I thought they were doing that to make me speed up. But both times it happened I was in the slow lane and at the speed limit for the road. The other evening a sedan behind me was flashing its brights too. And this time it wasnât even an issue, I wasnât at fault. Then it occurred to me that what was actually happening is the sedan was going over bumps, and it only appeared to me to be flashing its brights. Actually the reason for the brights-flashing effect was b/c of the very sharp vertical cutoff these new headlights have. As the vehicle behind goes over a bump, the headlights appear to turn on and off as the angle crosses the cutoff. Doesnât happen with older headlight technology, b/c the vertical cutoff is a blurry line, not a sharp one.
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I have been fooled by the bump or dip. My 2010 car has the brighter than normal headlights which started appearing at that time. I was frequently flashed. As more vehicles with brighter headlights entered service the flashing diminished then nearly disappeared except on the road that leads to my Cul de Sac. I discovered it was a shallow dip that I did not even notice when driving through it.
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I see them more and more as new cars are being purchased. Even economy models have them. They are obviously available aftermarket as I have seen vehicles as old as late 1980s with the ultra bright headlights.
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Iâm kind of curious how the Mustangâs headlights will look/work at night time. The headlights and fog lights are both LEDs
Well I have 1 bad eye, and one good eye with cataracts, I prefer not to drive at night, but when I do I have not noticed any difference in the type of headlight. Doc wonât do anything until it is so bad As a 5 to 10% chance of being totally blind is too big a risk. I get by, and not a safety risk at this point as far as I see (or cannot).
I had HID and now LEDs and as good as the HIDs were I really canât tell much difference with the LEDs. Iâm happy with them.
Of course you are talking about being the user not the âvictimâ LOL. I have a few LED bulbs in my house. They are very bright to look at but donât seem to illuminate a room very well.
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Yeah Iâm the giver not the receiver but I need to see the deer. Iâve been pretty happy with the LEDs in the house though. Iâve started converting and use them in the can lights, for the 60 watt bulbs-the lights that tend to be on quite a bit and they are just as bright as regular ones. I also use them on the outside lights and even below zero they still work fine-and I donât have to be constantly putting in new bulbs. A year ago I put in 11 of the shop light types for the garage and they are really bright and changed out the fluorescent hanging lights to LED. Theyâre not cheap but I like them. Used mostly the Feit brand though, not the cheapest ones.
I keep a pair of orange colored shooting glasses in my car. The orange color increases the contrast of orange colored clay pigeons against a blue sky, but I may just give them a try the next time I have to drive through fog.
I already use them as sunglasses while driving when itâs really bright outside.
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Too bad every state is not doing this. I
t is hard to prove that individual crashes occur from glare, too bright, mis-aiming, etc, as these are passing phenomenon and can be confused with several other driving issues: mirrors, hills, curves, speed, etc.
What we need are NATIONAL standards!
Thatâs true, I think the very earliest LEDs were red and used for LED displays on watches and calculators, the TV remote uses infrared LEDâs to signal to the infrared sensor on the TV.
One of the biggest differences in LED and incandescent lamps is that when you dim incandescent lamps, the color goes to the red end of the spectrum, you go from daylight to candle light when you dim an incandescent bulb by lowering the voltage.
When you lower the current through an LED, you go from daylight to moonlight. The voltage drop across an LED is nearly constant regardless of the voltage, so they need to be ballasted by some kind of current controlling circuit, such as a resistor in series with the LED. Unfortunately, using a resistor to ballast an LED is very inefficient and thatâs why cheap LED flashlights seem to eat batteries nearly as fast as incandescent flashlights.
They recently replaced the street light outside my house with the 4000 LED. When they first did it, I thought there was a car on the road with his bright lights on. I really prefer the softer light but I do have the 4000s in my garage.
They put one of those streetlights on the corner across the street from me. Itâs so bright that my solar-powered spotlights wonât illuminate my flag anymore. They think itâs still too light out.
Seems somebody besides the Car Talk Forum has discovered this overly-bright headlight problem.
NY Post, March 22, 2022
âGeneral Motors is recalling more than 740,000 small SUVs in the US because the headlight beams can be too bright and cause glare for oncoming drivers.â