European here, the fuck are y’all talking ’bout. I have astigmatism and LED headlights are godsend, especially low beam. They have automatic leveling which prevents blinding if you put something in the trunk, the beam is wider and more controlled than from a lightbulb and the cutoff is razor sharp.
Don’t get me started on automatic high beams with zones, like magic.
I just wonder if your experience is not swayed by illegal LED retrofits.
The problem in the States is all of the brodozers with their headlights up so high they are shining directly into your eyes. With them being so obnoxious it’s all we remember when we think about LEDs.
Id rather blame it on beam shape which in your cars are symmetrical and designed to shine straight onto opposing drivers face. Here I immediately see at night that incoming traffic is a car with LEDs because they blind me less - you must come here to believe me I guess, but check what beam shape is by law mandated in the EU. And it is much much easier to control the beam shape exactly like you want it with multi-LED headlights.
Led or not, having the wrong light adjustment (height, beam shape, etc) will fail your inspection in most EU countries.
But this led trope is a regular online… I imagine in the US they are doing all kinds of crazy shit with high power leds, because freedom or something. Damn EU gob’mint, preventing people from blinding me!
It ain’t just the trucks, I’ve been blinded by early 2000s Honda Civics before. I drive a 01 Toyota Tacoma I sit comfortably above their headlights yet I still get blinded.
That’s a completely different problem. Those are bad retrofits. Either the idiot put an LED (with a bad CRI because they like the color) into a reflector made for a halogen bulb, or they did a cheap headlight assembly swap. The bulb swap works like shit because they have completely different radiation patterns. The assembly swap is usually not optimized for the emission pattern either, and they tend to be a bad color as well because there people installing them think they look cool. Most of both of them are illegal to use in the road, but the cops don’t care.
A lot of them are actually angled correctly and are complete unit swaps the problem is the gross output of the things. I live in SoCal that means lots of relatively flat surfaces to bounce light off of even the damned dirt is reflective. Frankly I think LED headlights should be illegal unless they have a cover to break up the light or are kept to certain colors with a hard limit max output
The cybretruck is (but i see a lot of mantrucks) but this is about headlights in any vehicle.
You are required to have them well adjusted so you don’t blind anyone.
it really makes me feel better when my eyes are burned into the seat i’m driving in every night, or even better, it happened to me a few times at dusk now as well.
Automatic leveling? Up until 2022, that was illegal here in the united states. There’d be very few cars with it, despite having the extremely bright headlights.
Illegal?! How about cars with Xenon lights, they were also illegal? It’s mandatory in EU for cars with xenon lights to have automatic leveling, spray nozzles, limited power output and more controlled beam shape than standard bulbs.
European here, the fuck are y’all talking ’bout. I have astigmatism and LED headlights are godsend, especially low beam. They have automatic leveling which prevents blinding if you put something in the trunk, the beam is wider and more controlled than from a lightbulb and the cutoff is razor sharp. Don’t get me started on automatic high beams with zones, like magic.
I just wonder if your experience is not swayed by illegal LED retrofits.
nope, retrofits are not the main problem
the main problem is that LED headlights are typically way too damn bright, and inevitably will end up shining in somebody’s face. quite often actually
The problem in the States is all of the brodozers with their headlights up so high they are shining directly into your eyes. With them being so obnoxious it’s all we remember when we think about LEDs.
Id rather blame it on beam shape which in your cars are symmetrical and designed to shine straight onto opposing drivers face. Here I immediately see at night that incoming traffic is a car with LEDs because they blind me less - you must come here to believe me I guess, but check what beam shape is by law mandated in the EU. And it is much much easier to control the beam shape exactly like you want it with multi-LED headlights.
Led or not, having the wrong light adjustment (height, beam shape, etc) will fail your inspection in most EU countries.
But this led trope is a regular online… I imagine in the US they are doing all kinds of crazy shit with high power leds, because freedom or something. Damn EU gob’mint, preventing people from blinding me!
I… I don’t think we test headlight adjustment during inspections in the US. At least, not in the states I’ve lived.
That would be illegal in most of Europe and will fail an inspection, resulting in a fine.
Those “trucks” are illegal in Europe, but don’t worry Stellantis is trying to fix that with
bribeslobbying.It ain’t just the trucks, I’ve been blinded by early 2000s Honda Civics before. I drive a 01 Toyota Tacoma I sit comfortably above their headlights yet I still get blinded.
That’s a completely different problem. Those are bad retrofits. Either the idiot put an LED (with a bad CRI because they like the color) into a reflector made for a halogen bulb, or they did a cheap headlight assembly swap. The bulb swap works like shit because they have completely different radiation patterns. The assembly swap is usually not optimized for the emission pattern either, and they tend to be a bad color as well because there people installing them think they look cool. Most of both of them are illegal to use in the road, but the cops don’t care.
A lot of them are actually angled correctly and are complete unit swaps the problem is the gross output of the things. I live in SoCal that means lots of relatively flat surfaces to bounce light off of even the damned dirt is reflective. Frankly I think LED headlights should be illegal unless they have a cover to break up the light or are kept to certain colors with a hard limit max output
Gross output has nothing to do with the technology, you can always fit a bigger bulb with thicker cables, if you insist on being an asshole.
The cybretruck is (but i see a lot of mantrucks) but this is about headlights in any vehicle.
You are required to have them well adjusted so you don’t blind anyone.
it really makes me feel better when my eyes are burned into the seat i’m driving in every night, or even better, it happened to me a few times at dusk now as well.
Automatic leveling? Up until 2022, that was illegal here in the united states. There’d be very few cars with it, despite having the extremely bright headlights.
Illegal?! How about cars with Xenon lights, they were also illegal? It’s mandatory in EU for cars with xenon lights to have automatic leveling, spray nozzles, limited power output and more controlled beam shape than standard bulbs.
Yeah no, we just take it full force right in the retina here. It’s the American way.
(help)
I think you’re thinking about adaptive headlights (turns into the turn). I’ve had imported self-leveling headlights since 2008 (Mini)
I think the post is about being on the recieving end of them, not being the user.
Same as the comment you replied to.