Driving at Night - Oncoming Headlights

[Music Lover]

You're right. The new headlights are WAY too bright. I would think that there should be some regulations that limit the brightness on low beams. Just this morning I had to pull over to let someone pass me. Even on low, the lights were blinding me in the rear view mirror.

If someone's low beams are in your rearview mirror they're incorrectly adjusted. They are supposed to angle down and eventually shine on the road.

I've always adjusted the headlights on every vehicle I own, although on my current car they were perfect when I got it. A good test is to face a wall or your garage door with the low beams on and back up. They should move lower as you get further away.

 

[Fermion]

I hate driving at night now. The oncoming headlights are a problem yes, but also the constant fear of getting t-boned by a suicidal deer.

It has gotten to the point where I will schedule trips and such that we only drive during the day.

 

[Sunset]

You're right. The new headlights are WAY too bright. I would think that there should be some regulations that limit the brightness on low beams. Just this morning I had to pull over to let someone pass me. Even on low, the lights were blinding me in the rear view mirror.

My rear view mirror does not have the lever to flip it out of way, instead it uses an "automated" dimming feature.
Personally I find it lousy and prefer DW's old car with the flipping lever

 

[Sunset]

This was a trick taught to me many years ago and so far its worked well.
Close your left eye, turn your head slightly to the right, and focus on the edge of the road. Helps preserve your night vision in the left eye.

+1
I do that as well to cope.

Also on long trips, I have a small suction cup sunshade with holes in it, I put that on the driver window so the side mirror doesn't blind me by car next to me on the freeway. I can still see them, but it cuts the light down a lot.

 

[Koolau]

This is much less of an issue for me after cataract surgery

Yeah, that really helped with the head-lights thing. Day light was a shock at first, though. Hadda wear shades a lot more. YMMV

 

[Koolau]

One of the few advantages to Oahu traffic is that (wait for it) there is almost NEVER a reason to use your bright lights. There is always too much traffic and most roads have overhead lighting. (Oh, and I've used my cruise control one time - just to see if it worked. It did.)

 

[38Chevy454]

My rear view mirror does not have the lever to flip it out of way, instead it uses an "automated" dimming feature.
Personally I find it lousy and prefer DW's old car with the flipping lever

That's a good point. I also do not like the auto dimming electronic rearview mirrors. They seem to wait too long to dim for my preference. I prefer the old day/night flip mirror style.

 

[Koolau]

That's a good point. I also do not like the auto dimming electronic rearview mirrors. They seem to wait too long to dim for my preference. I prefer the old day/night flip mirror style.

Whoever had my car before I did installed very dark tinting in the rear (side windows are legal.) The darkness confuses the auto-mirror and, all-in-all, makes night driving problematic. I'm thinking of having the tinting on the rear hatch window replaced with something much lighter. I think that will hep my night driving a lot. YMMV

 

[Palmtree]

Another vote against the auto dimming rear view mirrors. Mine dims.....a little but not enough. I'm thinking about switching it out for an old style manual one with the flip switch. I would loose the built in garage door opener function but I don't mind going back to a separate opener.

 

[eyenitnoy]

It could be cataracts.

You should get checked.

 

[GaryInCO]

Many new cars have stupidly bright headlights. The hi-beams in my new Tesla practically blind ME because the road signs reflect so brightly! The low-beams are about as bright as any car's hi-beams that I've ever driven.

And for some reason Tesla can't figure out how to do auto hi-beams. They frequently flick hi/lo/hi/lo when approaching or following another car. And the auto hi-beams are forced on if you use the Autopilot, like I did on a recent road trip. I'm sure I blinded a number of people until I figured out how to turn off the auto hi-beams.

 

[jrendt]

I wear a pair of prescription yellow glasses when I drive at night or in the rain. It helps a bit, but what would be best is something with a graduated tint: very dark at the top and lighter at the bottom. That way you can tilt you head down to block the headlamps and still see underneath.

 

[Hobbes]

I almost never encounter a situation that requires high beams. My car has good headlights and unless I'm driving on an empty rural road I just don't bother with high beams.

 

[EastWest Gal]

We have many empty rural roads here in central PA. And lots of deer. I use my high beams when I can. A week ago DS encountered a deer in front of our suburban house.

I think another problem with oncoming headlights is pickup trucks and some SUVs that are much higher than an average car. There’s a lot of those around here as well.

 

[CaptTom]

In the recent past, I've noticed more oncoming vehicles have their high-beams on all the time. Do people not know what that that blue light in the instrument cluster means?

