Im pretty sure the factory headlights on my car are LED, and they project a decent pattern. Much better than the time I tried to put LED's in a halogen-headlight motorcycle.
Fuck caaaaars 🥰
LEDs don't have ro be that bright and can and should have regulated lumen and color temperature outputs. I shouldn't feel like looking at my mirror at night is like looking at the sun
The problem has nothing to do with the light technology. It has to do with the cutoffs and properly aiming the headlights. Also tall vehicles have higher headlights even if aimed properly.
even if they're properly aimed stupidly bright headlights still blind people on hills or around corners
also automatic high beams can fuck off
IMO regarding LED headlights, it mostly has to do with manufacturers putting LEDs in reflector housing.
Because of the way LED boards are, you can't get a centric light. Standard LED boards are a cob, the best being those thin blades, but none of them are suitable for a pure reflector set up without pissing light everywhere.
LED head lights belong strictly in projector housings in order to have good cut off and spread. I drove an IONIQ 5 ultimate last year, and the head lights were shockingly bad. Not only did light piss everywhere, but it was downright dangerous in an urban setting as it would not illuminate the side walks nor the side of the road, so I could not see pedestrians waiting to cross at night.
I retrofitted the projector beam headlights in my 2020 Elantra with Diode Dynamics SL2 Pros, and after a height adjustment, they don't blind anyone, nor bleed everywhere, have a great sharp-but-not-too-sharp cut off due to the mechanical shutter, and I can see the sides of the road clearly. They're also not overly bright. I now have a 2026 K4 Hatchback, and the LED projectors are also great.
People who describe this as a problem with headlight technology are idiots. The problem is over-bright headlights shining in people's eyes, regardless of the technology.
it's fascinating how many people have no earthly clue what LED is and just treat it like magic, honestly i'm just glad the cultural memory of gas lamps is gone and no one thinks bright lamps will cause the room to run out of oxygen..
LEDs will cause the room to run out of electricity!
What happens when you don't have regulated standards? That. The color of the light is also important. Brightest doesn't mean best.
Yep. Higher frequency lights actually inhibit your ability to see details, making driving less safe.
do you have a source for that? because it sounds completely insane
Hot off the press: https://research.uga.edu/news/blue-light-has-a-surprising-effect-on-your-eyes-study-finds/
But it's common knowledge that we have more green and red cones in our eyes so we're naturally able to perceive more of those wavelengths.
oh lmao, i thought you were talking about the flicker frequency, but you mean short wavelength i.e. blue.
Yeah that sounds less insane, though i still question how important it is compared to the benefits of photopic lighting.
i am seeing green headlights nowadays and it makes me irrationally anger
might as well just put in RGB bulbs at that point and go full caramelldansen
its so frustrating that now that electric cars are getting really good everything else about cars is getting really bad. i dont want a big suv with bright cold white headlights and built in driver monitoring and screens everywhere. please just sell me a 90s family sedan but electric
also can we PLEASE find a better place for curtain airbags than in the pillars??? i would like to be able to see oncoming traffic when going around curves
The airbags go in the pillars because the pillars were mandated to be thicker, not the other way around.
Fun fact, this is why we have touchscreens in cars. Basically everything shitty about cars today can be traced back to the chicken tax.
As far as I'm concerned, LEDs should be illegal. Except for specifically in projector housings with projection lenses that have been properly aimed. Those are the lenses and housings that give your light a razor-sharp cutoff point, and when aimed properly, it means that you will not blind people.
I did this for my car. I live very rural. There's no such thing as city light pollution, much less streetlights. So when it's dark, it's dark dark. And there are deer, elk, and all other manner of animal based hazards. I went through the trouble of making sure to aim my lights in such a way that on the standard lights my cutoff is just below the side mirrors and rear window lines of the average family sedan, not an SUV or anything like that.
When I turn on my high beams they are oh hey look it's high noon in front of me for like a mile. But the standard lights were specifically configured to not do that. Unlike all the other people in my area that simply put massively bright LEDs in their completely normal light housings that do not have the ability to make a sharp cut-off so all they do is blind literally everyone like assholes regardless of high beams.
but why? the intensity of the light can be regulated and is one of the most energy efficient lights there is. You can get the same intensity than the lights above with leds, it's just less taxing on your battery.
driving in a car and meeting the foul lifted truck headlights
Or the asshole truck with undercarriage lights AND mounted lights on a bar over the cab.
This has nothing to do with it, but I started reading "driving in" and my mind automatically filled it up with "my truck, right after a beer, hey that bump.is shaped like a beer".
Thanks for reviving me the earworm. :3
What a great song, for sure.
Those are all high beams.
If they are pointed at a person that is against the law & a dick move by a person (regardless if it's a mechanical failure).
Brightness isn't bad, it's a safety feature.
(And countries do have a min/max brightness laws, measured a bit differently tho.)
There is also a failure of the greedy car industry - we have adaptive headlights (where you have your high ~~beans~~ beams dynamically shaded or separated to not shine on other cars specifically) for 30 years now but they remain optional extras (except on Chinese cars). And memes of cars shining in your face exist.
(USA only allowed this a few years back, that's why in the USA movies even cars promoted by that movie always used the base model ugly headlights.)
(This last low beam adaptive bit is from the 70s actually.)
The second failure is also legislative - all the places that don't have legislature setting the max height (positioning from the ground) of headlights have SUVs shining lights in ppls faces even when just using low beams.
As said, ppl are just dicks with high beams, low beams set too high, and using fog lamps all the time bcs it's 'sporty'.
Adaptive headlights suck balls. They don't recognize another car's headlights approaching a corner, so they blind other drivers for a second anyway every time. I hate that people are too lazy to move a single finger at the expense of other drivers.
Counter point: I would much rather be blinded for a half second before the automatic headlights dip than be continued to be blinded by the asshole they doesn’t manually dip their headlights at all.
Yes, this!
It's exactly what I do too (finger that button).
Ppl are angry at a tech bcs it works 90% of the time instead of 100.00% ... and rather use the alternative that they themselves bitch about how it doesn't work either.
Don't need them to be bright as the damn sun
Just move the contrast and shadow sliders back down when you approach another car.
Legislate this crap now
This is a big issue, I've been thinking about aligning my head lights down so I can use brights. Why? Because they're the old fashioned giant glass bulb ones (old jeep). They're on so I don't get a ticket and don't really do anything. The car behind me lights the way.
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