With many of the new cars, they are using low beams. The new LEDs are brighter, and shine up higher, on "low" than the old incandescent headlights on "high". Then we have the "macho" trucks with four headlights always on.

I've had to stop assuming the other driver is an idiot who left their high beams on. I just blame the manufacturers and the lack of any meaningful regulation. And I use the trick of following the guard rail or white line on the side of the road with my eyes.

 

[aaronc879]

I also do not like driving at night because of headlights. Rain makes it worse. LEDs make it worse but it's all bad. I did have an eye exam within the last 6 months and all checked out as far as general eye health. I have astigmatism and have since age 10(or before) but no cataracts or anything like that.

 

[Retired Expat]

The car I usually drive has automatic dimmers, the other car does not, so sometimes I forget and I get "flashed". I suspect that's happening to others too.

I am really hoping that the new Adaptive headlights will bring a change here. The idea that you could have 1 high beam and one low beam or that your car can “paint” your lights around the car ahead of you or approaching is amazing! Some years back I had a vehicle with articulating headlights and it was great! I could see much better and didn’t need to use my high beams nearly as much. The technology exists to really reduce this problem and vastly improve driver night vision…..it is only a matter of cost and commitment

 

[Midpack]

Add to that all the SUVs, which have higher lights and seem to point straight into the eyes of oncoming drivers.

+1. IMO this a big part of the phenomena we all see. Most times that I think the approaching vehicle has their brights on, turns out it's an SUV or (elevated) pickup or just a car on even a slight grade up. As soon as non elevated vehicles level out, I can see they don't have their brights on. Jacked up pickups always seem to project brights, even if they're not on. Both our cars aggresively auto dim, so hopefully we're not part of the problem for other drivers.

 

[CaptTom]

I recall when the annual state vehicle inspection included shining the headlights at a target on the garage wall. If they were too high (or too low, or off to the right or left) the mechanic would grab a screwdriver and adjust them.


I haven't seen that in a while. I don't think headlights even have adjustment screws any more. If they do, I'm quite sure nobody around here uses them.

 

[brett]

Yes.

And I have found it even worse in Europe. France in particular.

 

[Music Lover]

I almost never encounter a situation that requires high beams. My car has good headlights and unless I'm driving on an empty rural road I just don't bother with high beams.

I do the opposite, high beams on all the time. Dims when traffic approaches, for city driving, or if they are required for other reasons. High beams provide more light further out which is always better.

 

[ncbill]

The only headlights I've found to be decent on the multitude of vehicles I own are on an old Lincoln Town Car where Dad paid ~$500 for the HID headlight option.

I'd pay that to add HIDs to all my other vehicles, but given the higher power requirements...

 

[cho oyu]

In general, most of the new cars with LED headlights, albeit bright and very high color temperature, are reasonably aimed. I find them a lot more challenging than older halogens or even HID lamps, but they're usually manageable.


One of the bigger problems is that (extremely bright!) LED retrofit headlight bulbs are now very inexpensive, and they can be dropped into a standard headlight housing. Unfortunately, the emitter location is not matched to the reflector (or refractor) lens, so the light is unfocused and has way too broad of a beam pattern. And people somehow also seem to bump the housing when swapping bulbs (or turn the adjustment screws), so that one of the beams points 30 degrees off in some random direction.



Of course, this is also neglecting people running with their brights on (a new trend, it seems), with their (LED retrofit) fog lights on with no fog (another new trend), misaligned headlamps from doing those LED replacements, massively lifted SUVs and trucks, and cornering-adaptive headlights on new vehicles that decide to point directly at oncoming traffic. It has become so frustrating, I decided to recently count the percentage of vehicles with issues on a drive home, and it was a good 30% that would not pass a safety inspection assuming there was one.


Now stop driving across my lawn?

 

[Dean56]

Yep, I live in the country too and it's seems to be getting worse as I get older and the lights get brighter on these really dark country roads....

I just recently had an eye exam and I mentioned this same thing to my Dr. She didn't even make a comment. Guess it's just a part of getting older.

 

[Hobbes]

The only headlights I've found to be decent on the multitude of vehicles I own are on an old Lincoln Town Car where Dad paid ~$500 for the HID headlight option.

I'd pay that to add HIDs to all my other vehicles, but given the higher power requirements...

Yeah, I've got Bi-Xenon HID lights on my 2009 Audi. They are plenty bright and have a hard cutoff to keep from blinding oncoming traffic.